The response I found most interesting, however, was that of the Kyiv Post’s Nataliya Bugayova. Criticizing the outrage that naturally followed Azarov’s comments, Bugayova claimed that the small percentage of women who make it in government are strong enough to be able to ignore Azarov’s comments – and as for the rest of us, we don’t matter, because we’re not suited for the job to begin with. Most interestingly, Bugayova chose to sum up her piece by pointing out that she herself has “never in [her] life felt any sexism or male chauvinism coming from Ukrainian men.”

While I obviously disagree with Bugayova’s first statement – and find her second statement incredulous to boot – what struck me about her position is how little it actually surprised me. One of the most popular arguments against women’s movements in general – and the Ukrainian women’s movement in particular – is rooted in a kind of determinism. Strong women don’t need any help in getting ahead!

If we don’t support a culture of strength, though, where are those strong women going to come from?

I would agree with Bugaoyva when she talks about the fact that Ukraine has, in fact, produced many excellent examples of feminine strength – though whether or not that strength translates to actual power is debatable. Regardless of any stereotypes, the majority of Ukrainian women are worker bees, fighting for survival right alongside the men. Whether their work usually translates into success is another matter entirely.

As Hutsol put it,

…gender in Ukraine works against women. They get lower salaries, fewer opportunities to move up the career ladder, and even fewer chances to get a good job or a good education. It is in this light that deep antagonism exists between gender and professionalism that Bugayova singled out in her column.

Professional success for women in Ukraine is often determined by the random lottery of privilege. Christina, 29, a successful dentist and a childhood friend of mine, recently remarked to me that she would have never gotten anywhere had her parents not looked out for her. Though one can argue that young male professionals must clear all of the same hurdles, the hurdles that are in place for Ukrainian women are higher. After all, the pressure on women to succeed is equated, if not surpassed, by the pressure to marry young, have children, and keep a perfect house, while still earning money.

Nobody gets ahead on merit alone. Some of us have people looking out of us. Some of us get by on luck. Some are blessed with a combination of the two. But what is most certainly clear is that any Ukrainian woman who stands up and says, “well, I have everything I need. Guess that means that sexism can’t be a problem in our country,” most likely lives a fairly insular existence. And yes, even in Ukraine, an insular existence is entirely possible.

Azarov’s remarks are more than an issue of sexism – they bring us to the intersection of sexism and class. The most privileged members of Ukrainian society can, in fact, ignore whatever it is that Azarov is saying. The rest of the country, though, best take heed. Attitudes like Azarov’s strike at society’s most vulnerable members, after all. For those young women who are already taught that they are nothing much, sexism among the nation’s elite acts like another nail in the coffin.

“I voted for Yanukovich. I think there will be less chaos, with him.” She seemed a little doubtful. She also seemed like she didn’t think she had a whole lot of choice. Yanukovich, she felt, she could relate to. “He’s a simple man. That’s not a bad thing.”

Now that the Ukrainian presidential election is going to round two on February 7th, when Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will be facing off against opposition leader Victor Yanukovich, Western observers are treating the fact that Victor Yuschenko’s presidential candidacy has been eliminated as some sort of news. Well, to be fair, it’s news for the outside world. It’s not news around here, though. For most people who lived through the economic and political turmoil that followed the Orange Revolution, Yuschenko has become a caricature of himself. His long-standing investigation into his own poisoning stopped eliciting sympathy a while ago.

“I voted against everybody,” Yaroslava, a 25-year-old translator living in Kyiv told me. “Because I don’t believe we have actual leaders in the country right now. If nobody can take care of the fallen branches in the street following the latest blizzard, and this is in the capital, what does that tell you about the state of the country?”

Eugene, a 28-year-old software developer, also living in Kyiv, told me about how he had made up his mind to vote for a certain candidate before he set out for the precinct in the morning. The road, however, struck him as so poorly maintained, that by the time he actually got to where he was driving, he felt obligated to cast a protest vote as well.

Victor Yanokovich’s main campaign slogan goes like this: “A Ukraine for human beings.” It may not be especially subtle, but it brings the point home. Ukraine, lately, has not seemed to be particularly hospitable to actual people.

“People shouldn’t give Yanukovich crap for having close ties to the Kremlin,” a friend from Donbass told me yesterday. “Why shouldn’t he have them? Living next to Russia doesn’t count for anything anymore?”

Both Tymoshenko and Yanukovich arouse suspicion in the West, some of it healthy, some of it not so much. Without getting into the interesting details of both candidacies, many people automatically brand the two as suspect due to the fact that the Kremlin is, indeed, not frothing at the mouth with hatred for either one. This is, of course, automatically a bad thing. It’s almost as if nothing short of an armed conflict with the Russian Federation would please certain people, at this point. Of course, the people in question would not stand to lose a whole lot should that, God forbid, actually happen.

Kyiv is often referred to as “the mother of Russian cities,” which is no empty phrase. Despite the devastating effects of both Russian and Soviet imperialism, there are many ties that do, in fact, bind the Russian Federation and Ukraine. To discount them is idiotic, and destroying them would pave the way for more unrest in Europe.

The people who prefer Yulia Tymoshenko, however, see her as both more independent, tougher and, let’s face it, classier than Victor Yanukovich.

Tymoshenko in recent appearance on ICTV. Photo: Tymoshenko.ua

“Just don’t try to tell me I voted for Yulia because she’s good-looking,” another friend of mine, who works as a builder in Zhitomir, said to me over the phone.

“Of course not! That would be sexist!”

“It would be stupid, because look at her track record. Yuschenko fell apart, Tymoshenko charged ahead. I don’t care what anyone thinks, you have to admire her for that, at least. And the white tiger in the campaign posters. I don’t care. It’s genius.”

He’s right. It is genius. Yanukovich may appeal to people with folksiness, but it is Tymoshenko who knows the true meaning of spectacle. While I would shy away from making sweeping pronouncements on Ukrainian culture, I have always believed that one of the things people really know how to do around here is having fun, and Yulia Tymoshenko is incredibly fun. She didn’t fall apart either, it’s true. She has, like the Bob Dylan song, kept on keeping on, blunders and all. People who seriously refer to her as the Ukrainian Sarah Palin have no idea what they’re talking about. Tymoshenko could school Sarah Palin on everything from international relations to media image to money to the art of the save. There is a lesson in the fact that Tymoshenko was not buried in the debris of the failed Orange Revolution.

For now, as I slipped and fell on the ice for the second time yesterday, in an unkempt courtyard smack in the city center, I did catch myself hoping that Tymoshenko’s tenaciousness will translate into actual stability. And do so sooner, rather than later.

Natalia: Here’s a rhetorical question to start us off, IS there feminism in Ukraine?

Maria: That’s not a rhetorical question, that’s a difficult, philosophical question. The most common belief is that feminism is “not needed” in Ukraine, that Ukrainian women have all the rights they need and that we furthermore have a matriarchy. Contrast that, for a moment, with the fact that there less than 8% of members of parliament are female.

Women’s organizations are terrified of the word “feminism.” Right now, Ukraine has seriously begun to tackle the issue of gender equality; there is a sub-commission on it in the government commission on human rights. The media, however, is very careful to differentiate between “gender equality” and “feminism,” because feminists are hellish, castrating creatures, or so everyone thinks.

And why are we so terrified of a single word?

The word “feminism” is a bit like the word “nationalism” here. They are mythologized as destructive and inhumane. The Soviet system equated both feminism and nationalism with the lifestyle of the bourgeoisie. In modern Ukraine, we also spread rumors about how feminism works in, say, the U.S. There is a popular belief that if you come to America, and happen to open a door for a woman, she’ll sue you for everything you’ve got. I’ve been to the U.S., and I know that’s not true, but people enjoy their caricatures.

Can we talk about feminism in the context of nationalism? That’s kind of an alien concept, to me.

It’s a difficult topic for me. I’m a Ukrainian nationalist, but I know that our nationalism is not progressive. One of the many problems with it is the idea that a woman is a kind of keeper of the household and of national identity. In this role, she gets blamed for everything that goes wrong in the country. “Our women are bitches who f*ck foreigners and ruin our gene pool,” does that sound familiar?

Yes.

People want to build a better nation on the backs of women, and that’s not going to work. I call myself a nationalist because I believe in developing and bettering Ukraine, but how can I reconcile that with putting fellow women down?

I see eerie similarities between Ukrainian nationalism and National Socialism. Like the Kinder, Küche, Kirche slogan, I find that it’s similar to the kind of rhetoric that Ukrainian nationalists spew.

We need to get rid of both sexism and xenophobia, but we don’t have critical mass right now.

Speaking of critical mass, what do you think of Yulia Tymoshenko?

Tymoshenko on the campaign trail. Photo: Tymoshenko.UA

I think it’s great that we have a prominent, powerful woman in government, someone who has a real chance of winning the presidency, but I think we can’t talk about Yulia Tymoshenko without mentioning the issue of tokenism. Right now, it’s too easy for people to say, “what are you complaining about? You have Yulia!” That’s beside the fact that every time Yulia makes a mistake, all women collectively are blamed. It really makes me wonder about whether or not quotas for women in government will be useful. Quotas, of course, can result in us having a class of female puppets sitting in parliament, but at the end of the day, I think they will help even out the power imbalance.

Here’s something I’ve been dying to ask a Ukrainian feminist: what do I tell my teenage cousin who says that boys won’t like her if she becomes a feminist? She’s smart, she’s young, she’s fit, she wants to have a social life, and she doesn’t want to be ostracized.

Let me start off by saying that when I was a teenager, I knew I was unattractive. My classmates wore make-up, and were fashionable, and I wasn’t anything like that. However, I started approaching the most attractive boys at all the school dances. They were so surprised, that they usually said “yes.” I ended up having a lot of fun. I developed a sense of confidence, and rejection didn’t hurt me, because I just moved on. Confidence is key. As the result of having it, I was never bereft of male attention.

You should remind your cousin that feminist women don’t dehumanize men. A feminist woman doesn’t need a superhero, and guess what? Most men like that. People who don’t have unrealistic expectations of one another tend to fight less. And if a man is, say, turned off by your cousin’s intelligence, tell her to ask herself if she needs a guy like that in the first place. If a smart woman digs deep enough, the answer is always “no.”

When you mentioned superheroes, it made me think about how sexism hurts men too. I know guys who have to be alpha males in all areas of life, 24/7, and if they don’t, it’s a safe bet their wife or girlfriend will be horribly dissatisfied. I think that really sucks.

I come home to my husband and say, “thank God I have you, thank God we have each other,” because I couldn’t stand it if our relationship was built on that model. I don’t know how anyone could put up with that, male or female.

Women who don’t have someone in their lives are pitied, of course. I think so many women in abusive relationships don’t leave, because men around here are seriously over-valued.

Well, women in more developed nations also have a hard time leaving abusive relationships, because of Stockholm Syndrome. But I think you’re on to something, in regards to how men are over-valued in countries like Ukraine, in Russia, etc. Entire generations of men were wiped out by a series of horrific conflicts, and that sort of thing has consequences on society. It’s almost like a reflex by now.

How do we get rid of the reflex?

I don’t think anything is going to change for as long as girls are taught that their youth and beauty are the best they can offer the world. Also, the demographic crisis in the country plays its part, because people’s knee-jerk response to that is to treat women like baby-making machines. If we curbed the infant mortality rate and the rate at which men die of alcoholism and alcoholism-related illnesses or injuries, our demographic situation would improve. Of course, this solution is more time-consuming and less slapdash than demanding that women just “produce” babies. Once again, it’s about building a better nation on the backs of women, and it’s not going to work.

I find that the cavalier attitude many in society have toward child-bearing and bringing up kids plays a huge part in keeping women down.

There’s a popular saying, “if God gives you children, God will give you the means to support those children.” I hate it. I hate it especially because it’s usually uttered by people who won’t lift a finger to help, say, a single mother in trouble. A child is a responsibility, and it’s often shared unequally. I wish people would stop saying that, especially now that there is a financial crisis in this country. All it does is shame people who have nothing to be ashamed about.

Also, it’s somehow considered “natural” for men to abandon their families. I mean, it’s considered “unfortunate” as well, but it’s something that doesn’t really shock anyone, does it?

You also have to understand that there are no mechanisms that would allow parents to share custody. Not to mention the fact that there are many situations in which it would be better for the kids to be left with the father, but that option isn’t even on the table, because the mother will then be pecked to death. She’ll be pecked by her own family, by her neighbours, by her colleagues. She’ll be torn apart, because she’s “neglecting her duty,” even if it’s a situation in which everyone would benefit if the kids stayed with the dad.

Because I’d like to end this on a cheerful note, I want to talk about rich husbands. That’s all I ever hear about in Ukraine, these days. “Natalia, Natalia, get yourself a rich husband, quick. Before they all get snapped up.”

[laughs] Remember, if you marry a man for his money and property, there’s no guarantee that it won’t be thrown back in your face later!

In Ukraine, theater is regarded as genteel and boring – something for dainty virgins to enjoy when they’re not crocheting. By contrast, Troitsky is not afraid to be jarring both visually and emotionally. The work he does as director and organizer is organic to the chaos at hand in Ukraine, and local and international audiences have been responding strongly to everything from his weird, mystical takes on Shakespeare to his own biting commentary on modern times.

After the close of this year’s Gogolfest, I had an opportunity to speak to Troitsky about Ukraine, modern theater, politics, travel visas, people who drink beer at 9 a.m., and what potentially awaits us after the 2010 presidential elections.

Natalia: Now that the festival is over, can you comment on how it went this year?

Vlad: That should really be up to others. Personally speaking, I think it went well. I think the public’s reaction was good. We’re trying to organize an entirely new mainstream, something free of flag-waving and knee-jerk patriotism, and I think we’re succeeding. Attending the festival, people have a chance to not feel provincial next to Russia, next to other European countries.

Natalia: You’ve said before that the reason why the festival is named after Nikolai Gogol has to do with the fact that Gogol is the one Ukrainian cultural figure who is very much European. What do you mean by that?

Vlad: Gogol is part of a great humanist tradition in Europe. He was a rare individual. Even today, you look at our modern immigrants, people who go abroad and supposedly engage with the rest of the world, and you see how they viciously criticize the place they left and the place they moved to. Gogol had none of this typical small-mindedness. That appeals to me.

Natalia: Speaking of small-mindedness, you’ve had a lot of harsh words for the way that Ukrainian art and culture are maintained, or not maintained. Do you think things might change after the 2010 elections?

Vlad: I don’t know. The problem with our country is that there is no strategic thinking where the arts are concerned. Government is like a revolving door, people don’t even have time to make sustained efforts, because they come and they go. In that sense, this is why Gogolfest is such a feat – it’s so hard to secure any kind of meaningful support for it. But it keeps happening.

Natalia: Your rhetoric around Gogolfest is interesting. You’ve spoken of the festival as a kind of ‘cultural mall’ and a distinct ‘brand.’ Looking at our cultural landscape, I wonder if established people…

Vlad: Established? There’s really no such thing as “established” figures around here. Everyone is marginalized, with the possible exception of [actor] Bogdan Stupka.

Gogol watching over Gogolfest

Natalia: I guess what I’m trying to ask is this: among our cultural gatekeepers, do you get criticized for using business-oriented language?

Vlad: You get criticized if you do anything. If you do nothing, then great, everyone leaves you alone. But it’s not that I necessarily like translating culture into business. Above everything else, the festival is an opportunity for people to feel like human beings. That’s the main point of it.

Natalia: I want to return to what you just said about marginalization. I remember you once commented that in richer nations, wealthier people can cut themselves off from the marginalized, they don’t have to deal with them every day, which isn’t really the case in Ukraine. Can you expand more on that?

Vlad: What does the word “marginalized” mean, anyway? Look at it in context. In Ukraine, the boys and girls who are getting drunk on the sidewalk in the morning, they’re not the marginalized ones. To be marginalized is to not be needed. The people clutching their beers at 9 a.m., they’re needed. In this country, it’s kids who, for example, attend music school who don’t matter to anyone. They’re the real marginalized group. Anyone with an iota of talent dreams of leaving, because nobody cares about them and their work.

And the top of the social hierarchy in Ukraine doesn’t deal with reality either. They don’t have to. There are a lot of rich people in Ukraine these days, the leaders of society, and you just have to wonder if they’re intelligent at all. That’s the real question.

Natalia: I’ve noticed you’ve had a lot of warm words to say about England and English society.

Vlad: I have a lot of warm words to say about Germany, about France. I like England a lot, though, because it’s able to remain so distinctly English.

Natalia: Plenty of English people would not agree with you on that. Everyone seems to talk about how England today is irrevocably changed.

Vlad: Well, that’s the way of all cultures, isn’t? I still think that English culture in particular is holding out as something very distinct, even as people of different backgrounds join it.

You know, I’m a tourist in London. I don’t know if I could get used to living in such a megapolis. Kyiv, by comparison, is something else entirely. Speaking of travel, did you know that the Dakh company and I were supposed to go to the U.S. recently for a private performance, and weren’t able to get a visa?

"In every word, there is an abyss of space, every word is limitless." - Gogol quote on festival banner.

Natalia: That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

Vlad: It’s the reality of how Ukraine is viewed by U.S. officials. We’re on a certain tier at the moment.

Natalia: That’s infuriating.

Vlad: It is what it is.

Natalia: As far as differences between Ukraine and Western nations go, you’ve said that Western theater as very much its own thing, something that contrasts sharply with local theater. Can we talk about that?

Vlad: Well, which Western theater are you talking about? Are we discussing Edinburgh? Avignon? I think the main difference is, Western governments care about high art and know that it must be protected. High art is elevated to prestigious status. Look at all the people clamoring to make it to the Fringe, or to get good tickets to a famous opera house. We don’t have that in Ukraine.

Consider the fact that not a single presidential candidate even attended Gogolfest. What does that tell you? I don’t know if they’re afraid, or if it’s something else, but it sends a particular message.

Natalia: That’s such a contrast with Russia, isn’t it?

Vlad: Russians are raised to love their high art and to believe in it. It is its own unique phenomenon. Most of it is does not engage world culture, with notable exceptions, such as the work of Andrei Zvyagintsev, Alexander Sokurov, Alexei German and others.

Natalia: Not Nikita Mikhalkov?

Vlad: I think Mikhalkov has lost the plot.

Natalia: Tell me about all of those big Hollywood stars you admire.

Vlad: I admire hard-working people: Leonardo Dicaprio, Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt. They have a work ethic that’s largely missing in Ukraine today.

Natalia: And why do you think that is?

Vlad: Look at it in context of breaking away from great Russian theater and standing on our own. We are independent, great, but we’re not cultivating ourselves. When we do cultivate ourselves, it’s mostly done on a very local level, as opposed to national level. Kids who study theater and acting have no myths to propel them forward. Their highest ambition? Get on some middling TV show. Right now, this is the highest career peak they can dream of.

Natalia: Seems like that’s changing already. Though there’s always that temptation to be sad after a festival, no? When everything has been taken apart, and you have to wait until next year?

Vlad: It’s part of the art. After people witness the ending, the dismantling, the sense of sadness that accompanies it becomes another experience to take away with them.

Cathie Carmichael, Senior Lecturer at the University of East Anglia, tries to “show how hotbeds of nationalism, racism, and developmentalism resulted in devastating manifestations of genocidal ideology.” Carmichael’s quest to dissect famous genocides before the Second World War is the basis of “Genocide Before the Holocaust.” (Yale University Press, 2009)

The book does not live up to expectations. It would have been interesting if Carmichael had attempted to demonstrate the relationship between the emergence of genocidal ideology alongside increased awareness of the usefulness of racism and other forms of organized prejudice as political tools. Instead, Carmichael busies herself with showing how global dignitaries like Henry Morgenthau or famous composers like Modest Mussorgsky viewed the Armenian genocide and anti-Semitism respectively.

Carmichael does not even offer a historical explanation as to why there was relatively less global attention to genocide prior the Holocaust. The scope of the damage of genocide is another topic that isn’t addressed very well in the book. While Carmichael lists destruction of religious buildings and exodus of racial minorities as examples of the aftermath of racially-motivated murders, the overreaching effect on society is not given the treatment it deserves.

Equally disappointing is Carmichael’s lack of discussion of the Great Famine in Ukraine from 1932-1933. Carmichael mentions the Great Famine as something that was the result of Stalin’s transformation of the Soviet economy. Since the main theme of the book focuses on right-wing extremists’ failed experiments of achieving racial purity, one isn’t certain where the Great Famine is supposed to fit in with Carmichael’s narrative.

Carmichael does eloquently address the consequence of the suffering experienced by victims of genocides and how it is passed to their children and grandchildren. She writes,

“Once suffering has passed from one generation to another, it becomes even harder to solve conflicts. Stories that are passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth become part of a group’s lore. They often become distorted and exaggerated with time and treated as received wisdom by group members.”

Unfortunately, Carmichael does little to further illustrate the effects of this generational phenomenon. One has to wonder what she makes of the role of the Armenian Genocide on the present relationship between Turkey and the EU, for example, but the book offers little insight into such matters.

It is, however, commendable that Carmichael should add an entirely new dimension to how we view the Spanish Inquisition today. In her eyes, the Inquisition was partly an attempt of the Spanish Monarch to forge an Empire exclusively belonging to white Spanish citizens of the Catholic faith, and she makes a compelling argument here.

Ultimately, if Carmichael is aiming to provide new insight into how genocidal ideology intensified, she has been unable to deliver the goods. Ukraine’s Great Famine in particular – a much-debated, yet certainly extremely disturbing historical event – deserved a closer look here. One has to wonder if Carmichael is perhaps not entirely neutral on the issue of the Famine, considering her handling of it in the book.

Sitting down with this fierce ideological opponent (I should get this out of the way quickly – I am diametrically opposed to Kukharchuk’s views), I was struck by what an enormous, uphill battle sexual minorities face in Ukraine today.

Natalia: So tell me about your organization – you’re the founder, right?

Ruslan: Yes. It started in 2003. It wasn’t really an organization then. I found out that a lesbian parade was going to be organized in downtown Kiev, and sprung into action. We only had 10 days to act, but we made them count. The local authorities eventually, as they put it, “discouraged” the parade from taking place. On the day of the parade, we passed out anti-gay fliers. I guess the lesbians also had some kind of tent. From then on, it became a tradition for us, protesting homosexual propaganda in the streets of Kyiv. We have what we call “Family Carnivals,” we just had one this past Saturday. In 2006, we gained legal status. In 2009, we nationalized.

Natalia: The word “God” crops up quite a bit in your promotional materials. Are you a religious organization?

Ruslan: We’re a social organization. Of course, all of the world’s religions protest homosexuality, but our arguments go further than that. We want to reach people who are not necessarily religious, and we want to reach them with this message: deviance is bad for national security.

Natalia: National security?

Ruslan: Of course. First of all, the homosexual lifestyle spreads AIDS. Second of all, it contributes to the demographic crisis in Europe. Third of all, it undermines the family, and families, traditional families, form the basis of any nation. Without family, a nation ceases to exist.

Natalia: I haven’t noticed gay-friendly nations ceasing to exist yet, but I have noticed in one of your brochures the following statement: “Homosexuality interferes with personal development.” Would you like to explain what you mean by that?

Ruslan: There is this prevailing myth in our society – “gays are talented,” but homosexuals are more depressed and suicidal, actually. They can’t reach their full potential.

Natalia: Well, wouldn’t that be because…

Ruslan: Because they’re oppressed? No. That’s the argument many people use, but it’s wrong. These people just have a hard time living with themselves. Look, I believe that sexual deviance is a mental illness. There are many factors responsible. It’s a condition that people have. This is why our organization is 100% opposed to violence. These people need help, they don’t need to be beaten up.

Natalia: Speaking of violence, you don’t suppose that your rhetoric actually fuels it?

Ruslan: No. Violence is real, but I think it’s mostly caused by individual circumstances. It’s very much a politicized issue, so it can be hard to tell. That’s not true in every case, I understand that. There was a case in Israel recently, a gunman attacking a gay center. Obviously, we know what his motivation was. Though I don’t think propaganda of their lifestyle helps gays stay safe.

Natalia: And what do you think about gay honour killings? When families kill their kids if they are outed?

Ruslan: I understand that’s a problem in the Muslim world. I’m not an imam, so I can’t really comment. But our organization believes that homosexuality is caused by many factors. So if your child is gay, your question should be – “What have I done to contribute to this situation?” It shouldn’t be – “What’s the best way to kill this child?”

Natalia: You’ve spoken about challenging so-called “gay propaganda” in court. What Ukrainian laws actually support your position?

Ruslan: Well, our family codex is quite good, actually. It defines marriage as something between a man and wife. Of course, that can change, and we don’t want to let that happen. It’s like – you should know about this – when the American Psychological Association decided that it wasn’t going to list homosexuality as a mental condition anymore. Why did they decide that? What’s next? “Schizophrenia has become so widespread, we can’t call it a bad thing anymore either?”

Natalia: And are you also personally opposed to other non-traditional lifestyles? It’s a big world out there, many freaky people, doing freaky things.

Ruslan: I’m an Evangelical Christian, but I’m not necessarily against people who go against the grain. I don’t care if someone is emo, for example. I hate it when people like me are painted as total conformists. I look at emo boys, I say, “they’ll grow out of it.”

Of course, I oppose adultery and lust and sin in general. I’m not telling people what to do in their bedrooms, mind you. I don’t even care what gays do in their bedrooms. People do whatever they need to do. I might think it’s a sin, but that’s not the issue. The issue is when they impose a dictatorship of their ideas.

Natalia: Dictatorship?

Ruslan: Read the news. Everywhere you look in the West, somebody’s getting disgraced because they said something against gays. Well, excuse me, it shouldn’t work like that. I should be able to say whatever I want. It’s how democracy should work.

Natalia: The counter-argument to that, of course, is the entire idea of minority rights and how society is fundamentally stacked against certain people from the outset, resulting in inequalities that must be corrected somehow.

Ruslan: Rights? Look, there is such a thing as natural rights. For example, let’s say I’m black. Someone discriminates against me, that is not OK. But what does a deviant sexual lifestyle have to do with natural rights? Nothing. And I should remind you that we’re on a slippery slope here. Two hundred years ago, the very idea of a lesbian parade in this city would have been unthinkable. Now suddenly people have this idea? So what will happen tomorrow? A parade of zoophiles?

Natalia: Two hundred years ago, most people also thought that slavery was pretty great.

Ruslan: Well, I’m not saying that history is singular. That’s not what I mean. Society doesn’t move in one direction, it’s more complicated than that. I just look at the statistics to determine what is going on, what’s good and what’s bad. Did you know that gays, proportionately, have a higher rate of pedophilia among their ranks?

Natalia: Is that statistic quoted from an independent source?

Ruslan: We take all of our statistics from this Russian website. They translate a lot of studies, which are independent. I’m wouldn’t play fast and loose with numbers anyway, that will only be used against our organization later.

"Homosexuality = AIDS" March in downtown Kyiv. Photo: Vladimir Antonov

Natalia: So you and I have been sitting here and discussing so-called deviance, and I’m curious, what do you make of straight men who get turned on by the sight of two attractive women kissing?

Ruslan: [laughs] Attractive lesbians are a myth. Men have been brainwashed by porn and glossy magazine covers into believing otherwise. But it’s not real.

Natalia: All of these men. So turned on by ladies making out. Where do you think that impulse comes from?

Ruslan: I’m telling you, it’s from brainwashing.

Natalia: So it’s a totally modern phenomenon, in your understanding.

Ruslan: Totally.

Natalia: Are you against “sexual deviance” when it crops up in, say, a relationship between a married, heterosexual couple? I mean, you have this equation in your brochure: a man plus and woman equals a family with kids, but not all sex out there is procreative.

Ruslan: Honestly, I think married couples should do whatever they want, as long as both parties consent. There is this misconception, as if the church actually can advise people on positions during sex or something like that. Well, it can’t. I guess we keep coming back to this point: people are going to do whatever they want, behind closed doors. It’s when you begin to advertise it that the trouble starts.

Natalia: I’d like to ask you about the upcoming Ukrainian election. Any favourite candidates?

Ruslan: I’m a public person, the face of our organization, so I’m not naming names. I will tell you this, though, the things that divide Ukraine right now? They need to be put to rest. There are five issues: NATO, EU, relations with Russia and Russian as a second state language, competing religious confessions, and the fight over the legacy of WWII, and we need a moratorium on all of them. We can’t fix up the country if the country is torn apart.

Natalia: You know, it’s interesting that you should say that. Have you ever heard the English expression – “let’s agree to disagree”? Perhaps your organization might benefit from it.

Ruslan: [laughs] It’s a good expression, I must remember it for later use.

I recently sat down with Gutsol in a cafe by Kyiv’s Independence Square, to talk about everything from her organization’s tactics of harassing sex tourists to the endless debate about women and housework.

Natalia: Before we get into the meat of things, I have to ask – do you ever get scared? You must piss off plenty of people.

Anna: Everyone’s been asking me this question lately. At this point, I’m wondering: should I be scared? But the thing is, I refuse to. I believe in what I’m doing. And there are plenty of people in Ukraine who are sympathetic to our cause.

Natalia: I’ve read a lot about FEMEN recently, but I’d like to hear you describe your organization firsthand.

Anna: FEMEN is based on the idea that girls need to be active participants in society. And by “active,” I don’t just mean “active enough to land themselves husbands.” We want more women to develop a social consciousness. We’re also against the idea of sex tourism and the sex industry in general in Ukraine. And we want to package our message in a way that’s going to be appealing to young Ukrainian women. Look around you, nobody wants to be a Girl Scout here.

Natalia: Your image is definitely not Girl Scout-esque. Do you get criticized for your provocative social protests?

Photo courtesy of FEMEN

Anna: Of course. People sneer at us all the time: “You’re against the sex industry, but you are all dressing like sex-workers.” But Ukrainian sex-workers by and large don’t own their own bodies. That’s not how it works with us. When one of our girls went topless on Independence Square, she was doing it as a radical act. And it gets people talking. Our sexy image causes debate. You need to have debate if you are ever to move forward. So many activists have no idea how to engage the media and the public. They’re dour, uninteresting. FEMEN is the opposite of that.

Natalia: Would you describe yourselves as a feminist organization?

Anna: No. We use eroticism in our approach and our dress. That’s not sanctioned by feminism.

Natalia: Personally, I’m a feminist and I’m down with eroticism and revealing clothing. I bristle when some of my Western compatriots criticize me. I tell them that this is how every woman in my family looks, and I’m not about to switch from dresses to burlap sacks because of someone else’s perverted reaction to the dresses.

Anna: Exactly. Look, this is part of our culture. To deliberately make yourself unattractive in Ukraine is to consign yourself to the margins. That’s not what we want.

Natalia: Our culture, of course, has its dark side.

Anna: Yes, because we conceive of beauty as something that’s there to be demeaned. Look at our night clubs. This is where our young girls go to get groomed to trade on their looks as if it’s their main function in life. Showing off your boobs and getting a free drink is promoted as the pinnacle of womanly achievement.

Natalia: Which brings us to the sex industry. Why do you so strongly disapprove of it?

Anna: Ukraine is a very patriarchal society. Our sex industry is fueled by poverty and, let’s face it, ignorance. It’s a completely immoral, exploitative business.

Natalia: What do you think of harm reduction and decriminalization in regards to sex-work?

Anna: I’m not going to stand on the street and beat prostitutes over the head with my purse and ask them to reflect upon their deeds. I think harm reduction is important. These women should be working without additional risks to their lives. But let’s get real about Ukrainian society. If we decide that prostitution is suddenly OK, all hell will break loose. Around here, people don’t think about purchasing sex, they think of it as purchasing a human being. That’s very different from, say, a legal brothel in a nation where, perhaps, attitudes are different. You know, I even heard that in foreign brothels, nobody wants to entertain Russian or Ukrainian clients, because these men have a reputation for serious abuse.

Natalia: Why do you think this is the case in Ukraine?

Anna: We never had a sexual revolution to speak of. In the Soviet days, we were all repressed. We’re still reaping the consequences of that. You know the old saying: “there’s no sex in the Soviet Union.” On one level, that was true. Sex was largely unacknowledged. I don’t think that things have improved so much in recent years. We don’t have decent sex education in this country. And we’re still very sexist.

Natalia: I’ve read some accounts of what prostitutes around here go through on a regular basis, and have spoken to several, and some of the stories are hair-raisingly horrifying. Even the people who are supposed to be protecting these women often get in on the act.

Anna: I’m telling you, the sex industry here is merciless. So when people talk about decriminalization, or legalization, I have to ask them to stop and think about the implications. I think our sex-workers need help, but I also worry about the young girls who are set to become sex-workers. What they’re getting into is a nightmare.

"Ukraine is not a brothel." Photo courtesy of FEMEN.

Natalia: FEMEN has also been actively involved in confronting foreign men who come to this country to get laid. Why do you choose these methods?

Anna: Because foreign men are confronting us! I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve spoken to a girl who was treated like trash by some sex tourist who has decided that Ukraine is his personal playground. These men come here with attitudes of utter entitlement, and that needs to change.

There is a strong anti-trafficking effort going on now, which is great, but people forget that sex tourism and trafficking can be linked. How many girls were wooed by some charming foreigner to end up being sold into a brothel abroad? The Euro 2012 Football Championship is coming up as well. Can you imagine how brutal it’s going to be around here when drunken football fans descend on this country? Can you imagine how our women are going to be treated by them?

Natalia: Flying in and out of this country, I sometimes get stuck next to a really sleazy American or Brit. Once he ascertains that I want nothing to do with him, he’ll start pressing me to introduce him to my friends and relatives.

Anna: Oh, it gets much worse than that. It can degenerate into street harassment. Now, I’m not talking about foreigners who come here to work or study or whatever, I’m talking about those people who are deliberately here to take advantage of women. We have groups of young Turkish men literally shouting at women in the street. I asked a Turkish journalist recently: “What would happen if groups of Ukrainian men shouted at women like that in, say, Istanbul?” He had a hard time even imagining such a scenario. Why should it be any different in Ukraine?

Natalia: Stereotypes about us are pretty cemented. In the Middle East, I made the mistake of disclosing my ethnic background to a taxi driver once. He instantly decided I was sexually available. After that, I’d just tell people I’m American. Of course, they’d take a good look at me in the rear view mirror and say, “But you look so Russian!” The way they stared at me when they said it, it was frightening.

Anna: I have a friend who works as a bartender in Germany, and she looks like you – a typical Slav. She tells everyone she’s from Finland. She used to be more honest with people, but then they’d offer her money to have sex with them. Pitifully small amounts of money too! Not only do they think you’re a whore, they think you’re a cheap whore, someone whose desperation can exploit. It is frightening. And these people don’t have a clue about the economic and social circumstances that lead so many of our women into this trade. Or else they are happy to overlook them. Well, we’re here to remind them that no, actually, you don’t get to overlook that.

Natalia: I once sat next to an American at a dinner here in Kiev, and he spent the entire evening talking about how Ukrainian women are disgusting bimbos because so many of us don’t exactly like to cover up. Maybe if I had been a FEMEN girl, I’d have thrown a pie at his face.

Anna: It’s strange, isn’t it? Foreigners come here and have a completely bizarre reaction to our women. I say, they need to respect our traditions. There’s nothing wrong with women who dress provocatively. It’s our style. Get over it.

The other day, I saw this family on the street: a mother, a father, and a little kid. The woman was wearing incredibly tiny shorts and had an amazing body. There was nothing wrong or unnatural about it. Her husband looked happy to be next to her. They looked content and in love. Who the hell has a right to criticize that?

Natalia: Speaking of love, is it hard for a politically active Ukrainian woman to find it?

Anna: Sure. I work in concert organizing, but consider FEMEN to be my actual career. There’s a phrase I use a lot right now: “another one has run away.” For me, it’s hard to find a man who understands me and takes what I do seriously. But it’s not impossible either. There are plenty of men out there who are kind. Kindness, I think, is what’s important. Plus, it’s not like you have to start out a relationship with talking about politics. You have to click first.

Anna strikes a pose on the mean streets of Kyiv.

Natalia: Do you think Ukrainian men are generally threatened by strong women?

Anna: I think many Ukrainian men find strong women inconvenient. Think about your typical Soviet set-up, which is still around nowadays: both partners work, but when the wife comes home at 6 p.m., she launches herself into housework, while the husband relaxes. A strong woman may not stand for that. I’m not saying this is a problem in every household, but it exists. It’s prominent.

Natalia: I’m struck by how Western women often talk about there being a clear choice between career and home. I don’t think Soviet women entertained that notion.

Anna: A career is something you do devote yourself to immensely. You make sacrifices. It’s not that those sacrifices are necessarily incompatible with having a family, but it can be much harder. In terms of plain old work – you are right. Our women did both. And continue to do both. And it’s often very thankless.

Natalia: So how do you go about changing that mentality wherein a woman is exploited but doesn’t do anything about it?

Anna: I believe that women must be educated about their rights, which is what FEMEN is all about. Just to give you an example: so many girls don’t even have a clue that if they’re being sexually harassed, they have the right to appeal to a police officer for help. Obviously, not all police officers might care, but we’ve had positive experiences. There are good cops out there. There is good out there in general.

We can change things here. People tell me, “hey, Ukraine’s not so bad, at least child prostitution here isn’t as bad as in Thailand.” And I say – oh yeah? So should we wait around until it’s worse than in Thailand? No. We need to be active right now. That’s the ultimate goal: helping women get to that stage where more and more of us refuse to be docile, or to be treated as objects, as original sin in the flesh.

I overhead one of our cops say something great to a street harasser the other day; he said, “hey, if it’s not yours, do not touch.” If that’s not wisdom, I don’t know what is.

“Well, what did she expect?” One of the two women remarked casually. “He makes most of the money in that family anyway.”

Irritated, I ended up splashing my tea all over my lap.

In response to such commonly held stereotypes as the one exhibited by the two women in the coffee shop, a new anti-domestic violence ad campaign has been launched in Ukraine. Having written about the TV ad earlier this year, I have now turned my attention to the visual ads that have been popping up all over the capital and elsewhere. The anti-domestic violence push is being coordinated by Ukraine’s Ministry of Family, Youth & Sport, with the UNDP being one of the organizations involved.

I recently spoke with Larissa Kobelianska at the UNDP about the campaign, and got wind of some hair-raising statistics: “50% of Ukrainian women who are on sick leave or have been hospitalized due to trauma were hurt by their significant others,” Larissa told me. Considering the fact that many Ukrainian women work labour-intensive jobs where trauma is a risk, this figure is particularly stunning.

“Our first ad campaign used a very glamorous model,” Larissa went on to say. “This is because many people are of the opinion that domestic violence only occurs among severely marginalized people. In fact, it’s a problem for all social classes.”

Keeping in mind the conversation I’d recently overheard, I asked Larissa about the ad’s tagline: “Enough putting up with presents like this!” This tagline accompanies a woman with an “accessory” that’s actually a series of bruises. I wondered whether or not ideas about equality and finances figured into the conception of the ad.

“Sure,” she said. “Many people believe that if a man provides any financial support for a woman, he’s entitled to do whatever he wants with her. We’re trying to change that perception. We’re also trying to change the famous stereotype of ‘if he hits you, he loves you.’ Abuse is not an expression of love.”

Larissa also talked to me about the latest ads that feature famous Ukrainian boxer Alina Shaternikova with one black eye and a tagline that reads: “I put up with it because I want to win. Why do you?”

“We featured Alina, because we want women to start asking themselves the question – ‘what am I doing here? Why am I letting this happen to me?’ Trauma is part of Alina’s life because she is a boxer, she has her reasons for that black eye. But violence on the home-front is a very different thing.”

Maria (not her real name) is a nurse I’ve met recently via some relatives who used to be concerned about her home situation. She tried to explain to me why she put up with her husband’s violent rages for over a decade:

“He was a very hard worker with a very stressful job… He was a respected man. I wished he didn’t have a temper, but I knew about it when I married him. Of course, I didn’t know how bad it would get. But I felt it was wrong to divorce him on those grounds. I didn’t want to end up alone either. ”

Maria never did get her divorce. Her husband died of a heart attack shortly after she moved out.

“After his death, his family blamed me. They said if I hadn’t moved to my mother’s, he would have never had his heart attack. But he had already put me in the hospital twice by then. It was either me or him.”

Maria struck me as a classic example of a woman who, cowed by a man’s superior status (both in terms of his job and simply by virtue of male privilege), will put up with practically anything for as long as they remain together. Abandonment is a common theme in many Ukrainian families, and those women who manage to “hold on” to their men are often held up as symbols of feminine patience and grace. Anything but being alone!

As an unmarried woman in my mid-twenties, I know that pressure too well. Society coaches us into believing that male bachelors are just fun-loving rascals enjoying their lives to the fullest, while women without husbands are sad little hags.

How bad did it get for Maria?

“The second time, the doctor told me I was lucky to be alive…I couldn’t go to the police, that would have been humiliating. But I needed to leave.”

I asked Maria if she’d seen the ads all over Kyiv. She said no. She said she’d probably look away from such an ad, because she doesn’t want to focus on her past.

“But if a woman walking by is reminded that maybe what’s happening isn’t right, then that’s a good thing.”

Of course, without active steps from Ukrainian men, domestic violence will probably not cease any time soon. The National Network of Male Leaders Against Domestic Violence was recently launched in Ukraine as a way to counter-act the notion that ending domestic violence is a task to be placed squarely on the shoulders of women. While the results of all of these efforts remain to be seen, at the very least, I have hope that the tone of the conversations I keep eavesdropping on in and around Kyiv may change sometime soon.

Workers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant pass through a radiation checkpoint © Michael Forster Rothbart Photography

“Inside Chernobyl,” an exhibition by photographer and Fulbright scholar Michael Forster Rothbart, recently made its debut in Kyiv, and will be making its way to such places as Moscow and Washington D.C.

Forster Rothbart’s undertaking is quite unexpected, standing in contrast to the usual Chernobyl fare; under the subtitle of “life goes on,” he tells the stories of ordinary Ukrainians who still work at the infamous Chernobyl nuclear plant, as well as the families they come home to every day.

Curious about his premise, I chatted with Forster Rothbart about the exhibition, his subjects and the ongoing narrative that is Chernobyl.

First of all, how did such an unusual project come about?

I came to Ukraine for the first time in 2007; my wife was doing research for her dissertation at the time. I was here for four months, and that’s when I first got started. I had studied previous photographic work on Chernobyl, and so I was prepared to see mutations, birth defects and people dying of cancer. You know, the usual stuff. That’s the world’s image of Chernobyl but it’s not the reality. What intrigues me are all the normal people in the region who are simply living their lives — farming the land or going to work at the Chernobyl plant. They didn’t move away, they stayed behind. The plant workers are now doing important work to ensure that there won’t be future contamination.

I am fascinated by the human consequences of environmental problems. Journalists cover environmental disasters as breaking news, and then they get filed away, but the repercussions continue. It’s important to look at Chernobyl a generation later. There are health effects that come directly from radiation, but then there are secondary effects that occur when people are relocated or lose family members or lose jobs. All of these social problems are more serious than health problems.

Really? More serious than health problems?

Medical problems are a small piece of the morass of issues related to Chernobyl, but people tend to forget that.

So tell me about these people that you are profiling.

For this exhibit, I spent time with five families in Slavutych to get a sense of their daily lives. The main work at the Chernobyl plant now involves decommissioning the facilty, and construction is just starting on the New Safe Confinement that will replace the old Shelter (AKA Sarcophagus). I don’t want to diminish what they are doing. But I couldn’t help but notice that the purpose of their work is to tear down what they once built. They’re worried about losing their jobs, worried about their salaries, their children’s futures.

The city of Slavutych was built for the plant, you know. Once the plant is fully shuttered, nobody knows what their future will look like.

I also spent 3 months last year living in the small village of Sukachi, near the Exclusion Zone. In some ways, more overall project is an exploration of rural life in Ukraine, with Chernobyl looming in the background.

Can we discuss the huge disconnect between rural Ukraine and urban Ukraine? It’s a bit like rural and urban Russian, isn’t it? People have this image of the country based on the urban centers, but that’s not the whole story.

The difference between Kyiv and a Ukrainian village is bigger than the difference between Kyiv and an American city. Going from Kyiv to the village is like going between two different civilizations, and yet even the hippest fashionista in the urban center has a babushka in a village somewhere. What I discovered in my project is something more specific — Ukrainians have very strong ties to the land, and this sense of home informs how people live their lives.

These are people who chose to remain, despite everything.

There is also the specific disconnect we have in relation to Chernobyl – both Ukrainians and the rest of the world. Would you agree?

Chernobyl is history to people, they think about it as something that once happened. Many people don’t want to talk about it, like veterans in the U.S. don’t want to talk about the Vietnam War.

Outsiders have misconceptions about what life is like in the Chernobyl Zone and how it goes on in the affected areas. I come back from a week in Sukachi and Kyiv friends ask if I’m going to turn off the lights and glow all night — they’re joking to hide a real discomfort. But we still know very little about the long-term effects of the fallout. So little research has been done.

There are some places within the plant that are still extremely radioactive. On the other hand, in places like Pripyat you also get radiation exposure, but no mre than you’d get on an airplane. It’s all a question of what you’re familiar with and what you consider normal.

I’ve had people hurl Chernobyl-related insults at me because I was born in Ukraine. I think a lot of the kids of my generation had to endure that. It’s just one of the aspects of how people relate to Chernobyl. We create a caricature of it and forget the reality.

Well, maybe people in Kiev and elsewhere will be surprised to learn that the families living around Chernobyl are not so different from themselves. This is one of the aims of this project, to create a sense of recognition and familiarity instead of the gulf that’s in place now.

And I want people who work there to feel proud about the crucial work that they’re doing. I want the public to see why they made the life choices they did, why they chose to stay.

When I started getting texts and e-mails imploring me to see the new “Taras Bulba” film, directed by a Russian with a Ukrainian-sounding last name – Vladimir Bortko – I was intrigued. “The politics,” everyone said, “what do you think about the politics?”

“OK,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I think.” Shortly thereafter I said, “Oh dear God. I fell for it, didn’t I?”

Taras Bulba, the short novel by Nikolai Gogol, has two versions – the later, official version being markedly more pro-Russian in nature. It’s a tale of Zaporizhian Cossacks, Poles, pogroms, war, forbidden love, and lots and lots of romantic nationalism. It makes sense that even today, Bulba should be expected to make waves.

poster ⓒ Ark-film

On one hand, Bortko has been commended for at least trying to dampen down the story’s anti-Semitism, without losing sight of the bloody history of Cossacks and Jews. On the other hand, the movie sticks faithfully to the later version of the text, which could potentially be cause for disappointment among those of us who expected Bortko to say something politically unexpected.

The actual problem here is that Bortko’s film is a grotesque retelling, utilizing the most exaggerated elements of Gogol’s writing. Remember how ridiculous Wolfgang Petersen’s “Troy” was? It’s a bit like that, with sabers instead of sandals. This is a particular shame, considering that the beloved Bogdan Stupka plays Taras and the film’s release was delayed to coincide with Gogol’s bicentennial.

A filmmaker adapting a literary text needs to buckle down and make actual choices as to how to portray emotion and dialogue. Imagine, for example, a retelling of The Lord of the Rings that portrays, in excruciating detail, how Sam shouts “Me go and see Elves and all! Hooray!” and proceeds to burst into tears. Just because a conversation works on paper doesn’t mean it’s going to easily translate onto the screen.

The Russian Wikipedia page for the movie says that “even during his terrible execution, Taras remains a true patriot.” Even without seeing the film, can you imagine how a modern audience (the Miniver Cheevey’s among us notwithstanding) will react to that, regardless of personal politics? As the dying Cossacks utter grandiose last words that would note be out of place in “The Complete Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged),” even the generous amount of gore does not quite shame you into stifling the giggles.

The Zaporizhian Sich that Taras Bulba belongs to was later destroyed by the Russian Empress, Catherine II, hence making the tale play like a cruel joke at times (this is without going into the complicated allegiances the Cossacks made over their long history – a history that cannot satisfy any political propaganda machine). But what does it matter if the entire film is a joke – neither cruel, nor funny, but simply bad?

When you’re dealing with a movie that makes “Braveheart” look like “A Room with a View” by comparison, its larger implications remain relevant only to high school students who will be forced – despite the good weather, or perhaps because of it – to write long and tedious papers on the subject.

If you read Russian, please check out Roman Volobuev’s brilliant review of this monstrosity.