As we enter yet another episode of worried or sanctimonious articles about the gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine, it's worth remembering a few simple facts:
1) The conflict started in 1992, not in 2006
2) Russia cannot win a gas war against Ukraine and knows it
3) the real underlying stakes are not about Russia or Ukraine

Cherkasy, Ukraine. CIty Center. November 27, 2008!

A truly landmark occasion took place last night in the city of Cherkasy, 120 miles South East of Kyiv (Ukraine). A big statue of Lenin that for decades scared the town's center was publicly destroyed last night! At the time when Ukraine is in deep economic and political crisis, its democractic choice remains intact!

The evening of course would not be so colorful without 7 neo-nazi youngster, who sang the nation anthem "Hitler" style and some granmas who yelled "Jerks, Jerks, Jerks!" (either at the nazi followers or the people in charge of demolition). Unfortunately every country have some black sheep...

Several weeks ago I decided to treat my father with something nice. He has been so helpful with the construction of our house, taking the initiative, supervising the building project, taking time to visit the site and take pictures for me and Caroline. So during my last trip home in September I took him on a jazz concert in Kyiv. The headliner was a well known US tenor sax jazz player Javon Jackson! Accompanying him were many of my dad's friends including Alexandrov, Nesterenko, Bobeen and others.

The concert was just great! Lots of great tunes dedicated to Javon's mentor Joe Henderson. After the concert my dad and I sneaked to back stage and had a chance to talk to the main players of the evening and of course Jackson himself.

See the photos from that night here >>

8 months Overview,

Writing about more than half year period is almost like drafting a novel or compling a thesis: so much information, so little time and space right it. Someone said that the photo says more than the thousand words. I have uploaded more than 3500 pics -  you do the maths!

Lets pick up where we left off, which is December 2007 and our trip to Ukraine. You can see a wonderful picture of then my fiance and now my wife caroline with my mother and sister. The trip was great but short which I guess it a key to great trips home :)


The highlight of winter 2008 was the mission impossible trip to Katmandu (Nepal). Turns out that our MI leader david has a brother who was at that time the vice ambassador of UK in Nepal. He arranged for us to come and help at a christian conference to work with missionary children while their parents are having a refreshing and encouraging time with their colleagues. The time was truly unforgettable. Nepal is a very beautiful and at the same time very poor country torn apart by inside civil conflicts which we in the west do not even hear about.

See photos in Gallery: Compas Park , Kyiv Airport , New Dehli , Kathmandu day1 , Kathmandu day2 , Kathmandu day3 , Kathmandu day4 , Kathmandu day5 , Kathmandu day6 , Kathmandu day7 , Kathmandu day8 , kathmandu day9 .

The end of winder means St. valentines day. It decided not to reinvent the wheel and go for the option proven popular in the past - evening Duna boat tour. Lots of romance, love and great photos!

See Photos in Gallery: St. Valentine's

 

One of the major sport experiences of my life - skiing. I absolutely fell in love with this sport. It was my first time: Slovakia, beautiful ski resort, Nice cold weather, lots of snow, quietness, no internet and email - my beautiful fiance (wife) next to me and my closest friends The Dickersons, Attis and Rachael. Of course it is a very p-hysically intensive sport, but i love the thrill and challenge of it. What can be better than sliding down at high speed from a beautiful mountain - just you and the nature!

See Photos in Gallery: Skiing in Slovakia

THE WEDDING! After almost a year long engagement caroline and I got married in Budavar church on March 8th 2008! What a day! Almost 120 guests from all over the world: Ukraine, UK, US, Hungary, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, etc. Everything was perfect: first the church-> then a little photo session in the fisherman's bastion, then legal wedding, then the restaurant and finally the Gellert hotel.... You know what that means :) We are so thankful to everyone who came and shared this great celebration with us.

See Photos in Gallery: the Church , the Legal Part , Around the City , Gallert Hotel , Reception .

The next day after the wedding we flew off to Egypt for amazing 10 days of rest, sun, enjoying each other and some extreme experiences (like quadra-cycling through the desert or snorkeling with meter long fish). We stayed in an amazing Hilton long beach hotel with all exclusive service! The weather was just perfect. If you want to enjoy Egypt to the fullest go there in mid spring or mid fall. It is about +30C during the day with nice cool breeze and it is around +20 C in the evening. Beware that there are a lot of Russians and Ukrainians in Egypt. :) The best tourist attractions are in Luxor, which is a 6 hour bus drive from Hurghada through the desert. It is a tiring trip but it worth it! if you like extreme sports - go on a mini safari/quadra-cyle tour into the desert or scuba diving. It is not very expensive even according to ukrainian standards.

See Photos in Gallery: Faces , Hurghada, Hilton Long Beach Resort , Snorkeling , A Journey to the Desert1 , Luxor Temple , Luxor, the Valley of the Kings , Luxor Sightseeing , Cairo, Giza Pyramids and Sphinx , Cairo Views , Cairo, Night Cruise.

Several weeks after the wedding I had to go to Ukraine. It was not a planned trip. usually Caroline and I try to visit my home country during summer and winter holiday. I was asked to come by the army office to submit more papers and solve my army draft situation. Everything went well and the after spending a week in Cherkasy I went to Kyiv for my fiends' wedding. Great timing. As my British friends say: I killed 2 birds with one stone during this trip.

See Photos in Gallery: Going home in April

Back in February (which is not that  way back - just several paragraphs up) caroline told me that she wants us to go to England for her university friend's wedding. Normally Ukrainians can not think so way ahead but nevertheless I agreed and actually forgotten about it. Since we can not afford going to foreign countries very often we try to cram as many activities into our trips as possible. This time was not an exception. We went to wedding in Plymouth, drove to London to spend some time with Carolines Cousen Susan (great person) and then up to Lincolnshire to visit Caroline's mom and dad. After that-to Ipswich area to have a big family dinner with all caroline's relatives on her dad's side. I love visiting england. I am truly fond of this country, its greenness, its culture and architecture. I don't think we would ever live there but we surely love to visit it. Trips to UK are always a delight for me because I get to drink a lot of cider and dr. pepper and eat cool ranch dorito chips!

See Photos in Gallery:  Plymouth and the Wedding, Roads and Nature, London , The British Museum ,  Cambridge , Ipswich

COMING BACK FROM A 6 MONTHS ABSENCE!!!!!!! VIKTOR YEVPAK IS BACK ON AIR! :)

What has happened during these amazing 180 days? A LOT! I will try to break it up in little pieces so you can chew it through. Lets see:

• first was trip home (december-January);
• then mission trip to Nepal (January);
• romantic Valentine's day with my beautiful bride;
• amazing skiing vacation in Slovakia (February);
• our wedding (welcome Mrs. Yevpak, who will be part of this blog from now on) and honey moon in Egypt (March);
• back to uni - lots of studies, preparation for my candidate's dissertation and the comprehensive exam;
• an unexpected snap trip home to Ukraine (visited friends' wedding, spoke at Vechirka and sorted out my army situation);
• trip to UK (caroline friends' wedding and family reunion - lots of cider and beautiful traveling around England);
• my bday - a surprise trip to Slovakia (delirious? concert in Trnava),
• christian festival in Budapest - Soul and Gospel concert on the roof of Westend shopping Mall;
• Caroline's bday and the surprise trip to Sweden (Malmo) and Denmark (Copenhagen).

Here is the deal. I am pretty swamped with studies right now - a big exam coming on May 20th!! Cross your fingers for me please. After that I will write lots of new posts telling you how my wonderful wife and I went to Slovakia to ski, had our beautiful wedding and amazing honeymoon, went to Ukraine in April and did many other things! stay tuned and bear with me. Meanwhile feel free to check out the gallery and see the pictures from the "unpublished" stories mentioned above.

YOURS FAITHFULLY

VIKTOR YEVPAK

GOING HOME FOR NEW YEAR

Another semester is over and once again I went home for New Year. After ten warm days in England Ukraine met Caroline and I with some frost. Unfortunately we were not lucky to enjoy snow, but i guess it is not our fault - the global warming is not a myth but a sad reality nowadays.

The time at home was, as usually, quick, hectic and very busy. I had to meet lots of people, make arrangements for my new passport, solve the "army" issues and prepare for the Nepal trip. When will I come home just to relax and enjoy being home?

I really liked that my fiancee was with me this time! Oh, she was great! She connected with my parents very well despite a minor language complication: she could not say anything is Russian and they couldn't say anything in English! One time I went to Kyiv by myself for a day and she stayed home, ALONE with my mother! I think, if she could handle that she can handle anything! Don't get me wrong, my mother is the best woman on Earth! She is very passionate and very extraverted (like Italians). When she address you and you do not understand the language you, would think that she is very excited or very emotional about something, but all she is saying is "what will you have for breakfast?" :) Ye, this is my mom!!!

Thanks to my parents and friends Caroline learned a lot of new Russian words. I had a huge struggle in my heart whether I should force her to learn Ukrainian or have my peace with inevitable - Russian is still the dominant language where I live.

New Year itself was great too! We started of at my parents' apartment with my sister and her three little rascals. We had a huge ceremony of giving presents. See, in our post-Soviet mentality presents should not be given, they should be earned. So children usually have to tell a poem or perform a dance and as reward they get the New Year gift.

Paul told a poem, that he forgot half way through :), Polina sang us a song with my father and Uliana danced with my mother! We were served traditional New year dishes and drinks.  I was longing for them the whole semester: "olivie" salad, "holodetz", mashed potatoes and "Soviet Champaign"!

Around 11pm we took a taxi and went to the Bute's. They had a small costume party. The theme was "dress to impress"! Caroline and I decided that we will be in the costume of an old married couple. So we wore bath robes and I had long black socks! It was a lot of fun! :)

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to describe everything that we did, felt and experienced while being in Ukraine. Try to at least catch a glimpse by browsing through these photos >>

STAYING AT THE MANDERS FOR XMAS

This is my first Xmas in UK. I remember when I was 13 and forcing myself to learn English, going to England for Xmas was my biggest dream. Being in Sleaford on Dec 25th was everything I imagined it to be (exept for the rain, but this England, so I am not complaining :) )

Some of you might know that Caroline's father is a vicar in 2 churches, so we got to visit the house of Lord a lot this holiday season: sunday morning service and evening carol service, monday crib service and midnight gathering and of course the Tuesday morning Christmas service! I really enjoyed it all!!

We had much fun wrapping and unwrapping presents. Caroline and Steve by accident found one of Caroline's present sooner than planned so Caroline's Christmas came early!!

My major presents this year were the subscription to driving classes (hallelujah!!) and a bath robe which I so comfortable that I am wearing it even now when I write this post. :)

The best thing about Xmas with the Manders is that I finally felt that I am part of the family. Peter, Mari and Steve made feel genuinely welcome and comfortable in their home and their lives. Sharing meals, visiting other their friends and talking about our lives made this trip unforgettable.

Click here to see the photos >>

OFFICIALLY LLM

Today I have finally received my LLM diploma! My graduation was in mid June but they told us even before we came to CEU that the university will issue the diplomas much later than the completion of our studies. I think it has to do with the fact that everything has to be approved by the New York State Department of Education. My transcript though is still not ready because i have requested to put a different last name on my diploma. :) My last name in Ukrainian is Євпак ( in some browsers it might not show correctly because of the encoding issues and the cyrillic letters). The Ukrainian authorities when issuing my travel passport transliterated my last name is ievpak, however the correct way to spell it, I think is Yevpak. So now I am applying for a new passport and trying to get them to spell my last name correctly this time. So hopefully in February I will be Yevpak and not ievpak.

Anyhow I am LLM now! See the diploma picture here>>

MEET THE MANDERS

It is my second trip to UK this fall. This time to i traveled to the big island have a pre Xmas dinner with Caroline's family and relatives. I was quite nervous since I did not know anyone except Caroline's mother and father. Steven (Caroline's brother could not come because he is taking an intensive teaching course in Budapest and he has classes every day from 9am till 6pm... The dinner was very lovely! I had a greek salad, Xmas turkey with potatoes and a cheese cake for desert. Caroline's relatives are very nice and welcoming. We talked ate and laughed a lot. It was particularly exciting to observe one of Caroline's uncles show us various card tricks. It was a great day!

Click here to see the pictures >>

MORE PARTIES, MORE PHOTOS...

To quote Ross from "Friends": "The holiday season is upon us" :) and this means many parties and lots of food! The kick off celebration was the "Last Dance Party at Caroline's". My beautiful fiancee has moved out from her nice big apartment to live with some of her friends before we get married in march and start living together at my place. A dancing party was the best way to say Good-bye to the flat...

The next massive gathering was next week at the Dickersons. It has become an annual tradition to celebrate Thanksgiving with Thanh and Melinda ( and from this year on with little Anna!). Lots of food, lots of fun and lots and lots of people are the best ingredients for a memorable night. Although most of us have completely no connection to Thanksgiving tradition nor its history, we still have many things to be thankful for.

This year I am thankful to God that 1) I found my future wife 2) I was accepted to the PHD program and 3) my parent were baptized and continue to grow in their faith.

Click here to see selected pictures from the Dancing party and Thanksgiving celebration >>

PAYING TAXES IN UKRAINE

"Paying taxes" is a unique annual report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Bank, which facilitates the direct comparison of tax systems in 178 countries worldwide, and ranks each country according to the relative ease of paying taxes.The Paying taxes data, produced as part of the World Bank’s Doing Business study highlights how businesses are affected not only by corporate income taxes, but also by many other taxes. In addition, it shows how the procedural burden of tax compliance impacts companies.

Paying taxes 2008 focuses on three indicators: the number of tax payments made, the time it takes to comply, and the cost of taxes, in order to determine the overall ease of paying taxes.The study uses the methodology of the PwC Total tax contribution framework, which is designed to help companies identify their true tax contribution, either in a particular country, or on a global basis.

Ukraine scored very low in this research. According to the PwC our country is on the 177th place. Only Belarus is below us! The researchers say that businesses in Ukraine are obliged to pay 99 types of taxes, spending more than 2000 hours doing that (time spent on book-keeping, calculating and submitting tax documentation, etc). Overall Ukrainian citizens give up around 57% of their gross income!!! 

Comment from the author of this post: "Welcome to Ukraine! :)"

Ecological Catastrophe in Ukraine: Post Factum...

A week ago a big storm in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov caused several Russian ships to sink and spill thousands of hard crude oil. Ukrainian territory, waters and wild life have suffered tremendously! The authorities have not yet made any comments about Russia's compensation for such a horrific force major situation.

In one way the magnitude of this catastrophe could have been avoided if the Russian Federation had tighter policies on the ships’ safety (double-bottom ships) and would not use vessels that are more than 35 years old!

Here are some photos by Associated Press and {ln:Oil Spill 'YouTube Videos} that better describe the amount of Ukraine’s damages.

Note from the author: “Russia step up to the plate and pay the bill!”

TRIP TO UK (Fundraising)

As Gulliver I continue my constant travels and so this weekend (following the last week's amazing visitation of Paris) I set  off for a 3 day business trip to the United Kingdom..

The purpose of this noble voyage was to help my dear friend David Bute  raise money for the Mission Imposible trip to Nepal (Jan. 5th - Jan 15th).

David runs several mission oriented businesses in my hometown (Cherkasy, Ukraine). One of them is photo-studio Spohad (from Ukrainian: "Memory").

This weekend Spohad toured to Highfield church (Southampton) Fair Trade Fare in order to conduct 26 photo-sessions! It was truly a marathon of high-quality photography! 4 sessions per hour, 150  photos every 20 minutes, around 6000 pictures in total!

CLICK HERE to see the type of photos Spohad produces >>

TRIP TO PARIS

What a wonderful vacation!! 4 days in one of the most beautiful capitals of the world! We have stayed in the newly constructed hostel not far from Bastille. It was hard to see everything in such sort period of time, but nevertheless we visited the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame de Paris, Sacre coeur, went on a boat tour down the river Seine and did many other exciting things.

Paris has amazing restaurants and wonderful cuisine. I have particullary really enjoyed french wine and pastries! if you are ever tired of your work, city, country, etc - make a short to Paris - the city of Love!

A good friend of mine lent me his very nice camera for this trip. I got a little bit obsessed and took more than 2000 photos in just 4 days... It took a while to sort them so at the end here are 369 best shots from the french capital! Enjoy!

VARIATIONS ON A TOPIC

The other day Caroline and I were in Mammut shopping mall. There is a very beautiful McDonalds restaurant there. Surprisingly enough some McDonalds are quite nice looking :) Anyhow I saw this really cool eliminated wall and decided to have my picture taken against it.

Here are some design variations on this topic.

IT IS DONE: Orange Revolution Parties Will Share Power in Ukraine

The two pro-Western political parties in Ukraine that united in triumph in the Orange Revolution of 2004, but then quarreled and lost control of Parliament, reached a coalition agreement on Monday to retake power.

Hours after the official results of last month’s parliamentary balloting were announced, the two parties declared they had enough votes to ensure that Yulia V. Tymoshenko, a former prime minister, would again assume the post with the backing of her sometime ally and rival, President Viktor A. Yushchenko.