Business Ukraine June 2016

June 2016

$280,000,000 Investing in the Ukrainian breadbasket: US agricultural company Bunge unveils state-of-the-art industrial and transshipping complex in Mykolaiv in huge vote of confidence for Ukrainian agribusiness

Also inside: Monthly American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine Newsletter

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BUSINESS UKRAINE: June 2016 Ukraine’s agriculture sector received a major vote of confidence in June with the unveiling of a state-of-the-art transshipment complex

by American agribusiness giant Bunge at Mykolaiv Sea Port. The complex is part of a USD 280 million investment in the port by Bunge, highlighting the investor appeal of Ukraine’s famed breadbasket.

June 2016

$280,000,000 Investing in the Ukrainian breadbasket: US agricultural company Bunge unveils state-of-the-art industrial and transshipping complex in Mykolaiv in huge vote of confidence for Ukrainian agribusiness

Also inside: Monthly American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine Newsletter

Brand Ukraine needs a complete marketing overhaul Over the years, I have been lucky enough to welcome dozens of friends and family members to Kyiv. Some of these guests have been seasoned globetrotters. Others have been less adventurous types whose idea of exotica extends as far the beaches of North Wales. Without exception, these first-time visitors to Ukraine have all told me exactly the same thing: “It is so much nicer than I expected.”

This common reaction tells us two things – firstly, Ukraine has a poor international reputation that serves to keep expectations lower than a snake’s belly.

Secondly, Ukraine is actually a beautiful and welcoming place capable of enchanting even the most jaded of international travelers. I would imagine most Kyiv expats have had similar experiences of their own when hosting international visitors. Those who come to Ukraine tend to fall in love with the place – or at the very least, they leave with a sense that negative outside perceptions about the country are wildly exaggerated.

Sadly, the opposite is also true. When travelling internationally, people tend to react to news that you live in Ukraine with patronizingly polite interest or thinly disguised indifference. They generally know next to nothing about the country, but still manage to be distinctly unimpressed. Saying you are from Ukraine is often either a conversation killer or an invitation to launch into ill-informed diatribes about geopolitics.

In light of Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine, these long-standing image problems have taken on an importance that transcends mere PR. The general lack of international awareness about modern Ukrainian realities has made the country uniquely vulnerable to Russia’s cleverly coordinated information war offensives. Ukraine’s failure to represent itself on the global stage has presented the Kremlin with what amounts to a blank canvas on which to draw its appalling caricatures of fascist mobs and genocidal neo-Nazis.

Significant numbers of people around the world have readily accepted these slurs at face value, basing their judgment on an indifference towards Ukraine itself coupled with a belief in conspiracy theories portraying the Euromaidan June 2016

Revolution as some kind of globalist plot. Many more have reacted with skepticism to the Russian narrative, but have been sufficiently discouraged to decide that the Ukrainian issue is simply too complex – and too sullied – to be worth engaging. This muddying of international perceptions has been the Kremlin’s greatest triumph and Ukraine’s biggest defeat.

Winning the information war does not mean simply debunking Russian lies or exposing the endless parade of Kremlin fakes. In many ways, responding to Moscow’s information attacks only serves to strengthen the credibility of Russian talking points. Instead, Ukraine needs to establish its own narratives.

The Ukrainian authorities should be looking to highlight all the things that delight and surprise visitors to the country. The government must also get much better at communicating reform success stories and promoting investment opportunities. The most innovative sectors of the economy should feature at as many international events as possible. The most progressive members of contemporary Ukrainian society, including Euro-Optimist MPs and civic society activists, should enjoy unofficial ambassadorial status.

Image issues can play a central role in Ukraine’s future success. The current priority is to move beyond perceptions of the country as a chronically unstable warzone. Ukraine is clearly a victim of Russian aggression, but the world does not run on sympathy. Victim status will not attract the kind of international investment Ukraine needs. Nor will condemnation of Russian crimes necessarily translate into support for Ukraine’s European ambitions. Instead, Brand Ukraine must sell itself to international audiences by basing its messaging on positivity and opportunities. There is no shortage of materials to market Ukraine successfully – the only thing missing is the requisite political will.

Peter Dickinson, Business Ukraine magazine

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Bunge invests USD 280 million

into the Ukrainian breadbasket US headquartered agribusiness company Bunge unveils industrial and transshipping complex

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June 2016

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: Ukraine’s agricultural sector received a sig-

nificant boost in June with the unveiling of a major new industrial and transshipping complex in the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv. The complex, valued at USD 180 million, is part of a USD 280 million investment into the development of the port by agribusiness giant Bunge – making it one of the largest international investments in the Ukrainian agricultural sector to date.

Betting on the Ukrainian breadbasket: the new industrial and transshipping complex in southern Ukraine is part of a USD 280 million investment into Mykolaiv Sea Port by a US agribusiness company Bunge

Bolstering capacity at Ukraine’s Black Sea agricultural gateway

The new facility will help to raise the handling capacity at Mykolaiv Sea Port, which serves as one of the country’s main gateways for Ukrainian agricultural produce bound for international markets. It will allow for increased volumes while also facilitating a shift away from the direct export of commodities and towards the development of a variety of value-added agricultural products – a goal identified earlier this year by Ukraine’s Agrarian Policy Minister Taras Kutovyi as a key industry target for the agricultural superpower.

As well as providing a platform for the production of more complex agricultural products, the new Mykolaiv complex also offers a range of logistical advantages. It is located just 100 metres from the pier, making it the first project of its kind in Ukraine to boast such close proximity to the water. Mykolaiv Sea Port is already among Ukraine’s top ports in terms of grain management, with Bunge Ukraine handling more than one-third of the grain passing through the port. The opening of this new industrial and transshipping complex will further cement Mykolaiv’s importance to Ukraine’s agriculture sector and its role in the Black Sea region.

President Poroshenko sees new complex as ‘vote of confidence’

The presence of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at the official opening ceremony of the complex on 15 June served to underline the national significance of the investment. Ukraine’s agriculture industry has been one of the best-performing sectors of the economy over the past two years, proving surprisingly robust amid the instability and armed conflict that have hit the country since the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution. While other sectors have struggled to cope with 10

the challenging business climate, Ukrainian agricultural companies have succeeded in expanding their global market reach and consolidating the country’s position as a leading commodities exporter.

Last year, Ukraine ranked as the world’s number one exporter of sunflower oil, and was a leading grain supplier to key global markets such as China. This strong performance has generated crucial foreign currency revenues at a time when other mainstays of Ukraine’s export economy have been rocked by falling global commodities prices and domestic unrest that has seen much of the industrial heartlands in the east of the country cut off by fighting.

President Poroshenko lauded Bunge’s investment as an example of investor faith in Ukraine’s future economic development.

“These are not just words,” commented the Ukrainian President. “This investment represents a vote for Ukraine. It acts as the best advertisement for the investment opportunities and attractiveness of the country.”

A strong signal to the international investment community

Bunge’s commitment to the development Mykolaiv Sea Port dates back to 2011, when the company built a modern grain transhipment terminal that increased the country’s overall grain export capacity by three mil-

lion tonnes per year. The addition of this new complex takes the company’s overall outlay to USD 280 million, but Bunge Ukraine’s Managing Director Dmitry Gorshunov hinted that there may be more to come. “Taking into consideration the success of both (Mykolaiv) projects, in the future we will consider further investment in areas beyond agribusiness infrastructure development,” he commented following the unveiling of the new complex.

The new Bunge complex at Mykolaiv Sea Port is one of the largest single international investments into the country’s economy in recent years. As a result, it has attracted significant amounts of domestic and international media attention. Andy Hunder, the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, said the investment highlighted the country’s vast potential, created opportunities for increased exports, and strengthened Ukraine’s brand abroad. “In times of doubt and uncertainty, Bunge’s decisiveness serves as a ray of hope for Ukraine,” commented Hunder, arguing that it will help to encourage other investors to seek Ukraine market entry opportunities. “The Bunge investment sends a very positive signal to international investors,” Hunder told Business Ukraine magazine. “It can inspire others to take a closer look at Ukraine, research available opportunities scrupulously and make financial commitments while the market is truly open and easy to enter.” www.bunews.com.ua

geopolitics

Brexit endangers Ukraine’s EU dream Nationalist populism across Europe threatens to derail Ukraine’s EU integration bid

The UK’s historic ‘leave’ vote in the referendum on EU membership took almost everyone by surprise. Pollsters and experts alike had predicted a narrow victory for the ‘remain’ campaign, but they fatally underestimated the depth of antipathy towards the EU among many UK voters and the desire to strike a blow against ‘the establishment’. London, Scotland and Northern Ireland did indeed vote to remain within the EU, but relatively poor Wales and much of the rest of England voted for Brexit, tipping the balance decisively in favour of a departure from the EU.

has found itself buried beneath a larger British national identity. English nationalism first began to re-emerge as a political phenomenon in the 1990s in response to growing Scottish and Welsh nationalism, itself spurred along by the devolution processes ushered in by the New Labour government of Tony Blair. Grassroots campaigns called for the creation of an English parliament to mirror the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish bodies, while English football fans began ditching the British Union Jack flag in favour of the English St. George’s Cross.

Why did so many English voters back the push to leave the EU? Plenty appear to have viewed the referendum primarily in nationalistic terms, as witnessed by popular slogans like, “We want our country back!” This resurgence of long dormant English nationalism is both a product of recent historical developments within the UK and a reaction to broader global trends unleashed since the end of the Cold War. In 1991, the ultimate triumph of liberal democracy seemed all but assured as experts spoke about ‘the end of history’. All through the 1990s, formerly authoritarian European countries adopted liberal democratic models of government and slowly began to prosper. The great ideological arguments of the past appeared to be over. The future belonged to soft power, open borders, free trade, globalisation and representative government by democratic institutions. These assumptions are now subject to increasingly open ridicule as those who found themselves on ‘the wrong side of history’ fight back.

Where does English nationalism fit into this process? England is one of the world’s oldest nation-states, but since the Act of Union between England and Scotland in the early eighteenth century, English identity

This growing sense of English national identity is an important phenomenon but it is not enough in itself to explain the momentous Brexit vote. Instead, the result of the referendum only begins to make sense when viewed as part of a far larger populist movement that is increasingly taking root throughout Europe and the US. Populist politicians are currently gaining ground in all of the mature democracies of the Western world. They are achieving success by placing themselves in direct opposition to the establishment ‘elites’ – career politicians, international corporations, bankers, the mainstream media and other groups perceived to be behind the relentless march towards globalisation.

No longer on ‘the wrong side of history’?

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Anti-globalist populism on the rise

Voiceless generation

Many Brexit voters complained that British politicians routinely ignore them. Their decision to back Brexit was in many ways a protest vote against this lack of a voice in the political debates shaping the modern world. Nobody, they claimed, had taken their concerns on key issues such as immigration and globalisation seriously. Identical complaints can be heard throughout the Western world, whether they are coming : www.bunews.com.ua

geopolitics

: from Trump fans in the US, Le Pen voters in France, Wilders backers in

the Netherlands, or supporters of any one of dozens of populist parties sprouting up across the EU. The losers of globalisation are mobilizing, and their leaders are keen to portray them as the silent and downtrodden majority.

Ukraine also has its own demographic of globalisation losers – the people who voted for the Communist Party throughout the 1990s, before switching their allegiance to the Party of Regions until 2014. Many of these Ukrainian voters see themselves as disenfranchised by the tides of history and now support the Donbas separatist movement. They are angry at the modern world and nostalgic for an idealized past.

Identity vs globalisation

One of the factors uniting these geographically diverse populist movements is the belief in an existential threat to their historical sense of identity. Brexit voters in the UK and Ukrainian supporters of Putin’s hybrid war in the Donbas both share a deep sense of suspicion towards the European Union. For different reasons, they see it as a supranational body that is part of a globalisation process threatening to destroy their identity. In Ukraine, many opponents of EU integration believe the process is undermining the unity of the so-called ‘Russian World’ while forcing them to reject the Soviet legacy and Orthodox values. In the UK, anti-EU complaints tend to focus on mass immigration and the eradication of English identity.

Elsewhere in Europe, current perceptions of the EU are being negatively coloured by opposition to recent waves of largely Muslim refugee migration. In this context, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome one million refugees from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East begins to look like one of the greatest historical blunders of the modern era.

The Brexit vote has undoubtedly strengthened this populist anti-globalisation movement. Donald Trump was quick to draw parallels between the UK referendum result and his own campaign to win the US presidency, while Eurosceptic forces in every EU state toasted the Brexit victory and called for additional referendums in their own countries.

Although Vladimir Putin has remained publicly tight-lipped over the UK referendum result, he is sure to be privately delighted. The Kremlin believes a UK exit from the EU will assist in the weakening and eventual dismantling of the European Union – one of Moscow’s key foreign policy goals. Despite portraying himself as a staunch ‘anti-fascist’, Putin has long financed and supported anti-EU nationalist political forces in Europe – many of them regarded as borderline fascists in their own countries. The departure of the UK will render this destabilisation project all the easier, while making it significantly more challenging for the EU to maintain a united front against Russian aggression.

The Brexit effect in Ukraine

The UK referendum results will have a direct impact on Ukraine in a number of ways. Firstly,

with the UK outside the EU, Ukraine will lose a major lobbyist for EU membership. Britain always supported EU and NATO enlargement and has advocated for Ukraine’s eventual membership of both organisations. Meanwhile, the European Union itself will inevitably have to place expansionist initiatives on pause - including engagement with Ukraine.

There was already extremely limited EU appetite for greater Ukrainian integration – the UK referendum result now makes calls for closer ties with Ukraine politically toxic.

The Brexit vote will also make itself felt on Ukraine’s still emerging democratic culture. Anti-establishment politicians are now likely to see their popularity increase considerably. The Panama Papers succeeded in placing President Poroshenko firmly among the global elite, leaving him vulnerable to anti-establishment attacks and the kind of public anger that led to Ukrainian Maidan uprisings in 2004 and 2013-14.

Ukraine is still suffering from conflict in the east while also failing to counter rampant corruption, making the country particularly susceptible to further bouts of political instability. None of the Ukrainian soldiers I met during a recent tour of the east Ukrainian frontlines expressed any trust in the current government’s ability to defend Ukrainian identity and sovereignty. The success of anti-establishment efforts in the UK – and elsewhere in Europe and America – will help to fuel the belief that protest votes can lead to change.

Reminding EU countries of European values

Ukraine’s response to the shock of the Brexit vote should be an even more determined approach to the reform process that is central to European integration. The EU is currently on the ropes and desperately needs the kind of positive narrative a successful Ukrainian transition would represent. At present, Ukrainians are among the biggest supporters of the EU in the whole of Europe. This support – and the nation’s sacrifices – could serve as an extremely timely reminder of the fundamental European values underpinning the European Union project as a whole.

However, it is far from clear whether the present government in Kyiv is capable of meeting this challenge. This raises the prospect of increased calls for pre-term presidential and parliamentary elections. It is not demands for pre-term elections that are the main source of political instability in today’s Ukraine. It is President Poroshenko’s apparent unwillingness to implement the demands of the Euromaidan Revolution in the fields of justice, the rule of law and fighting high-level corruption.

These reform failures carry with them the kind of risks so dramatically exposed by the Brexit vote. Angry minorities can become decisive majorities if they are ignored for long enough.

Ukraine guilty of poor geopolitical timing

Ultimately, events in Kyiv may not prove decisive. With anti-globalist movements on the march from the Welsh valleys to the American Midwest, current geopolitical dynamics clearly do not favour Ukraine’s integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. Even if Ukraine does manage to reform successfully, it runs the risk of finding itself on the wrong side of a fast-changing historical narrative. The populist wave sweeping across the Western world places the entire historic triumph of liberal democracy under threat. At this rate, the party could be over before Ukraine even arrives.

About the author: About the author: Taras Kuzio is a Senior Research Fellow at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. His most recent book ‘Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism’ (Praeger, June 2015) surveys modern Ukrainian political history from 1953 to the present.

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Ukraine flirting with IDP catastrophe Alarm bells over Ukraine’s disastrous campaign to suspend IDP social payments and pensions Russia’s annexation of Crimea and hybrid war in Donbas dealt a terrible blow to Ukraine and precipitated the internal displacement of approximately 1,800,000 million Ukrainians, overwhelming the Ukrainian government and international humanitarian community. Since the beginning of the displacement crisis, the Right to Protection in Partnership with HIAS (R2P) has been assisting internally displaced persons (IDPs). Our field-based monitoring teams are well-positioned to spot emerging challenges facing IDPs. Unfortunately, the humanitarian crisis currently brewing is solely of Ukraine’s making.

Questionable legality

On 16 February 2016, the Ministry of Social Policy ended all social payments and pensions to IDPs registered in Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. According to a May 2016 UN OCHA Humanitarian Snapshot, approximately 600,000 IDPs had their benefits terminated because their names appeared on lists prepared by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The SBU prepared these lists without the legal authority to do so and in a non-transparent manner. The government of Ukraine suspended all payments to IDPs in these regions under the auspices of ending so-called social benefit tourism, whereby Ukrainian citizens residing in the non-government controlled areas (NGCA) allegedly register as IDPs and claim IDP social payments, despite not being displaced. Further, Ukraine suspended IDP pension payments in these regions even though the right to receive a pension cannot be connected to displacement or movement within the territory of Ukraine as stipulated by Article 46 of the Constitution of Ukraine, rendering the suspension of pension payments illegal.

Social payments and pensions would only resume if IDPs could prove beyond doubt that they reside at the address registered on their IDP certificate with the consent of the property owner. As most Ukrainians know, changing one’s registration is a difficult, burden-

some, opaque, and bureaucratic process. Even before the current conflict, approximately 33% of Ukraine’s urban population did not actually reside at their registered address according to a 2012 report by the Success Territory NGO. From 14 March to 1 April 2016, R2P conducted a large-scale monitoring of the suspension of IDP certificates/payments campaign in the regions of Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and the government controlled areas (GCA) of Donetsk and Luhansk.

In 2014, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 637 made the receipt of pensions and social benefits by individuals registered in the NGCA conditional on IDP registration. During the course of monitoring, 2,770 IDPs were interviewed at or near approximately 300 offices of the State Migration Services (SMS), the Pension Fund of Ukraine, and the Local Department of Labor and Social Protection (LSP). The majority of those who applied for IDP social payments are pensioners.

Cutting off an IDP lifeline

According to the monitoring findings, 88% of interviewees reported that they live in the GCA while 12% reported that they reside in the NGCA. 78.5% of the total IDPs interviewed reside at the address registered on their IDP certificates. Slightly fewer than 10% of the IDPs interviewed live in the town/ village listed on their IDP certificates, but not at the listed address. The prevailing number of IDPs interviewed who reside in the GCA but not at the listed address stated various reasons for moving, including problems with the initial accommoda-

tion, moving in with relatives/friends, etc. To resume their social payments, which were wrongfully terminated in the first place, these IDPs had to prove their address to the local SMS, and then reapply for their social benefits at their local Pension Fund and LSP. Additionally, the LSP, Pension Fund and SMS offices lack common procedures to renew IDP certificates, social payments, and pension payments, with different offices of each organization developing their own renewal procedures.

The vast majority of NGCA residents who applied for IDP certificates did so only because an IDP certificate is a prerequisite for the elderly to receive pensions, which are no longer payable to anyone registered in the NGCA. According to Cabinet of Ministers Resolution #637, someone initially registered in the NGCA may receive a pension only after registering as an IDP at an LSP office located in the GCA. Thus, pensions are “bound” with IDP certificates, creating the current problem where cancellation of an IDP certificate not only deprives that person of social benefit payments, but also deprives them of their pension. According to government statistics, as of 19/5/16, approximately 55% of all registered IDPs are pensioners, while 62% of IDPs registered in the five regions R2P monitored are pensioners.

It is worth noting that a very small number of individuals residing in the NGCA who have IDP certificates apply for IDP social payments under Resolution #505 (only 3.7% of those interviewed who reside in the NGCA, or 0.4% out of the total number interviewed). The vast majority of NGCA residents who apply for an IDP certificate do so only to obtain their pensions, and refrain from applying for IDP payments. Therefore, the government’s primary rationale for suspending social payments to IDPs is invalid.

Most of the displaced are members of vulnerable categories - elderly pensioners, the disabled and single mothers. Social payments and pensions provide many IDPs with their only source of income.

Once savings are depleted, the humanitarian situation will deteriorate. IDPs have suffered enough.

The Ukrainian government should resume pension and social payments to all IDPs registered Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, and GCA Donetsk and Luhansk and unbind pension payments from IDP certificates.

About the author: Stuart Linder is a development officer with the Right to Protection (r2p.org.ua) which works in partnership with global refugee aid NGO HIAS.

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Putin’s self-defeating holy war Russian Orthodox Church losing ground in Ukraine as parishes switch allegiance to Kyiv Patriarchate Russia’s continued meddling in Ukraine is driving Ukrainian citizens out of the Russian Orthodox Church. Instead, they are swelling the ranks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate.

Traditionally, Ukraine has been home to the vast majority of Russian Orthodox Church members.

In 1990, of the almost twelve thousand Orthodox communities throughout the Soviet Union, more than six thousand were in Ukraine; only three thousand were in Russia itself. When Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, a number of communities broke with the mother church to form the Kyiv Patriarchate. The remaining churches renamed themselves the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate.

Through a series of agreements, as well as official favoritism by former President Viktor Yanukovych’s government, the vast majority of communities remained loyal to Moscow. There are 12,515 Moscow parishes, compared to Kyiv’s 4,877 parishes. The number of churchgoers tells a different story, however; approximately fifteen million Ukrainians identify with the Kyiv Patriarchate, while only ten million remain loyal to the Moscow one.

And the numbers of defections are growing.

Archpriest Heorhiy Kovalenko, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, explained in 2014 that there had been transfers of individual parishes to the Kyiv Patriarchate since the mid-90s, but no mass transfers. But in that year alone, thirty parishes switched allegiances, according to the Kyiv Patriarchate. In terms of individuals, the numbers are even greater: according to the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a Kyiv-based pollster, 31 percent of Ukrainians identified with the Kyiv Patriarchate in 2011, and 26 percent with the Moscow Patriarchate. By the end of 2015, however, the number loyal to Kyiv had jumped to 44 percent, while 21 percent remained members of the Moscow Patriarchate.

“The shift in public opinion has been tremendous,” said Frank Sysyn, a professor at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. “The real crux of the matter...is in the villages.” His comments were expanded upon by US Naval War College Russian and Eurasian expert Nikolas Gvosdev. “It becomes a question of identity, it’s not a question of faith,”

he said.

Under ordinary circumstances, the growth of the Kyiv Patriarchate would be unexpected. It is not recognized by either the Russian Orthodox Church nor by Orthodoxy’s world center, the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The current president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, is a member of a Moscow-affiliated parish. The Moscow Patriarchate itself is divided on the political issues of the day. “In our church there are two tendencies, pro-Russia and anti-Russia, and we try to maintain a balance,” said Moscow Patriarchate Secretary of External Affairs Nikolai Danilyevich.

The Kyiv Patriarchate, however, has identified itself fully with Ukraine’s struggle for sovereignty.

During the Euromaidan protests, St. Michael’s Church, part of the Kyiv Patriarchate, opened its doors as a shelter for protestors. Myroslav Marynovych, Vice Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lyiv, commented, “Many in Ukrainian society were amazed by the symbolism of this act, and it restored the ancient function of a church as a sanctuary for persecuted individuals and groups.” Moscow’s St. Sophia church, meanwhile, remained shut.

As Russia seized Crimea and unrest broke out in the Donbas, the Moscow Patriarchate tried to be a peacemaker, calling for both sides to lay down their weapons. For Ukrainian nationalists, the call to disarm in the face of Russian aggression was not greeted warmly. Some of the priests went

further. The Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan of Simferopol and Crimea Lazar has cooperated with the Russian occupation, consecrating a monument to the separatist “people’s militia.” Moscow Patriarchate priests supported the blessing of soldiers and equipment of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Priests in other parishes refused to hold funeral ceremonies for Ukrainian soldiers who died in the conflict.

Kyiv Patriarch Filaret, however, has been unwavering in his support for Ukraine’s struggle. “Right now Russia has committed an act of aggression against Ukraine,” he said. “Under these conditions, the church has had to face the question, ‘Does a church need to bless and protect its fatherland?’”

Speaking of his rivals, the Patriarch commented, “[B]eing dependent on Moscow and having their own Moscow patriarch, they cannot call aggression by its name. Some of the bishops and priests have openly spoken in support of Putin and in support of Russia, against the Ukrainian government and against Ukraine as such.”

As the Ukrainian conflict stretches on, more Ukrainians may agree with the assessment of Bishop Evstratii Zoria: “Having a church that is dependent on Russia is, in fact, a threat to our national security and a threat to our existence as Ukrainians.”

This article is republished courtesy of the Atlantic Council

About the author: James J. Coyle, a UkraineAlert contributor, is a Nonresident Senior Research Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and Director of Global Education at Chapman University in Orange, California.

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Technological advances have potential to change the face of fast-growing Ukrainian event industry

The international event industry continues to grow rapidly despite communications developments that increasingly remove the need for physical meetings.

These technological breakthroughs are instead fuelling innovation across the sector, leading to new formats that are gradually making themselves felt in Ukraine.

No substitute for face-to-face contact

According to the UK’s Association of Event Organisers, 87% of business directors remain convinced of the effectiveness of face-to-face communication rather than networking via email or phone. In the B2B sector, marketing budgets are still overwhelmingly oriented towards offline marketing activities such as corporate events, trade shows and presentations. In Ukraine, the event industry has been consistently growing since the 1990s when major international businesses first entered the Ukrainian market. This growth has twice experienced major interruptions - in 2008 and 2014 - due to economic and geopolitical factors. Nevertheless, in 2015-2016 the Ukrainian event market has posted encouraging results thanks to the gradual ‘reawakening’ of business activity in the country.

Research by the Ukrainian Advertising Coalition estimates the value of Ukrainian event marketing and sponsorship sector in 2015 at around UAH 72 million.

This year, most Ukrainian event agencies are fully booked as positive recent trends continue. At the same time, the Ukrainian events industry is facing challenges due to a lack of technologies, along with the short supply of professional providers and sufficiently trained event managers. Despite these challenges, Ukrainian event executives remain positive. “It is a great time to be working in the Ukrainian event business in terms of the new possibilities open to us.

We have a wonderful opportunity to build something new using a combination of innovative technologies combined with our talents,” says Sergiy Slupsky, a Board Member of the Ukrainian Event Association and Owner of Slupsky Event Management.

Innovation driving growth in global events market

The situation elsewhere in Europe offers potentially useful insights for Ukraine.

Research into the UK’s conference and business events sector reveals that the overall number of business events in the country almost doubled in 2015. The sector was worth an estimated GBP 19.2 billion in venues. New technologies June 2016

business

IT innovations and the Ukrainian event industry

and an associated openness to innovations are key factors driving this growth in the UK and elsewhere in the world’s most developed economies.

Ukrainian professionals are helping to introduce innovative approaches to a sector that continues to rely on personal contact. “Our platform provides everything from event websites and registration to event management tools in a single multi-event cloud-based system. For the visitor, this creates a seamless event experience that is much more than the sum of its individual parts,” says Tanya Pinchuk, CEO of ExpoPlatform, a London-based company founded by Ukrainians that provides SaaS (Software as a Service) event management and networking platforms. “Businesses around the globe have already achieved success by implementing solutions such as event management systems. These technologies extend the lifecycle of the event by providing the right tools and incentives for event participants to stay connected to the system long after the event takes place. The system might be a business or social network based around the event with messaging and matching tools that encourage visitors and exhibitors to stay in touch with other members of the event community both before and after the event,” she adds.

Ukrainian IT excellence could boost event industry

The Ukrainian market is broadly following these broader European trends and is already experiencing an increase in the use of innovative technologies. However, at present this consists mostly of mobile apps. Ukrainian organisers are receptive to additional technological tools, but many lack the budget to invest into business development and new technologies. “Ukrainian event organisers are well aware of technological innovations and closely follow worldwide trends. This is no surprise in a country where IT already accounts for some 3% of GDP and is expected to rise to 15% of GDP by 2020,” adds Pinchuk. “I have been working in the Ukrainian event industry for over a decade and in the past few years I have observed constantly growing demand for online event solutions. I am quite sure that in two to three years, Ukraine will further embrace event technology and create additional value for businesses across the sector.”

With the Ukrainian business climate slowly improving and potential international investors increasingly eager for further information regarding Ukrainian opportunities, the coming 12 months are likely to be busy ones for the country’s event organisers, providing them with opportunities to implement innovations – perhaps also showcasing Ukrainian IT expertise as they do so.

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Ukrainian IT innovators

pioneering smart tables Made in Ukraine: Kodisoft’s Interactive Restaurant Technology is attracting international applause

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could eventually serve as a flagship product for Ukraine’s IT industry.

Showcasing Ukrainian IT innovation

Ukraine’s IT sector has emerged over past two years as the great hope for country’s post-Euromaidan economic covery. The IT sector already accounts

the the refor

around 3% of Ukrainian GDP, and this figure is widely expected to rise to at least 10% within the next five to ten years. This impressive growth is attracting attention throughout the international IT sector, but Ukraine has yet to produce a signature product capable of showcasing the country’s talents to global audiences in the way that Skype served to announce Estonia’s IT excel- :

made in ukraine

A Ukrainian IT company has developed interactive restaurant tables that bring all the digital advantages of the smartphone era to the dining industry. Kodisoft’s Interactive Restaurant Technology is already proving popular in cutting-edge destinations such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi. These Ukrainian ‘smart tables’ are now set to expand into the wider international restaurant industry and

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Ukrainian IT company Kodisoft hopes its Interactive Restaurant Technology tables can become exactly this kind of breakthrough product. The company’s smart tables certainly tick all the right boxes – they are aimed at mass market audiences and have the potential to become everyday items, but are also innovative and original enough to capture the imagination. The tables function like giant tablets with the ability to do everything from accessing social media and taking selfies to more directly relevant functions such as translating menu items, placing restaurant orders and checking out the nutritional value of the food and drinks on offer. Crucially, they are also designed to be tough enough to withstand occasional spills, splashes, and even exuberant table-dancing antics.

From Dubai to Toronto

These Ukraine-made smart tables are already in use in four restaurants internationally: Oshi Asian Restaurant in Cyprus, Ebony in Dubai, Neo in Russia, and the appropriated named iCafe in Abu Dhabi. Kodisoft executives say this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The tables are certainly capable of turning heads – they were among the star turns at the recent Canada-Ukraine Business Forum in Toronto, where Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was among the attendees who enjoyed spending time playing with a display model.

Kodisoft founder and CEO Dmytro Kostyk spoke to Business Ukraine magazine about his company’s smart tables and explained the role his passion for the restaurant business played in the development of this potentially global product. “I was always interested in creating useful inventions,” he says.

“I made my first million while still a university undergraduate, when I developed Intellect Device Bluetooth Marketing (IDBM), an instrument for Bluetooth marketing which allows users to share information for free to portable devices with Bluetooth modems.

The success of IDBM opened up international markets for us. I then decided to combine my twin loves for technology and for the restaurant industry in a new product. I noticed that restaurants generally tend to use a lot of paper for menus, table coverings, bills, and so forth. The management of all these paper elements seemed to be quite random in many restaurants, with service June 2016

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was one of many fans of Kodisoft’s Interactive Restaurant Technology at the recent Canada-Ukraine Business Forum in Toronto

staff misplacing things and menus becoming dirty and greasy. I wanted to streamline the industry by creating a ‘magic’ table. Once the idea has begun to take shape, my team then developed our Interactive Restaurant Technology. The idea is simple – to create an interactive restaurant experience where the menu is on the screen along with a range of games and other entertainment options. Our tables also allow guests to read the news, share photos, communicate with other tables, and pay for their meals online. You can even watch your order being prepared in the restaurant kitchen via special cameras installed in the venue.”

Kostyk is bullish about global demand for his tables – especially following the warm reception the product received at the June Canada-Ukraine Business Forum in Toronto.

“PM Justin Trudeau loved our tables and spent quite a lot of time discovering how they work,” he says. “Every day while I was in Canada, I had five or six meetings with journalists, restaurant owners and politicians – all of them are very interested in our technology.”

Much more than an IT outsourcing outpost

With the overwhelming majority of international investment into the Ukrainian IT industry currently focused on outsourcing activities, initiatives like Kostyk’s smart tables serve as a useful reminder that Ukraine’s IT talent is capable of much more than offering cost-effective solutions to coding challenges for multinationals.

The recently released 2016 edition of the ‘Deal Book of Ukraine’ - produced by Ukraine Digital News and AVentures Capital

made in ukraine

: lence to the outside world.

- covers the venture and startup industries and offers cause for further optimism. This year’s survey highlighted impressive growth in the level of international investment into the Ukrainian tech sector. The report identified the acquisition of Ukrainian startups by major global brands as one of the most striking developments of the past year. Headliner deals include Snapchat’s USD 150 million acquisition of Looksery, a Ukraine-originated startup that developed augmented reality filters for selfies. Other eye-catching international acquisitions in 2015 include those of Ericpol by Ericsson, Maxymiser by Oracle, and Jeapie by Canada’s Mobify.

“Amid the country’s current political and economic woes, the Ukrainian startup and venture scene is experiencing an astonishing revival,” notes Adrien Henni, chief editor at Ukrainian Digital News and co-author of the ‘Deal Book of Ukraine’. “We are witnessing the emergence of a new generation of globally-oriented startups, the entry of new classes of investors into the market, and the blossoming of community initiatives – from brand-new industry associations, to educational institutions and media platforms.”

The high media profile and prominent public positioning of products like Kodisoft’s interactive restaurant tables will help to generate further interest in Ukraine’s IT innovators. The biggest challenge may now be to persuade more and more of the country’s IT professionals to leave the comfort zone of lucrative outsourcing employment in order to gamble on the potentially far more profitable and exciting world of startup speculation. As Ukraine’s global IT reputation grows, there is unlikely to be any shortage of international attention.

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Unilever opens first Ukrainian production plant

Anglo-Dutch giant to produce teas for domestic market with an eye on future export opportunities

Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever has established its first production facility in Ukraine in a move that signals the company’s long-term commitment to the Ukrainian market and its faith in the country’s economic fundamentals. The new plant is located in the Kyiv suburbs and employs the latest international tea production technologies. It will produce a range of Unilever tea brands for domestic consumers, while also paving the way for possible future export to EU markets. The factory began operations at the end of June following a whirlwind nine-month construction cycle.

“Ukraine is an important strategic market for Unilever, so it is no surprise to see us make this investment.” Polman also voiced his confidence in the fundamentals of the Ukrainian economy, which he believes is now heading in the right direction after a period of unprecedented challenges and sustained volatility. “Foreign direct investment projects like the construction of this plant will be crucial for the continued recovery of the economy. It is the right decision and a sign of our long-term commitment to Ukraine,” Polman offered.

The new factory will produce tea brands Lipton, Brooke Bond, and Besida. Raw materials for tea production in Ukraine will come from plantations in Kenya, Sri Lanka, India, Argentina, Indonesia and Vietnam. The plant incorporates German and Italian technologies along with the latest Unilever global standards of minimal ecological impact and the company’s ‘zero waste to landfill’ policy. The 9000 square meter facility cost around EUR 8.3 million to construct, representing a major investment in the Ukrainian market from one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies.

Unilever Ukraine head Vasyl Bovdilov called the construction of the plant a landmark step for the company in Ukraine that would simplify supply issues and reduce dependency on imports while creating the basis for future exports.

Until relatively recently, much of Unilever’s tea production had arrived on the Ukrainian market via production facilities in neighbouring Russia. However, the advent of trade barriers and rising geopolitical tensions between the two countries in the wake of the Euromaidan Revolution have made this cross border model impractical.

The new Unilever facility is located in the town Gostomel in the northwestern suburbs of the Ukrainian capital. The town was previously best known as the home of Gostomel Airport, an international cargo airport that serves as the base for Ukraine’s Antonov An-225 plane – the world’s largest operating aircraft. The arrival of the Unilever factory has already had a visible impact on this quiet Ukrainian satellite town.

The distinctive yellow-and-red branding of the company’s flagship Lipton tea brand can be seen dotted throughout Gostomel on playground areas, beach umbrellas and building facades. This is all part of the Unilever policy of engaging with local communities by providing communal facilities and organizing local activities. Residents of the town recently set a new Ukrainian record when over three thousand people took part in a tea-drinking ceremony on Gostomel’s pretty lakeside beach.

Similar community events will follow as the global consumer giant sets out to highlight its local production credentials. Lipton tea packaging now carries the slogan ‘International Brand - Made in Ukraine’. This is a savvy nod to the current nationwide trend towards purchasing Ukraine-made goods. “It’s important for us to be close to our customers,” Lipton brand manager Nadezhda Fomina told Business Ukraine magazine, adding that the new factory boosted Ukrainian consumer confidence while tapping into current public enthusiasm for locally produced goods. “We are now able to promote international quality while appealing to patriotic sentiment,” commented Fomina.

EUR 8 million investment

Unilever bets on Ukraine’s future

Unilever CEO Paul Polman, who flew to Ukraine to attend the opening of the new facility, said he personally wanted to be present for what he termed as ‘a landmark event’. “Who says you can’t be agile and entrepreneurial in Ukraine once you’ve made the decision?” he commented.

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Gostomel becomes ‘Lipton Town’

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investment

Unilever CEO Paul Polman flew to Ukraine specially to attend the opening of the company’s first Ukrainian production facility in the Kyiv satellite town of Gostomel. He called the construction of the new factory a sign of Unilever’s longterm commitment to the ‘strategically important’ Ukrainian market

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Investing in Kyiv’s Tsarist and Stalin-era real estate

Foreign visitors to the Ukrainian capital along with most expats generally prefer living in downtown Kyiv - they usually have the income to take advantage of entertainment options in the city centre, and greatly appreciate the convenience of being where the action is. But when it comes to picking an apartment building, these socalled pragmatists can be downright romantic and frequently tell real estate agents, “I want to live in [or buy] an apartment in an older building downtown with more character.” Older buildings in Kyiv come in two basic types - Tsarist and Stalinist. They tend to be clustered in the city centre, and depending on their condition, can be quite comfortable for living. In this article we discuss the pluses and minuses of renting and buying apartments in these types of buildings.

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Kyiv’s Tsarist splendour The late 19th and early 20th centuries represented a relative high point for architecture in Kyiv that incorporated many styles including Neogothic, Neorenaissance, Neobaroque, Neoclassic and New Russian. Chief among these styles was Art Nouveau, a style characterized by the inclusion of spires, towers, mosaics, fanciful windows, gates, balcony grates, decorative facades, entrances, stairwells and roofs. The Art Nouveau period lasted up until the First World War and the turmoil that began with the Russian Revolution in 1917. Today all of these pre-revolutionary properties are collectively referred to as ‘Tsarist’ buildings by Kyiv locals.

Tsarist buildings tend to be five storeys tall and apartments in them feature high ceilings (up to 4.5 meters), thick brick walls, and large www.bunews.com.ua

Kyiv’s solid Stalinkas

Kyiv architecture from the 1920s up until the 1950s is commonly known as Stalinist and the buildings from this era are routinely referred to as ‘Stalinkas’. Compared to Tsarist buildings, Stalinkas can be taller buildings (8 or more storeys), but the apartments in them tend to be slightly smaller (3-4 rooms and usually up to 85 square meters), although ceilings can be nearly as high (up to 4 meters).

These solidly built, functional buildings are usually made from red or white brick, or concrete slab, and have a classic, square-shaped design with spacious corridors, stairwells and apartments.

While Stalinkas may lack the originality and aesthetic appeal of Tsarist buildings, apartments in them are still valued for their spaciousness, durability and construction quality - especially when compared to later Soviet-era buildings. Most Stalinkas are located in Kyiv’s centre and near-centre districts. Downtown Kyiv was ravaged by the Second World War and this led to widespread rebuilding in the immediate post-war years. For example, the city’s main street, Khreshchatyk, was completely destroyed before being rebuilt in the late 1940s in classic Stalinist architectural style.

Investing in older Kyiv properties

Kyiv features a handful exclusive leafy downtown districts such as pricey Pecherski Lipki, but living in the city centre is generally not seen by Ukrainians as quite as desirable or prestigious as it is in the EU or US. This tendency can be partly attributed to cultural factors.

Ukraine is still a socially traditional country where agriculture, rural life and nature are highly romanticized. Added to this is the fact that Ukrainians tend to be less logistically-minded than Westerners and seem more willing to endure a brutal daily commute in order to live in a newer building or even outside Kyiv altogether.

Among those Ukrainians who actually want to live downtown, a majority seem to favour living in newer buildings. To be polite, many newer apartment buildings in central Kyiv lack the charm and originality of the city’s older Tsarist and Stalinist buildings.

This preference for newer buildings among Ukrainians drives up the prices of these buildings. As a result of these preferences, the best value for buyers in today’s Kyiv can often be found in buying, renovating and letting out an apartment in an older building. The charm of these buildings, combined with the convenience of their downtown location, makes them highly attractive as rental properties, especially for expats and short-term visitors.

If you’re considering buying an apartment in one of Kyiv’s older buildings, one less discussed but interesting thing to keep in mind is the fact that it is sometimes possible to ‘privatize’ the attic floor

and the roof when you buy a top floor apartment. This can be a complicated and drawn out process, but local specialists can help you with the paperwork. If you’ve ever stood on Castle Hill in Prague and looked down on the Old Town, you might have noticed the sea of rooftop balconies and mansard apartments that dot the horizon. This is a preview of what is sure to come in Kyiv.

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living areas (usually 4-6 rooms) encompassing up to 150 square meters. Each of these buildings was built according to an original design, making them aesthetically appealing and visually distinct from the homogenous mass of Soviet-era buildings that dominate much of Kyiv. Originally these buildings lacked elevators, but today some renovated buildings now have them. Several Tsarist buildings are marked with plaques that identify them as protected architectural monuments.

Downsides and due diligence

There are some downsides to buying or renting an apartment in a Tsarist or Stalinist building, such as a lack of secure parking. However, some older buildings can have courtyards that offer residents dedicated parking spots. Local facilities may also be limited. Sometimes you may need to travel a little bit further to find a supermarket, a decent sized grocery store, or a fitness centre.

While an apartment in an older building in Kyiv can be a good value investment, it is important to do your due diligence beforehand.

Things to look out for include water pressure - especially for top floor apartments - and electricity. Older buildings have often been subdivided into several apartments and the building may not have enough load capacity to support all apartments with modern appliances. Sometimes the electricity in older buildings is not properly grounded, creating the risk of power surges.

Older buildings can often lack an elevator; although one may be added if there’s a back service stairwell. You’ll also want to find out if the apartment you’re considering investing in has its original wooden floor beams or if they have they been replaced with reinforced concrete. Even if the building you’re looking at has been renovated and updated, it can still often be a good idea to engage a specialist for a home inspection, also known as a ‘technical due diligence’ report. Lastly, some Tsarist buildings can be protected architectural monuments, so it is important to find out if the apartment you’re considering is subject to any restrictions that would interfere with any renovation plans that you have in mind.

Kyiv yuppies and New Urbanism

As Ukraine’s economy recovers and continues to develop, we can expect Kyiv’s already clogged streets to become even more bogged down. Traffic delays will become more of a problem, while the economic value and opportunity cost of Ukrainians’ time will rise.

Eventually more people will seek to avoid the suburban traffic jams that result from sprawl, leading many to opt for a more urban existence. And as Ukrainian society continues to become less traditional in outlook, with young and successful Kyivans deferring marriage (and/or having children) until later and later in life, it is easy to imagine the emergence of an expanded yuppie class with the spending power and desire to enjoy the benefits of living downtown. So will a rising class of Kyiv yuppies and other market forces lift the value of older buildings in the city centre and nearby Podil? Or is this merely a New Urbanist fantasy?

Stay tuned.

About the author: Tim Louzonis (tim@aimrealtykiev.com) is a co-founder of AIM Realty Kiev, a real estate agency that specializes in real estate for foreign expats. Tim is a long-time expat with Ukrainian roots; he first came to Ukraine as an exchange student in 1993 and returned in 2008 June 2016

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Doctor Sam healthcare provider

prepares for further Kyiv expansion INTERVIEW: Doctor Sam Medical Network founder and CEO speaks to Business Ukraine magazine about the latest developments at the Kyiv-based international healthcare provider

Medical Network One year ago, you opened your first clinic in Kyiv and began developing plans to expand your medical network. How have your plans progressed?

It has been a year since we opened our first clinic on Sikorskoho Street in the Ukrainian capital and I am happy to say we remained true to our promise of expanding our network. Since our last meeting, Medical Network we opened our second clinic (on Dragomirova Street in Pechersk region) and are currently in the process of preparing a third clinic – on Lomonosova Street – that is scheduled to open this Summer.

Needless to say, it’s been a busy year!

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Both busy and productive, you could say?

Exactly. I am very pleased with the response we have had from the public – our values and our approach seemed to resonate with our customers right away. So much so that barely a year into the project, we are finding ourselves working hard on keeping pace with the fast-growing customer base. It’s a good problem to have, though, so no complains here!

How would you define your values and your approach?

First and foremost, we value compassion. We believe in high quality, professional, competent medical care delivered in the most compassionate way – this includes the way we connect with our clients, the atmosphere we set up and maintain at our clinics, the pre- and post-visit attention we extend to our patients, and so on. We’ve designed our processes so that our clients feel cared for every step of the way.

Secondly, we value our clients’ time. We have cre28

ated protocols that support and communicate this to our clients: house calls, same-day appointments, on-time consultations, prompt lab work, an on-site pharmacy that prepares your meds as you consult with your doctor, timely follow-ups, and so forth. We actually have a whole department whose sole job is to analyze each patient’s

“care path” and look for ways to make it more efficient or smoother, if you will, for the patient.

That care path starts at the point of first contact, runs through making all arrangements for a visit to a clinic, includes consultations, diagnostics and treatment, and any necessary follow-ups. It’s a lot of work, but it’s totally worth it – patients defiwww.bunews.com.ua

You have previously spoken of your mission to “show to Ukrainian people that they can have access to high-quality, affordable medical care, delivered with exceptional service”. At present most of your patients are Ukrainian but you are also becoming increasingly popular among the expat community. Is that intentional?

Let me start by saying that we are, indeed, happy with how we’ve managed to achieve that shift in perception with our Ukrainian clients as to what they can expect from a clinic. We are raising the bar and that is exactly what we set out to do. In terms of our interaction with the expat community, it is actually an interesting story. We opened our first clinic within walking distance of the US Embassy. To be completely honest with you, for me personally, in a funny way, there was a sense of security there – “home” is right around the corner. But I see now that it was a two-way street: when folks from the Embassy saw that there is an American clinic practically across the street, they felt the same way – “home” is right around the corner (laughs). So before we knew it, my compatriots started to pour in, and after that – the larger expat community of Kyiv followed suit.

Right away, we decided to create infrastructure that can support an English-speaking client base.

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Of course, to us, this means much more than just providing a translator to assist a patient during a consultation – in fact, we do not find that “solution” sufficient at all. We do have English-speaking physicians, naturally, but we have made sure that our clients get language support on each step of their “care path”. We have a dedicated phone line with English-speaking Call Center reps; we have English-speaking administrators and receptionists who handle all clients’ communications and movements within our clinics; and we have excellent physicians who conduct their appointments in English, are able to engage in MD-to-MD communication with the clients’ physicians at home, and so forth. That’s what I mean by “infrastructure” – competent, caring assistance offered at each and every point of contact. As a result, both Ukrainian and expat clients feel equally comfortable in our care.

How do you ensure that service quality remains consistently high?

Constant vigilance. I believe that is the only way. It is true that we took great care to set up our processes in a way that ensures the highest quality of medical care. But it is just as important to monitor that quality continuously and to make sure that it remains high as we grow our network. I am thankful that our efforts in this regard are, indeed, recognized – both by our patients, which is most important to us, and also by the medical establishment. For instance, just recently we have been awarded the European Medical Association’s “Best Medical Practice” certificate. To my knowledge, we are the only healthcare facility in Ukraine to receive this certificate from the EMA to date. Of course, it is great to get recognition that we adhere to the European standards of practicing medicine, but I have little doubt that the toughest standards are those we set for ourselves. And in that sense, constant vigilance leads to constant quality.

What are your plans for further development of Doctor Sam? Our ultimate plans have not changed since the inception of the Doctor Sam project: as we expand the network to include 8-10 ambulatory clinics, as originally planned, we hope to earn the trust of our clients and build a strong brand with a solid reputation. On the foundation of a healthy network of clinics and a proven record of excellence we then plan to build a full-size, multi-profile hospital in the city. To be honest, our clients are asking for it already. There is currently a shortage of in-patient beds in Kyiv and having a modern hospital that offers medical care delivered by

best standards of practice would be tremendously important for the city. So that is exactly what we intend to do.

As for our latest endeavors, there are a few that your readers may find interesting. We are, of course, getting ready to open our new clinic in August – we’re very excited about that and very busy with last-minute preparations. In terms of charity work and social responsibility – and I must say we are strong believers in the notion that a business has an obligation to give back to the community, to act for the benefit of society in general, not only its own clients – we recently took part in two events: a fundraiser for orphaned children and a youth jazz festival. We have expanded our auto fleet to include 100% electric cars – you may have seen those zooming around the city – and actually, our clients have already noted that they appreciate the fact that we care not only about their health, but also the health of our planet.

We have started a medical internship program and became a teaching healthcare facility. Our experienced doctors mentor medical interns and pass on their wisdom to the next generation of physicians. It is easy to point out the problems when it comes to the state of healthcare in Ukraine. But we believe it is much more important to be part of the solution. And really, what can be more important in ensuring a better future for Ukraine’s healthcare than grooming competent doctors? So we feel both proud and honored to have become a medical facility that houses an internship program.

We are about to launch a new and much-improved version of our site. And finally, along with the site, we are launching a long-awaited Doctor Sam mobile app. The app will give its users interactive access to all sorts of information about our medical network, as well as specific-to-each-clinic news, updates, and special offers. To top it off, our clients will have their entire medical record at their fingertips – with a secure login and password they will be able to pull up on their mobile devices anything from physicians’ reports to diagnostic scans and lab results.

One more thing: our telemedicine module is about to get a facelift. In just a couple of weeks, we are starting to use a new platform for our telemedical consultations. Developed by an innovative US company, this very user-friendly platform will allow our patients to connect with their physicians from the comfort of their homes.

These are some of the things we are currently working on. Check back with me in a couple of months, when all of this is done, and I’m sure I will have a whole new list of exciting ideas to tell you about (laughs) – we don’t seem to run out of those!

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nitely feel that we respect their time and strive to make their experience here as seamless as possible.

And last but not least, we passionately believe in caring for one’s health, not just treating one’s ailments. To relate that message to our clients, we have created a unique product – an Annual Health Program – which gives our clients unlimited access to the resources of our Medical Network. This is an all-inclusive package designed to put the entire spectrum of our network’s capabilities into our physicians’ hands. As a result, a family doctor really becomes a healthcare coach to his or her clients: throughout the year, physicians are able to do thorough diagnostics, address various body systems (cardiovascular, immune, respiratory, etc.), and get to know their clients. A family doctor who is coordinating a person’s Annual Program often conducts multidisciplinary treatment meetings, to which patients are also invited. All in all, this really drives the point home to our clients – their health is being truly cared for through coordinated work of top-notch clinicians. More than anything else, I think the fact that our core values are reflected in what we offer to our clients is helping us build up a healthy (pun intended) following.

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As the economy hits rock bottom, investment in Ukraine shows initial signs of growth Andy Hunder, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine

On a recent business trip to western Ukraine I was pleasantly surprised to learn that all the electric cable components in the latest Volkswagen Golf model and the Audi A4 cars are now being manufactured in Ternopil. Sumitomo, one of the largest Japanese keiretsu business groups, is successfully manufacturing these automobile components at their Ukrainian plant.

Sumitomo are not alone in setting up manufacturing plants in Ukraine.

Fujikura, a global, Tokyo-based electrical equipment manufacturing company earlier this year launched a state-of-the-art electric component plant near Lviv. Leoni AG, a Nuremberg headquartered cable and harnessing manufacturing firm with branches throughout the world have announced the opening of their second a plant in Ukraine, this time in Ivano-Frankivsk region, creating 800 new jobs, – this in addition to the their existing plant in Lviv region.

In southern Ukraine, one of the largest US investments of the year in Ukraine took place in mid-June - the opening of Bunge’s brand new oilseed refinery, oil handling terminal and expanded grain terminal in the Mykolaiv seaport. A total investment of $280 million by Bunge in Mykolaiv to date. All good news for Ukraine’s economy. Bunge, a global agribusiness and food company, headquartered in White Plains, United States, an international sunflower and soybean exporter, also involved in food processing, grain trading, and fertilizer, with 35,000 employees at 400 facilities in 40 countries made one of the largest US investments to date. Further down 2016 Chamber Official Service Providers:

June 2016

the Black sea near Odesa, Cargill, the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue, is currently working together with MV Cargo on a $100 million deep-water sea terminal, dredging the sea down to 15 meters to allow large vessels to enter the port.

Over the past five years Ukraine’s GDP has seen a constant decline, contracting by 10% last year and 7% in 2014. In 2016 we are forecasting the first signs of growth, albeit moderate, around 1%. During the last couple of years the Ukrainian economy reached rock bottom, so now the only way is up. Despite ongoing turbulent times, investment contracts are being signed, and business is slowly developing. Only two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet seven large US investments funds who came to Ukraine to study investment opportunities.

We hear the bad news from investors very quickly, but the good news takes time to break through and be heard. Over the past couple of months I regularly keep receiving invitations to factory openings and am also approached by potential investors wanting to meet to get an understanding of what the reality is in Ukraine today.

Agricultural sector is so far an indisputable leader and investors’ favorite. It accounts for more than 12% of national GDP and 30% of Ukrainian export.

On the global scale, Ukraine remains number one in the world for sunflower oil and seed exports, top 3 for barley and and top 5 in the world for corn production. The members of the Chamber Agricultural Committee are the top 10 biggest grain exporters in Ukraine. Another booming industry is IT. Over 90,000 programmers currently work in Ukraine. Five years from now, this number may reach 200 thousand. In terms of skills and financial expectations Ukrainian developers are highly competitive.

The obstacles of doing business in Ukraine still remain and now more than ever it is important to get it right for Ukraine to become an investor friendly destination. Corruption remains the key barrier to doing business in Ukraine. This social plague keeps many interested investors away.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant

There is, however, a new generation of bright passionate leaders, who are willing and capable of transforming their homeland. These young people are a powerful engine that will help Ukraine skyrocket. Temptation to take a bribe or give the best job to a friend is still there, but Ukrainians should learn to resist it, if they want to move forward. The free media and civil activism play a significant role in shaping new clear rules for society as a whole and culture of doing business in particular. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The more transparent and open the processes become, the quicker we will see tangible positive results.

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Winning Ukraine’s memory wars Ukraine’s unique totalitarian trauma offers the key to conquering the demons of a troubled past Ever since Ukraine gained independence in 1991, WWII has served as a proxy battleground for Ukrainians as they fight over the past in order to determine the future. In what is arguably Europe’s most historically arrested society, the symbols and slogans of the world’s most deadly conflict continue to retain the full potency of the 1930s and 1940s.

Contemporary political and geopolitical arguments routinely descend into the gutter of WWII analogies. Most alarmingly, the Russian hybrid war in Crimea and eastern Ukraine relies heavily on Kremlin efforts to portray Ukrainians as the modern-day successors to Hitler’s legions. Such talk is not only absurd and morally repugnant – it also risks polluting a new generation with the genocidal totalitarian mindset.

Caught between Hitler and Stalin

These never-ending memory wars are a symptom of the larger totalitarian trauma that defines today’s Ukraine - a land scarred by the tragic distinction of having been at the very epicenter of both Hitler and Stalin’s worst crimes against humanity. Understanding this

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unique totalitarian legacy in its entirety is the key to resolving Ukraine’s identity crisis and bringing about a settlement with the past that will make sense to the entire nation.

Prior to the twentieth century, Ukraine had never experienced a sustained period of statehood. Instead, the lands of today’s Ukraine had spent hundreds of years partitioned within the borders of competing empires. This made the country particularly vulnerable to the rival totalitarian tendencies unleashed in the chaotic aftermath of WWI. The fight for control of Ukraine was to play a central role in both the Nazi and Soviet stories, with devastating consequences for the inhabitants of Ukraine itself. Among other things, Ukraine was the chief battlefield of the Russian Civil War, the primary focus of Stalin’s 1930s murder machine, and the greatest prize of Hitler’s 1941 Operation Barbarossa. For an extended period stretching from the Russian Revolution until the 1950s, Ukraine was quite literally the deadliest place on the planet - a laboratory of totalitarian terror that claimed the lives of between 15 and 20 million Ukrainians. In :

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was the primary killing field.

Ukraine’s pain remains off the radar

Ukraine’s status as the chief victim of Nazi and Communist totalitarianism has largely escaped the attentions of international observers, primarily because we are not yet accustomed to thinking of twentieth century Ukraine as a separate entity. Nevertheless, the very real results of this totalitarian experience continue to stare us in the face. Ukraine’s contemporary demographic divisions are the direct product of ethnic cleansing campaigns and mass population shifts masterminded in Moscow and Berlin. On a more indiscernible level, the totalitarian inheritance is evident in common Ukrainian feelings of alienation from the state and the almost total absence of faith in authority. It polarizes the past, making consensus impossible and forcing Ukrainians towards the extremes of the political spectrum.

We can also identify echoes of the totalitarian era in the culture of secret histories and conspiracy theories that continues to thrive in today’s Ukraine. It is detectable in everything from the absence of national leaders to the habit of viewing government corruption as a victimless crime. Perhaps most importantly, this totalitarian legacy enables Russia’s hybrid war, creating fertile ground for the Kremlin’s emotionally charged information attacks.

Epicenter of the totalitarian era

Russia’s exploitation of Ukraine’s totalitarian trauma has made it a national security priority and an international issue that can no longer be ignored. In order to heal these historical wounds, Ukraine must stop looking at individual events like Stalin’s terror famine and the Nazi occupation in isolation.

On the contrary, Ukraine needs to approach the country’s twentieth century totalitarian experience as a single narrative. This is es-

sential in order to challenge negative perceptions of Ukraine and to position today’s country as the world’s most prominent posttotalitarian society. Only then will Ukraine begin to make sense to the outside world.

Only then will Ukrainians of all backgrounds be capable of achieving closure and consolidating an inclusive and coherent sense of national identity. The desovietization initiatives currently underway in the country are a step in the right direction, but they are taking place in a somewhat haphazard manner without any coherent accompanying narrative. This approach allows ambiguity to creep in, creating social tensions and paving the way for apologists who resist efforts to draw parallels between Nazi and Soviet crimes against humanity. Future generations of Ukrainians would be better served by a more definitive approach to the issue that framed the desovietization process as part of wider efforts to acknowledge Ukraine’s unique totalitarian suffering.

This process is already underway. For only the second year, Ukrainians marked the annual anniversary of the end of WWII with a National Day of Memorial and Reconciliation.

In contrast to the pomp and parades favoured in Putin’s Russia, Ukrainians are now being encouraged to reflect on the victims of the conflict. This new national day of remembrance also pointedly recognizes the first two years of WWII when Hitler and Stalin worked together to carve up Eastern Europe – something Soviet and modern Russian histories have long tried to avoid. The next stage in the process should be the extension of this timeframe from 1939-45 to at least 1917-1954, allowing Ukraine to take on the role of global memory keeper for all victims of twentieth century totalitarianism.

Honouring the victims of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

In order to make this a reality, the Ukrai-

nian government should consider establishing a major international memorial complex designed to highlight the horrors inflicted by the Nazi and Soviet regimes – both on the territory of Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe. A new national memorial day is also required. The anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August would seem to have unimpeachable credentials as an appropriate date. This is already a recognized international day of remembrance for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism, but Kyiv should seek to make the anniversary a far more significant affair while aiming to play a central role in observance of the memorials. The fact that this anniversary falls one day before Ukrainian Independence Day (24 August) would serve to imbue it with further meaning and poignancy.

Soviet apologists are notoriously prickly about the role of the USSR during the first two years of WWII – it is time reframe the narrative by placing the Soviet responsibility for WWII at the centre of the debate.

It would be right and proper for Ukraine to undertake the important international task of commemorating the victims of Mankind’s darkest epoch. It would also help today’s Ukrainians make sense of their country’s deeply troubled past. Rather than being asked to take sides in a ghoulish zero-sum historical argument of apocalyptic proportions, future generations of Ukrainians could honour those who perished and focus on keeping their collective memory alive. There would be no place for divisions along ethnic, religious, linguistic or other lines. Instead, all Ukrainians would be able to unite in recognition of their shared totalitarian past and their collective commitment to avoid repeating such horrors in the future. No country suffered more in the twentieth century totalitarian era, and no country has more to gain from achieving meaningful closure.

society

: an age of unparalleled destruction, Ukraine

“In order to heal the country’s historical wounds, Ukraine must stop looking at individual events like Stalin’s terror famine and the Nazi occupation in isolation and instead approach the twentieth century totalitarian experience as a single narrative.”

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Savchenko mania reflects Ukraine’s leadership crisis

Ukrainians are being alienated by a political culture devoid of ideology and dominated by populism

The release from Russian captivity of Ukrainian political prisoner Nadiya Savchenko has sparked a remarkable outpouring of media speculation over the role she could now go on to play in domestic politics. These overblown expectations have served to highlight just how desperate the Ukrainian public is for leaders they can actually believe in.

A pilot not a politician

The hyperbole surrounding Savchenko has been completely out of proportion to her status as a military volunteer whose courtroom defiance in Russia made her an unlikely national icon and an unexpected international celebrity. This breathless post-release coverage reached a peak of absurdity with headlines suggesting she was already a potential candidate for the Ukrainian presidency. Other commentators have speculated over whether Savchenko would be able to ‘reload the revolution’ or bring about the downfall of the country’s all-powerful oligarchs. Given that the 35-yearold Ukrainian military pilot has no prior political experience to speak of beyond her absentee election to the Ukrainian parliament while languishing in a Russian jail, and bearing in mind the fact that she had never previously expressed any interest whatsoever in a political career, the scale of these expectations is both alarming and instructive. They highlight the shortcomings of Ukraine’s present generation of leaders, while also hinting at the ongoing identity crisis Ukraine inherited in 1991.

Personalities over principles

The Ukrainian political arena is all about personalities. It is admittedly a far more diverse and competitive environment than the monolithic one-party 44

systems commonly encountered throughout the rest of the former Soviet Empire, but Ukraine’s fledging democracy is nevertheless stuck in a state of arrested development. Whether we are talking about the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, or any number of ambiguously named political parties that serve as vehicles for their prominent leaders, the political culture of the country is defined individual personalities rather than the political principles that underpin the multi-party systems in more mature democracies.

Although representative democracy has clearly triumphed over authoritarianism in Ukraine, there is no escaping the fact that interests also trump ideas. The only discernable ideological argument that has gripped Ukrainian politics over the past two decades has been the flashpoint issue of future pro-European or pro-Russian alignment. Beyond this unhelpfully binary approach to Ukraine’s geopolitical destiny, the country’s political arena has essentially become little more than a giant popularity contest where rivals drawn from the same national elite seek to talk up their own credentials as competent managers while portraying their opponents as hopelessly corrupt.

Particularly prone to populism

Starved of credible political leaders offering identifiable ideological positions, the Ukrainian public has instead switched its support between individual personalities with the fickleness of a love struck teenager. This emphasis on individuals, coupled with the general absence of political principles, makes Ukraine particularly susceptible to the panaceas and platitudes of populism. It also leads to the regular rise and fall of individuals who www.bunews.com.ua

Wanted: unifying figures

There is an equally striking absence of national leaders beyond the realm of Ukrainian party politics. In the religious sphere, divisions between different denominations – most strikingly between the outwardly identical but geopolitically competitive Moscow and Kyiv Patriarchates of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – prevent the emergence of spiritual leadership on the national level. Even the hybrid war with Russia has failed to produce a new generation of national leaders from within the ranks of the country’s military. The conflict has certainly brought about a consolidation of Ukrainian identity, but not a single individual military commander has succeeded in catching the public’s imagination. Instead, it is strangely appropriate to note

that the only acknowledged heroes of the conflict are the largely faceless everyman figures of the national volunteer movement.

Ukraine’s lack of strong leaders is not without its advantages. It has allowed Ukraine to avoid the kind of vertical integration that has made dictatorship all-but-inevitable in neighbouring Russia, while helping grassroots democracy gain a firm foothold throughout the country. However, it also serves as a barrier to national progress by keeping the country stranded in ideological no-man’s-land. Today’s Ukraine desperately requires clear leadership based on coherent ideas if it is to progress beyond its present status as a de facto buffer state languishing between European democracy and Eurasian authoritarianism.

The lionizing of Nadiya Savchenko reflects a national malaise that has plagued Ukraine since independence. Ukraine’s lack of sovereignty prior to 1991 robbed it of the national myths essential to all state building, while also denying it the legacy of historical leaders capable of commanding universal respect. As a result, Ukrainians have spent the past quarter of a century arguing over what it means to be Ukrainian, while would-be national leaders have sought to be all things to all people without ever committing themselves to an identifiable ideological position. Nadiya Savchenko may well have a role to play in ending this identity ambiguity, but she is highly unlikely to be the leader Ukrainians have been waiting for. Instead, Ukraine’s future leaders will emerge from the country’s thriving civil society, and will unite the nation around the European values and notions of civic identity that fuelled the Euromaidan Revolution and the Orange Revolution before it.

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are initially overhyped, before eventually being discarded once they prove unable to live up to the unrealistically high expectations of the public.

In this sense, Nadiya Savchenko is merely the latest in a long line of such saviours. Prior to his devastatingly underwhelming presidency, Viktor Yushchenko was widely hailed as the man to rescue post-Soviet Ukraine. Yulia Tymoshenko became the next people’s champion, until she fell out of favour amid allegations of megalomania and a flourishing personality cult. More recently, figures including Vitaliy Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Oleh Lyashko and Mikheil Saakashvili have all enjoyed rapid rises in public esteem, only to suffer equally quick slumps once the novelty of a fresh face began to wear off. Meanwhile, the parties they lead continue to emerge and dissolve like clouds in the springtime sky.

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June 2016

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Ola Rondiak creates patriotic icon-style portrait as Ukraine seeks to become a global street art focus The winds of change are blowing through today’s Ukraine, and this post-revolutionary dynamic is having an impact on everything from high-level politics to streetlevel aesthetics. Visitors to the Ukrainian capital cannot help but notice that Kyiv is currently in the midst of mural mania, with examples of giant street art popping up throughout the city on a weekly basis.

potato sacks and random threads of material while employing fish bones as makeshift needles. Some of these incredible artworks even found their way to Rondiak’s family home in America, making a huge impression on the young Ola. “My grandmother found the strength to be creative, even after long days of hard labour. That had a profound impact on me,” she says.

The current trend towards public art first began to gain ground in the immediate aftermath of the Euromaidan protests in early 2014, with a number of individual efforts inspired by Ukraine’s national awakening.

This enthusiasm for street art has since translated into a number of specific projects designed to decorate Kyiv, including 2015’s CityArt initiative, which resulted in the creation of 20 massive murals around town.

Buoyed by this success, the people behind CityArt have now launched ArtUnitedUs – a hugely ambitious street art initiative aiming to create a global movement boasting over 200 individual murals and centered on Ukraine. Some of the biggest names in the street art world have already been persuaded to travel to Kyiv and add their murals to the ArtUnitedUs initiative, with prominent local painters also participating.

Rondiak’s involvement in the ArtUnitedUs project came about following a meeting with project coordinator Geo Leros at the opening of her spring 2016 exhibition at America House in Kyiv. The works on display where inspired by Ukraine’s second post-Soviet uprising, the 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity, and featured more of Rondiak’s trademark pop art portraits and folklore motifs. Although a newcomer to the street art genre, Rondiak says she did not have to think long before accepting the invitation to contribute a mural. “I’d always been attracted to the thought of doing something really big,” she reflects, “but the idea of street art had never occurred to me.”

The American was offered a choice of locations before finally opting for a wall on Borysoglibska Street in Kyiv’s riverside Podil region. Her selection was partly down to a sense of vertigo that might have posed problems at some of the larger potential locations. “My street art niche is definitely one- and two-story buildings,” she quips.

The work on her Podil mural took three days to complete. Rondiak says she only received two negative comments from local residents over the three-day period, with one old timer claiming the use of black colouring would bring bad luck, while another felt the mural would attract attention to the poor state of the building itself. Most passersby were thrilled to see this new addition to the local landscape – a sentiment that the artist herself shares. “I see the explosion of street art in Kyiv as a reflection of the new Ukraine,” says Rondiak. “It is giving the city a far more contemporary feel and highlighting the social shift towards Europe that is currently underway.”

Kyiv as emerging street art capital

American artist inspired by Ukrainian women

One of the latest artists to contribute to the ArtUnitedUs project is American Ola Rondiak, who recently created one of her signature icon-style Ukrainian pop art portraits in Podil. Ukrainian-American Rondiak has lived in Kyiv for much of the past two decades, having grown up in a Ukrainian family in Ohio where she enjoyed a childhood immersed in the rites and rituals of the North American Ukrainian diaspora. An instinctive artist with a professional background in psychotherapy, Rondiak first took up painting during the 2004 Orange Revolution. Like millions of others who found themselves caught up in the heady emotions of Ukraine’s first post-Soviet revolution, she recalls how she June 2016

culture

American artist joins Kyiv mural mania

Mural mania reflects the new Ukraine

sought a way to express the intensity of her feelings and found the process of painting to be therapeutic. “Painting was my emotional release,” she recalls.

Within weeks, the American’s original collages of Orange Revolution art were on sale on Maidan and she was giving interviews to the national media. It was to prove a lifechanging experience, leading Rondiak towards a new career as an exhibiting artist.

Her art is heavily influenced by Ukrainian folklore themes and focuses on portraits of Ukrainian women produced in a funky, contemporary style featuring plenty of the bright colours and floral touches traditionally associated with Ukrainian femininity.

Her choice of subject matter is no accident – it reflects Rondiak’s admiration for what she terms as ‘the determined and inspirational women of Ukraine’, and the indomitable national spirit they represent.

The origins of this artistic obsession with iconic Ukrainian females also reflect Rondiak’s own personal family history. The artist’s grandparents found themselves separated by WWII, with her grandfather ending up in the United States while her grandmother languished in a Soviet labour camp. Despite suffering this tragic fate, Rondiak’s grandmother never lost touch with her humanity. Instead, she brought colour to camp life by embarking on her own artistic career, producing embroidery using

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society

Danish lioness to lead Kyiv Lions Club

Karen-Marie Kragelund elected president of charity fundraising group with reputation for transparency Danish expat Karen-Marie Kragelund will be running the Kyiv Lions Club for the coming year following her uncontested election in June 2016 as the organization’s new president.

She sat down with Business Ukraine magazine to discuss her twin ambitions of embracing the expanding Kyiv Lions Club membership and bolstering its reputation for Scandinavian-style transparency.

Globally speaking, female Lions Club leaders are still something of a novelty – the international organization only began accepting ladies as members in 1987 and welcomed its first female president in 1999 – but Kragelund is actually the second lady to lead the Kyiv Lions Club. She finds herself following the footsteps of her current second-in-command, Marjon Cals, who was the Kyiv Lions Club’s first female president some years ago.

Kragelund is one of many women who contribute to the work of Kyiv Lions Club. She has been an active member for the past six years, serving previously as club secretary. Kragelund says she was originally motivated to join the Kyiv Lions Club by a desire to give something back and a recognition that she could achieve a lot more by joining forces with other likeminded professionals – many of them members of Kyiv’s expatriate community who she already knew and trusted. “As an individual, I realized the kind of impact I could make was limited. By being part of a larger group, I felt we could make a real difference,” she says.

Kyiv’s world-beating Lions Club

Kragelund now finds herself at the helm of what has long been one of Ukraine’s most successful and credible fundraising organizations.

Despite the current economic challenges facing the country, the Kyiv Lions Club managed to raise around USD 300,000 over the past twelve months, with funds going to a range of worthy local causes. This impressive sum is by no means exceptional and reflects a consistent fundraising record that places the Kyiv Lions Club among the top 1% of Lions Clubs globally.

This success is down to the strong reputation for trustworthiness the Kyiv Lions Club has built up since its foundation in 2003. The charity industry in Ukraine continues to suffer from a spirit of skepticism rooted in the plethora of suspicious and phony charities to 48

emerge amid the chaos of the early post-Soviet years. To counter these suspicions, the Kyiv Lions Club has always gone to significant lengths to demonstrate how it disposes of the funds raised at club events. Kragelund sees this reputation as a key asset and wants to borrow from her Danish experience to boost the organization’s credibility further. “Denmark is always ranked among the world’s top three nations in anti-corruption and transparency surveys,” she comments. “I want to be able to demonstrate where every single penny goes.

Sponsors and supporters should be certain their money will reach worthy causes.”

She also hopes to build on recent recruitment work and engage as many new Lions as possible in activities designed to support vulnerable local communities. With a growing Kyiv Lions Club membership, there are greater opportunities for personal interaction and the social benefits this can bring. “Being able to donate money is important, but donating time is also crucial,” she reflects. “I would like to go back to basics and get more and more members involved in regular Lions Club activities.”

tween putting forward her candidacy and her election, the Dane took on a new executive role with a Danish engineering company based in Ukraine’s Black Sea port city Odesa. She is unfazed by the challenges this presents, and plans to visit the Ukrainian capital each month while managing the day-to-day affairs of Kyiv Lions Club from a distance.

Such commitment would not be possible without a passionate approach to Ukraine’s future and a belief in her ability to make a meaningful contribution to the country’s development. Kragelund says her love affair with the Soviet world dates back to a fascination sparked by watching the 1980 Moscow Olympics on TV as a child. She later spent time in Russia before arriving in Ukraine ten years ago. The Danish expat now routinely refers to Ukraine as ‘home’ and says she remains inspired by the opportunity to help ‘get the country on its feet.’ “So many groups in today’s Ukraine need support,” she reflects. “We are in a position to help and can achieve a lot with relatively little.”

Her election as Kyiv Lions Club president has presented Kragelund with something of a logistical headache – in the weeks be-

+38-098-4605140 president@kyivlionsclub.org

Kyiv lioness in Odesa

Kyiv Lions Club

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Networking events

Ramada Encore Celebrates Fourth Anniversary

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Kyivâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ramada Encore Hotel celebrated its fourth anniversary in June with a colourful summer party at the venue for friends and partners. The event also saw the unveiling of new Swiss Hotel Management Company DBI, which will have its own three brands, as well as managing multinational brands like Ramada Encore.

DBI officials say the company aims to help the owners of small and mid-level hotels in Ukraine and other countries of Eastern Europe to operate their properties more efficiently and profitably. The DBI head office is located in Switzerland. All senior managers are from the US, Switzerland and other European countries, along with Ukrainians who gained experience in the hotel business in the US and Europe.

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networking events

Coming Soon: For further information on Swiss Hotel Management Company DBI look out for our exclusive interview with Irantha Duwage in the July/August issue of Business Ukraine magazine.

June 2016

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networking events

Ukrainian-Turkish Business Community Marks Ramadan Members of the Turkish business community in Ukraine gathered in June for a traditional Ramazan (Ramadan) dinner hosted by the International Turkey Ukraine Business Association (TUID) at Mangal restaurant in Kyiv. The event was attended by Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to Ukraine Yonet Can Tezel, who noted the success of the recent inaugural Turkey Ukraine Industrial Forum, organized in Turkey by TUID together with the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. TUID chairman Burak Pehlivan noted the continued Turkish investment activity in Ukraine despite the challenging economic environment in the country, pointing to the growth of TUID founding member and event sponsor Colinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, which now boasts more than 80 outlets in Ukraine, making it the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest ready-wear retail brand.

June 2016

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networking events

The Ukrainian Connoisseurs Club Dines at Concord The Ukrainian Connoisseurs Club (TUCC) was founded 15 years ago with two principal objectives: to have provide true reviews of the quality of the cuisine and service at Kyiv’s leading restaurants, and to show the world the standards being achieved in Kyiv’s gastronomic culture. Many years ago, there were perhaps about a dozen high quality restaurants in the Ukrainian capital. Today, there are probably over a hundred international-class restaurants offering a huge variety of cuisines from around the world. To begin the 2016 summer dining season, TUCC returned to Concord Restaurant in central Kyiv. It had been many years since TUCC had last visited Concord but Carte Blanche General Manager Natalia and Concord Director Svetlana convinced TUCC management it was time to return to Concord. An international mix of diners attended the event and enjoyed a specially prepared menu featuring Carpaccio of octopus served with Costamolino Vermentino di Sardegna, prawns stuffed with salmon served with Iselis Bianco Isola dei Nuraghi, and Escalope di Limon.

The dining experience was topped off by delicate Spanish “Siruela” cake of meringue with prunes.

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Fryday Kyiv Celebrates Anniversary with ‘The Great Party’ Ukraine’s most popular networking group, Fryday Kyiv, got the summer season underway in style with a thematic celebration to mark its sixth anniversary. The Great Gatsby provided the theme for the event, which was attended by more than 500 international and local professionals. The entire evening captured the spirit of the roaring 1920s. Guests enjoyed live bands & DJs, unlimited champagne, a huge birthday cake, more than 4,000 USD in lottery prizes and much more. Networking group Fryday was founded in Kyiv in 2010, and is now active in 21 cities in 13 countries around the world, with branches in Europe, the Americas and Central Asia.

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networking events

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June 2016

in review

Celebration of celebrity in downtown Kyiv

Kyiv’s vibrant nightlife scene has undergone something of a hipster overhaul in recent years, with bushy beards and sleeve tattoos replacing slinky designer labels and stiletto chic as the dominant after-dark aesthetics in the Ukrainian capital. Nevertheless, Kyiv remains a fundamentally glamorous city at heart, and there are few more ostentatious hangouts than downtown venue Famous, which even boasts its own Moet & Chandon champagne bath.

Part restaurant, part karaoke bar, and part nightclub, Famous is located on the second floor of the Arena City complex that dominates the western end of Kyiv’s central Khreshchatyk Street. Entire sections of the interior walls have been decorated with hundreds of miniature portraits featuring some of the most famous figures from the past century, including everyone from Elvis to Ein-

stein. This dizzying array of images is certainly eye-catching and serves as a snap test of your pop culture knowledge – indeed, these portraits have even been known to help particularly enthusiastic party people to sober up while they take advantage of the venue’s restrooms.

Famous first opened for business in April 2014, at a time when many in Kyiv were preoccupied by the prospect of Putin’s hybrid war reaching the streets of the Ukrainian capital. Over the intervening two years, Famous has established itself as a popular nightlife destination, with a core crowd of regulars including many fashion designers, TV stars and catwalk models. The venue is part of the Le Restorator group and is much more than a mere homage to iconic figures from bygone ages. Managing Director Dmitriy Hoptuk says Famous was first conceived as a place where Kyiv celebrities could unwind and relax. The interior’s super-comfy sofa booths certainly encourage intimacy, while panoramic views over the Arena City courtyard allow guests to engage in

people watching around the clock.

The menu features a range of Japanese and panAsian cuisine as well as steaks and the venue’s trademark burgers. The average price of a meal (including alcohol) is approximately UAH 500600, making it a relatively mid-range option for those who enjoy a high-roller ambience. The venue’s karaoke section is busy pretty much every night of the week, while the club itself tends to be at its most packed on Friday and Saturday nights from around midnight. This is also a popular option for after-party chilling, so if you want to wind down in good company as dawn approaches, Famous could be the place to head for.

Famous

Arena City 5 Velika Vasilkivska Street Tel.: +38-044-3371313 Open: Daily from 16:00 www.famouskiev.com

Cosmos Ojukwu is a Kyiv-based Nigerian journalist who has been covering Ukrainian affairs for more than a decade

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