uaMuzik

Virtual Montreal Fountain Tours: An Aqueous Element Returns to Phillips Square

2022-08-20T16:55:00.001+03:00

Geographic Coordinates:

45.503863250909, -73.56879683910705

Beginning in about 1840, rich merchants like Thomas Phillips (1771-1842) a construction entrepreneur and city councillor, sub-divided rural properties in what is now downtown Montreal, creating a suburban neighbourhood for the wealthy.

When Phillips died in 1842, his widow donated the park to be used as a memorial to her late husband, writes historian and former Gazette journalist Alan Hustak in Downtown Montreal: An Opinionated Guide to the City’s Squares, Churches, & Underground City (Vehicule Press, 2004).

Source: Scott, Marian“Redesigned Phillips Square will be forested oasis, Montreal mayor says : The square will have 75 trees, up from just a dozen now, under a renovation plan announced by Mayor Valérie Plante on Tuesday. “ The Montreal Gazette, January 22, 2019. ( Source: https://bit.ly/3zG7dwa )

The square has undergone changes, since its inception with a renovation in 1995. The square became a hub for commercial enterprises. Such as Henry Birks & Sons, established in 1879 and moving to this location two years later.

Directly across from Phillips Square stands the Henry Morgan Building, which housed the Canadian department store colloquially known as Morgan’s; which Henry Morgan founded in 1845. It is now the flagship store of the Hudson’s Bay Company a large Canadian merchant. To the south of the square, behind the Memorial to King Edward VII, on Cathcart Street, stands the Canada Cement Company building built in 1922. This building was the first one in Montreal to have an under ground parking garage. If you are interested in the history of the automobile in Montreal here is a little venture into the past from the city's archives:, in French: https://bit.ly/3A4DmO9

It has only been during its latest renovation in a two-year 50-million dollar project that the square acquired the small installation of water jets. These jets will add a nice touch once all the trees added to the square’s renovation become more mature, the square will definitely become more of an oasis in the centre of our city.

The project is part of a municipal plan to green the downtown core. Montreal’s Mayor Valérie Plante, said during the inauguration of the renovated square on Monday June 27, 2022: “Our objective is to make downtown Montreal the greenest downtown in North America!”

The square now has an aqueous element where none has existed since Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau shut down Montreal’s public rest rooms for a number of dubious reasons. From claims they were gambling dens to places for sexual encounters, though their closure was most likely a cost-cutting measure.
The public restrooms were part a make work project during former Montreal Mayor Camillien Houde in the mid-1930s.

From this archival photograph from the Conrad Poirier collection at the Bibliothèque et Archives National du Québec one can clearly see sets of steps descending underground on the east and west sides of the square. The photograph was taken from the 17th floor of the University Tower Building on June 9, 1937.

To see the fountain in action visit https://bit.ly/3JqzT0u and please subscribe to my YouTube channel, like and leave your comments.

To see the episodes you have missed please check my playlist at: https://bit.ly/3oCZ32m .

Virtual Montreal Fountain Tours is released weekly, on Thursdays, with a short appearing on Mondays.

Closed Captioning is provided for those with hearing difficulty in English, and subtitles are available in both French and Ukrainian.

Virtual Montreal Fountain Tours: Fountain at Iberville Square

2022-08-06T17:30:00.037+03:00

St-Cunigunde Church, Montreal

Geographic Coordinates:

45.48527062318233, -73.57697992574523

“This is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn't throw a brick without breaking a church window”. Mark Twain The New York Times, December 10, 1881.

Twain was speaking in and of my home town of Montreal at a reception held in his honour at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal on Thursday December 8, 1881.

During my bus commutes to work I would see many church tops and Twain's quote would come to mind. While walking as part of my regular commute I saw one of these churches up close. It is called St. Cunigunde Church. Across the street is Iberville Square with a fountain dedicated to Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville.

The lower part of the inscription reads: “The first statue was erected by the citizens of the city of Ste-Cunigunde on July 19, 1894.", yes there was such a city on the island of Montreal in the day. And it continued, "This second statue was raised by the city of Montreal on July 20, 1983."

Very dissimilar to the first two fountains that we visited, the fountain to honour Chevalier Pierre Le Moyen d’Iberville, located across from St-Cunigunde Church on the southwest corner St-Jacques West and Vinet streets, is extremely simple in comparison to the others. There are neither fire, nor lights, and this really says something about the time it was constructed.

The four spigots are most likely being powered by four separate centrifugal pumps, with the appropriate amount of power to provide the desired rise of water. There are factors to be measured and formulas that fountain designers use to determine the size of the pumps they need.

The centre piece of granite bears inscriptions on each of its faces. Each spigot is set in line with the right angle of the centre piece, and spews a decent volume of water about a metre into the air. It seems to have no special timing mechanism. The jets are pretty simple, though they do create a very calming sound. However; for some individuals, depending on the volume of fluids they consume before visiting this fountain it may just create a Pavlovian reflex making them feel like urinating.

The fountain where it stands today was erected by the City of Montreal in 1983, and it seems to be constantly running.

One of the first patents for water fountain controls US Patent 4,111,363, was issued in the autumn of 1978 and called for the use of timing mechanisms and electromagnetically controlled valves. As we saw with both La Jute and the 29 jets at Victoria Square, the art of fountain design, construction and layout has progressed a great deal over the last four decades.

To see the fountain in action visit https://bit.ly/3JqzT0u and please subscribe to my YouTube channel like and leave your comments.

To see the episodes you have missed please check my playlist at: https://bit.ly/3oCZ32m .

Virtual Montreal Fountain Tours is released weekly, on Thursdays, with a short appearing on Mondays.

Closed Captioning is provided for those with hearing difficulty in English, and subtitles are available in both French and Ukrainian.

Virtual Montreal Fountain Tours: Fountains at Victoria Square

2022-08-04T23:24:00.114+03:00

Geographic Coordinates:

45.50134242844492, -73.56093287129653

My commute to work in the morning included public transportation in two different modes: bus and metro, or subway as it is called in many other locations. However,
I would often try to throw in a couple of kilometres of walking; either on my way to work, or on my way home. In exiting the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) / Victoria Square metro there was a series of fountains I would often walk by.

Like the fountain at Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle, this fountain was opened in 2004.

It seems that the city had a plan to rejuvenate the entire district known as the Quartier international de Montreal, and this was clearly confirmed in 2017 at the Metropolis XII World Congress, where Montreal presented its 44 page report of its projects.

Victoria Square has undergone many transformations since its inception in 1860, and from postcards it seems that the effigy of Queen Victoria erected in 1872 has in the past existed with and without the aqueous element. It was designed by English sculptor Marshall Wood.

This was written about Wood on a site called https://beforefelton.com:

"Wood – one of Queen Victoria’s favourite artists – spent time near the end of his life in Melbourne, arranging for the completion and installation of his statue of the monarch for Parliament House (finally installed in Queen’s Hall in 1887). This was one of several variant statues of the queen produced by Wood for various colonial cities."

Thus was the time when commissions were given to artists by people in high places.

According to this obituary on Wood, he didn't live very long only only made it to his fiftieth year.

To the left of Wood’s statue are the first two pools with their series of fountains. The first pool, located just north of St-Jacques Street West, is invisible from Sainte-Antoine Street West. It has four jets, the next pool is located left of the statue and has six.

Taking a quick look around to be certain I wouldn’t put myself in harm’s way while crossing Sainte-Antoine Street West, I am greeted by another set of six jets before the entrance to the metro. In total there are 29 jets for these fountains in five different pools at Victoria Square.

According to Montreal-based WAA, the firm responsible for the re-engineering of Victoria Square to include fountains, wrote on their website: “The redevelopment of Victoria Square with its series of fountains and the creation of Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle featuring Riopelle’s bronze sculpture-fountain and ring of fire entitled La Joute (The Joust) are only a few of the attractions that visitors can now discover.”

The fountains at Victoria Square, from St-Jacques Street West up to Viger Street West, create a calming atmosphere, in the centre of a bustling metropolis.

To join in on the fun of visiting various fountains in Montreal, please join my YouTube channel found at: https://bit.ly/3BrqlAf

William (Vasyl) Pawlowsky

Virtual Monteal Fountain Tours: La Joute by Jean-Paul Riopelle

2022-08-02T14:00:00.014+03:00

I discovered this fountain walking to work one morning. A company of plumbers were preparing it for the upcoming season. Though it was not the only fountain I’ve discovered over the last little while in my home town of Montreal. Please join me for Montreal Virtual Fountain Tours. I hope to be informative and entertaining at times.

As someone who walks a great deal I’ve discovered more than a few aqueous gems in my home town of Montreal. After a kind suggestion from a friend I realized that maybe it would be worthwhile sharing Montreal's fountains with others globally.

The sculpture La Joute by Jean-Paul Riopelle created in 1969 was not complete nor was it installed where it is located today, but was located by the Olympic Stadium.

According to Riopelle biographer François-Marc Gagnon, Riopelle himself called this work “The Tower of Life”. The creatures are striving to capture the flag, and some, including those who installed this fountain in its current location in 2004 is truer to his original design. Soucy Aquatik who is responsible for this installation write on their website: "The four elements of water, air, land, and fire come together in all four seasons in this fountain by Jean-Paul Riopelle located in the centre of Montreal’s Quartier International."

Soucy AquatiK continues: "The fountain includes a round basin with an umbrella-shaped jet. On the surface of the water, a ring of fire is combined with a captivating mist effect. These special displays are pre-programmed and operate automatically according to a predetermined schedule."

The artwork's owner the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the Quebec government and Riopelle’s heirs felt that moving the creation to it’s current location would receive more exposure and honour that the author deserved. In its current location it also includes all the elements, which Riopelle had designed into the work including both the fountain and fire elements.

Watch this copy here: https://bit.ly/3RQCmoD

William (Vasyl) Pawlowsky

“Run Nawrocki Run: Escape from Banff Prison” : The Internment of Ukrainians During WWI - A personal Tale

2021-12-14T11:40:00.003+02:00

“Run Nawrocki Run: Escape from Banff Prison”: Norman Nawrocki’s Ongoing Creative and Learning Process

Norman Nawrocki in character
as Prisoner #158 with his shovel

PHOTO CREDIT: Joyce Valbuena

The Internment of Ukrainians during WWI took place in Canada due to legislation which was passed on August 22, 1914. It was known as the War Measures Act and gave the Governor in Council extraordinary powers, “during time of war, invasion, and insurrection, real or apprehended [feared].” The Cabinet would be able to pass laws without going through the Parliament, technically, Canada’s lower house, commonly known as the House of Commons, or just the commons.

One of these powers was was for “arrest, detention, exclusion and deportation.” It was that effected so many Ukrainians and others who were feared by the government of the the day. “Approximately 80,000 people had to register as “enemy aliens” and were compelled to report regularly to the police. Their freedom of speech, movement and association were also restricted” ["Ukrainian Internment in Canada." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published May 24, 2018; Last Edited June 05, 2018.]

Throughout my university years in the 1980s academic papers began to appear on the subject of internment. I followed these and there were other mediums telling the story of many who had become victims due to the War Measures Act. During the Second World War it was used to intern Italians, Japanese and German Canadians and I lived through implications of the this act as a young boy seeing troops in combat gear and heavy military vehicles on the streets of Montreal during the October Crisis in 1970.

Last Meeting and Reconnect

While studying and working at McGill University in the late 19980s and early 1990s I met many different people. One of them was Norman Nawrocki, originally from Vancouver but living in the student ghetto in Montreal when we met. At the time I recall Nawrocki had told me that he was just discovering his Ukrainian roots. It had been the Ukrainian Students’ Club at McGill which had brought us together. We had gotten together a few times at club meetings and afterwards socially. I stayed in touch with him until the summer of 1991 and they lost contact with him for over three decades. Often the alliteration of his name, first and family, would pop into my head and I would think: “I wonder where Norman Nawrocki is today?”

On December 2^nd of this year an announcement from a common friend of ours, I found out that he was leading a very active and creative life. So I reached out to him as he had been CC’d in the email I received. A few days later I asked him when we last saw one another he wrote me: “We met on June 25th, 1991. I found a piece of paper with notes I took during our meeting, references to the "UCC (Ukrainian Canadian Congress) Parliamentary Interns, the Uke Info Bureau in Ottawa, ... and Przenechaya, the Ukrainian Wheat Vodka.” I’m a bit of an archivist!” Hence, I was not surprised to see just how prolific Nawrocki has been when I received the notice about his one person play entitled “Run Nawrocki Run: Escape from Banff Prison”, and some of the thought-provoking works he has produced and published in the past.

From the announcement and link to the Facebook event I’d been sent, I learnt “Nawrocki has written, staged & toured over 20 theatre & cabaret creations since 1986, authored 14 books of poetry, short fiction & a novel (with translations in French & Italian), & released over 60 albums of music & spoken word, solo & with his diverse bands.” I think his self-proclaimed being “a bit of an archivist!” Has served him well in his creative endeavours.

I had pitched this story idea to The Ukrainian Weekly, and wrote it but it never ran, as we know that everyone is very closely following events in Ukraine.

From Saturday December 11th @ 9am EST until Friday December 17th, 9pm EST his one person play will be available on his YouTube channel for free: https://bit.ly/3oy0tvO . The trailer is already available on his Facebook [ www.facebook.com/norman.nawrocki ] and YouTube pages.

Learning More About Nawrocki

I contacted Nawrocki to learn a little more about him, his rediscovery of his Ukrainian heritage, his creative process, accolades and the intrinsic reason of why he wrote this play, the music and performed together with his sister Vivian.

Uamuzik: Norman, you and I met many years ago before Ukraine's independence. We often discussed some of our personal histories, though at the time I believe you had really only started to discover your roots. When and how did it all begin?

As a child, I learned that I was Ukrainian (and Polish), but that I should never speak about it because I might be discriminated against. This had been the experience of my mother growing up Ukrainian-Canadian in Manitoba. So, I hid my Ukrainian self, and only explored it on annual family visits with my mother’s family in rural western Manitoba. This had been the experience of my mother growing up Ukrainian-Canadian in Manitoba. So, I hid my Ukrainian self, and only explored it on annual family visits with my mother’s family in rural western Manitoba.

We were never part of the ‘Ukrainian’ community growing up in Vancouver; only our so very distant Manitoba family one. We were never encouraged to learn or speak Ukrainian, because it was considered more important for us to simply blend in and be accepted by ‘white people, the English,’ as my mom would say.

Many, many years later, I realized it was time for me to honour my culture, to honour my family, and to honour myself by exploring my Ukrainian roots. This was prompted by music – re-discovering the Ukrainian-Canadian music I had grown up with as a child, hearing at Manitoba family functions and occasionally sung and played at home by my Mom. By 1985, I had formed a ‘cabaret rock ’n roll' band in Montreal. As a violinist, I wanted to learn how to play this crazy, wild, magical Ukrainian folk music that was buried somewhere deep inside me. Melodies that would play in my head. Tunes that I knew but didn’t know. I started to dig out old family LPs, I transcribed the music, and learned how to play Kolomeykas, Arkan and more. And I realized, this was a big part of who I was.

I wanted to know more. So I started doing the research, interviewing family members, reading about Ukrainians in Canada, Ukrainian history. I visited the Ukrainian gifts and books shop on Boulevard St-Laurent in Montreal, buying bargain old LPs, newer cassettes, and even Ukrainian plates and bowls to place on my kitchen table. I had none of this stuff growing up.

Norman and his sister Vivian Nawrocki,
in Vancouver, BC.

PHOTO CREDIT: a passing stranger :)

I learned the music, shared it with my band members, and we recorded it, released it, and toured Canada, the US and Europe with it, and met people who wanted to know, ‘what is this crazy, wild, totally dance-able music you are playing for us, we love it!’ We played it in Montreal for St-Jean Baptiste Day celebrations, and local Quebecois people went nuts over it, demanding more.

I kept reading: ‘Men in Sheepskin Coats;’ ‘The Ukrainians in Manitoba;’ ‘The Ukrainian Canadians, A History;’ Ivan Franko’s short stories, etc.

This rediscovering my roots process continues to today, 2021.

Uamuzik: Your works are base on a great deal of personal experience, reflection and contemplation. What drives your process?

I want to know more and I want to share what I know, what I consider significant, valuable, worth knowing, with others. If I decide to do a play based in history, I do a lot of background research, online, library books, interviews with those who know more. Once I have all the facts, I pour them into the sifter/blender and push the start button. I attempt to discover the focal point, the essence, the core spirit for the work, and do the ‘onion thing,’ but backwards: I construct the onion from the centre out, adding layers, but being selective: this is creative, this is engaging, this belongs, fits in this piece. This doesn’t. This can be discarded or set aside for a future longer work. This has to go back into the blender, and be reconsidered.

I fill notebooks with ideas, lines, visions, then review, review, review, write, write and re-write.

The script for my current Banff play, for example, has gone through about 20 revisions, 20 versions easily, maybe more.

Uamuzik: How do you react to commentary of Canadian playwrights like David Fennario about your earlier productions?

It is so heartwarming, so gratifying, so humbling to hear someone like the great Canadian playwright, David Fennario, praise my work. Even more humbling when he follows that up asking me to act in one of his plays! I was thrilled to read his comments. I am such a scattered artist – I do many things – I write, I compose, play & record music, I act, I publish poetry, short stories, a novel, I produce shows, I tour with my work – I am a bit of this, a bit of that. Someone like David is an accomplished playwright. I’m a guy who likes to write, perform and produce plays. So when someone of his stature says something about my work, it’s inspiring, really inspiring. But it’s also equally heartwarming to hear the words of others in the audiences, of people I don’t even know who thank me for sharing the stories, the history they never heard of, never learned in school.

Uamuzik: As a story teller I am always fascinated by the process of others. When you uncovered this personal history, how did it hit you?

It hit me in the gut: three possibly distant family members were imprisoned and forced to do slave labour by Canada simply because they were poor, unemployed and Ukrainian? Like WTF? I had heard so many stories growing up about the endless prejudice, discrimination and outright racism that older family members endured when they came to Canada and tried to "fit in,” to just lead ordinary lives like other Canadians. I heard about the jokes, the slurs, the second class treatment on the job, if they could get a job, the attempts to change their accents, their names, their way of being to try to be more ‘white, more English,’ knowing they could never wash out the ‘Bohunk’ tattooed onto their skin, their tongues, their mannerisms, their way of living.

I heard about my relatives always dealing with lying, cheating, abusive bosses, because they were considered ‘just dumb Ukrainians,’ good for nothing but hard labour, always underpaid.

I heard about these forced labour camps, about being forced to report to the Mounties.

So I did the research and uncovered the truths, the hidden history, the repressed stories, the pain and suffering that my own family members lived with, and now, these distant family members probably suffered as well, only it was more intense behind the barbed wire prisons for them.

It made me sad and angry, but also inspired me to tell their stories, to tell this story as best I could with the means I have : words, music, theatre, visuals. I wanted to honour their memories, their struggles, their hopes and dreams for a better life. This was what my ancestors always wanted when they came to Canada, it’s why they came here, like so many other immigrants, yesterday and today: for a better life. They didn’t deserved to be treated like dogs. None of them.

Rainy Lake to Kakabeka Falls - Then On to Dorion, Ontario - 35 years ago last week

2021-07-13T21:00:00.005+03:00

On Sunday July 6, 1986 we were up pretty early: 5:30 was early by the standards of this trip. The next two days would be very full on this part of the Trans Canada Highway as we mad our way from Rainy Lake to Kakabeka Falls our our next designated rest spot. Oddly enough all we had for breakfast that day was bread and we were on the road by 6:50, peddling our way eastward on Ontario Highway 11. Though it really wasn’t breakfast it was just something to fill the void we were feeling in our stomachs.

Just East of Rainy River, Ontario

About 22 kilometres down the road from where we had rested we came a little town by the name of Emo. There was nothing particular about that town that I made note of in my travel log, though we did stop there for a complete breakfast. Once again I delve into the annals of Wikipedia in order to flush out my tale of 35 years ago. “Emo was officially created on July 1, 1899, and celebrated its centennial in 1999. Emo's first reeve was Alexander Luttrell, an Irishman who named the town after a namesake village in Ireland near where he was born.” Apparently the town is now famous for two things: its stock car races and its Emo Walleye Classic a catch and release fishing tournament; when we were passing through Emo the second of its claims to fame didn't exist. The tournament was about 18 years away from being born, while the stock car races came into being some 32 years before we were going through that little town.

In retrospect it seems odd that all I write about is food and when we stop for food. Two entries in a row are about eating in Fort Frances and then stopping Emo and then stopping for lunch. It was really only about 35 kilometres down the road from Emo. How we had gotten so hungry in say the two to two and a half hours we had possibly ridden that morning is a mystery. How we had gotten so hungry in say the two to two and a half hours we had possibly ridden that morning is a mystery.

It was in this Ontario-Minnesota border town, just across the Rainy River lies International Falls Minnesota, oddly enough there are no falls so what were the founders of that community drinking? However, there is a hydro-electric power station located there to harness the power of the Rainy River. It was just outside of Fort Frances that we met two older men on motorcycles from a place called Togo, Saskatchewan. Thirty-five years ago that little town had a population of 186 people, so these two guys must have known pretty well everyone. From Wikipedia I gleaned the following information: “Togo incorporated as a village on September 4, 1906.[3] This village was founded after the Japanese had won several victories in the war against Russia (Russo-Japanese War 1904–05). Britain was allied with Japan in this war and Japan was a very popular nation throughout the British Empire. Three towns in Saskatchewan along the CN line (Togo, Kuroki, Mikado),[4] a regional park (Oyama),[5] and CN Siding (Fukushiama)[6] were named in honour of Japanese achievements in this war.”

Crossing Rainy Lake

We didn’t scoff down food in Fort Frances, which lies on the Canadian side of the Rainy River separating Minnesota and Ontario, proper but somewhere a little further up the road where we could see Rainy Lake proper, probably some six kilometres further eastward. It was quite the impressive body of water with a surface area of 932 km2 . And no, it wasn’t something healthy that we scoffed down, but something these guys from Togo were calling dog hots. Yes, you read that right and it’s not to be confused as being the Togolese Republic wedged between Ghana on its west and Benin on its east, though it was two older guys from Togo Saskatchewan mentioned above. However; there is in fact is an area in the Sudbury District of Ontario and falls between Ontario Highway 144 to the west and southward to Sudbury from Timmins and Highway 11 to the east as it runs from Matheson to North Bay, Ontario We thought it must have been some strange local dialect or just some strange form of oral dyslexia.

Avocado, Mushroom, Pepper and Tomato Salad

2021-01-25T20:16:00.000+02:00

A while ago I was missing cucumber so I decided to add two different ingredients: avocado and mushrooms. This turned into what I now call an Avocado, Mushroom, Pepper and Tomato Salad. In fact I decided to only use pepper, tomato and the three base things I use when I start. They are balsamic vinegar, olive oil and sunflower seeds. There were also three new things I combined for this new salad. They were an avocado and two types of mushrooms.

AMPT Salad plated w/ Pork Loin Chop
Ingredients

Avocado, one small ( 72 g )

Balsamic Vinegar, One Table Spoon ( 16 g )

Olive Oil, One Table Spoon ( 13.3 g )

Oyster Mushrooms dried ( 7 g )

Red Sweet Pepper, medium size ( 100 g )

Shiitake Mushrooms dried ( 7 g )

Tomatoes, Two small ( 105 g )

Putting it Together

As mention above, I start all the salads I make with three main ingredients: Balsamic Vinegar, Olive Oil and Sunflower Seeds. Over time I've learnt that if I put in all of these ingredients in the same mixing vessel and stir all these together the sunflower seeds themselves get coated in the mixture. In doing so they have a propensity to stick as individual seeds to the other ingredients that are added.

In this case I was adding two new ingredients in the form of avocado and mushrooms. When I was young and used to go foraging for mushrooms with my father. Some of those mushrooms he would pickle, while there were others that he used to dry. I can't remember nor did I ever learn what the different types of mushrooms were called when I was young. However, when I ended up on ground in Ukraine for over ten years, that changed.

On occasion when I was in my paternal village I would go out foraging for mushrooms with my cousin. I have a pretty good memory of things I've seen and realized that the mushrooms that my father primarily dried were oyster mushrooms. So when I was at the local grocer's I decided to pick up a few packages of dried mushrooms, hence the reason I added mushrooms to my new salad that morning.

Dried mushrooms quite literally taste like dirt, so one of the first things you do is to put your mushrooms in a bowl and re-hydrate them with some boiling water. The fungi will quickly soak up the water like a sponge and by the time you have cut up your avocado, pepper and tomato, they will be almost look like fresh mushrooms you just came back from the forest with.

Cut both your avocado, pepper and tomato into pieces of about one centimetre cubed. Mix these into the balsamic vinegar, olive oil and sunflower seeds. What I like to do with salads is mix them in a container that one can put a lid on to really shake things up. I found that this works quite well when I'm putting avocado into a salad. When you mix it up, the avocado breaks down a little and the pieces mix in with the base fluids, plus the seeds and fluid of the tomatoes also do the same.

Before doing this check and see if your mushrooms are well re-hydrated. Strain off the water and add your mushrooms to your container for the big shake. Once that's done, its ready to plate.

That amount of ingredients included above will be enough to make two nice sized salads as a nice side dish for any meal. The mushrooms add a nice texture to the other ingredients. to any meal.

Vasyl Pawlowsky

Independent Consultant

Who Loves to Cook

Destruction of Culture: The Little-known Murder of Mykola Leontovych

2021-01-23T10:00:00.075+02:00

Today is a day of historical significance for Ukrainians and the music world, though few people know of the murder of Mykola Leontovych, composer of  "Carol of the Bells".

This morning a saw a post by my friend Tina Peresunko, author and curator of a project called "Світовий тріумф "Щедрика" - 100 років культурної дипломатії України" - "The World Triumph of 
"Shchedryk" - 100 Years of Cultural Diplomacy of Ukraine" 

Shortly after I shared it with friends I received a hint from my friend Olesya Sokalska in Ukrainian, "This should be in English!" So that was my project for this morning. Below is Tina's original post with some additions for clarification for those with little background knowledge of Ukraine's geography or history.

Shchedryk became what we know in North America as "Carol of the Bells" with the lyrics written by Peter J. Wilhousky. 

Myklola Leontovych in His Youth
Exactly 100 years ago today at seven in the morning on January 23, 1921 Ukrainians lost one of their bright stars. A shot from a rifle, and a Russian agent of the Cheka killed composer Mykola Leontovych. He bled out on the couch in his parent’s home in the village of Markivka which had historically been known as the Podilia region of South Western Ukraine, currently Vinnytsia oblast.

On the same day, January 23, 1921, in Paris at the famous Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Leontovych's works were met with the applause of the French aristocracy. In fact this happened just few hours after the tragedy in Markivka (that day the concert of the Ukrainian People Republic’s Capella was a Matinée).

"The perfection is indescribable ... I lack words," the Parisian newspaper “La Presse” wrote the same day.

"This is one of the most interesting events in Paris today," says the “Journal Des Debats”.

"This choir is one of the most interesting phenomena. I even dare to say - the best thing I've ever heard in my life, listening day to day to the plays I'm writing about," admitted the music critic of "L'Homme Libre".

"It's as if the people themselves are expressing themselves. It's as if he's speaking to our people," concluded “L'Humanité”.

However, none of the politicians in Paris listened to the delicate and unobtrusive, musical speech of Ukrainians. The Entente did not support Ukraine's independence. The Ukrainian People's Republic 
The Sofa Upon Which Leontovych Died, 
Leontovych Museum, Markivka

(hereafter UPR) was occupied by the Russian Bolsheviks, who immediately began purging culturally and politically conscious Ukrainians.

Among them was the genius of a composer, the author of “Shchedryk", who had been a former government official of the Ministry of Education and Arts of the UPR, a figure of the Ukrainian autocephalous church movement, and the author of the first Ukrainian-language Liturgy.

The period of triumphs for the UPR Cappella, which lasted from 1919 through 1921 in 10 countries of Western Europe, was an impoverished one in the life of Mykola Leontovych.

"There was not enough food for the family, there were no clothes," wrote Vinnytsia musicologist Anatoliy Zavalnyuk in a monograph on Leontovych.

The composer's daughter Olha also recalled that period: "My parents often sent me to visit my grandfather in Markivka on various religious holidays, hoping that when I returned I would bring some food."

After Koshetz’s choir left Kyiv to tour Europe, Leontovych returned from the capital to Vinnytsia. (He had worked with Koshetz in the music department of the Ministry of Culture of the UPR). 

Yakiv Yastrubetsky recalled that in November 1919 he walked from Kyiv to Tulchyn (about 350 km): "In the autumn of November 1919, Mykola Dmytrovych [Leontovych’s patronymic], in a graceful summer jacket on his shoulders and a clumsy hat, completely exhausted and cold, came on foot from Kyiv to Tulchyn and settled here again."

However, it was at this time, in November 1919, when the first premiere of his "Shchedryk" took place in Paris.

“This is a tour of patriotic and musical propaganda, which the President of the young Ukrainian Republic has prepared for France.” Wrote Paris music critic Louis Schneider about Simon Petliura's music-diplomatic project in “The New-York Herald” on November 9, 1919. “In the Ukrainian’s repertoire we liked the gradation of motives, their characteristic Orientalism, as well as the explosions of sincere merriment, especially in "Shchedryk" - a song that begins with a sudden attack, and in which the effects of truly wonderful humour are formed by simple gradation of voices.”

The Ukrainian concerts, which were supposed to raise the prestige of Ukraine in the eyes of the Western world, became the №1 events in the musical life of Europe.

There is an uncountable amount of evidence regarding this. And even more evidence - on the genius of Leontovych. His "Shchedryk" received great acclamation in Vienna, Prague, London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Geneva and Warsaw. In all - 45 cities in 10 countries of Western Europe.

For example, the London newspaper “The Daily News and Leader” wrote on February 4, 1920: “Many songs were performed in the encore - almost all them. Among the most original and beautiful are "Shchedryk" and "Oh there, beyond the mountain" - both created by Leontovych.”

The Belgian newspaper “Le XX Siècle” reported on January 10, 1920, a day after its Ukrainian premiere at the La Monet Opera House: "It's worth mentioning, because this is a magically sung masterpiece of folk art -"Shchedryk"arranged by Leontovych. The audience greeted him with a standing ovation, enthusiastically calling for an encore."

The Barcelona edition of “Das Noticias” wrote after its Ukrainian premiere in Spain on January 29, 1921: "The audience said that they liked Leontovych's arrangements the most, which they often called for an encore."

"This Ukrainian hashish is the sweetest of poisons," said German professor Pavel Zaytsev, regarding Leontovych's "Shchedryk" tothe UPR's chief arts officer, during a concert in Berlin.

And so forth.

The choristers themselves testified to the triumph of Leontovych's works at the concerts of the UPR Cappella.

Levko Bezruchko recalls the premiere in Paris on November 6, 1919: "In the second part of the concert we sang "Shchedryk"(Leontovych) for the encore, and in the third part -"Oy, pryadu, pryadu" (Leontovych).

"Leontovych's"Shchedryk" and Leontovych's "Oy pryadu, pryadu" created a sensation,” wrote a travel magazine about the choir’s concert in Bordeaux.

Shchedryk received the most calls for encores in the Netherlands.

Sofiya Kolodiyivna recalled theconcerts in The Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam

- The audience welcomes us warmly, we sing "Shchedryk" as an encore(Rotterdam, Doelen Zaal, January 19, 1920);

- We sang “Shchedryk” and “Open’ky” as encores (The Hague, Koninklijke Schouwburg, January 22, 1920);

- The concert is attended by reviewers of all the Amsterdam periodicals. We sang "Shchedryk" for the encore"(Amsterdam, Hollandsche Schouwburg, January 24, 1920;

- We sang well, with spirit. As an encore we sang Leontovych’s “Shchedryk” (The Hague, Dierenfuju, January 25, 1920).

In January of 1921, the Ukrainian Republican Capella received their last quota of state funding. With their last hopes, the choristers traveled to Paris.

On January 20, 1921, their concert was attended by the famous French (formerly American, as her citizenship had been revoked for her politics) ballerina Isadora Duncan, who wrote in the Capella’s guest book: "BRAVO !!!". General Maurice Pele of the French army also signed the book.

"It seems that the great hall of the Théâtre Des Champs-Elysées has been turned into a temple," wrote the famous French critic Louis Laloy on January 23, 1921, in the newspaper “La Soireé”. - “It is strange that the organ does not play upstairs. The gathering of"the faithful" takes place during the intermission… Mr. Jean Perrier speaks with admiration about these passionate and so majestically set voices. Ms. Isadora Duncan and a group of young people are dressed today as an elegant Parisian woman who surprises "neophytes". The atmosphere is intimate and nice. Director Jacques Hébertot shakes hands with his friends. All those who did not go to "The Bat" [Die Fledermaus, Johann Strauss II] gathered here. "

While the Parisian press publishes these words, Leontovych is being killed in Markivka. In Paris, no one knows that the author of their favourite works - "Shchedryk", "Pryali", "Pochayiv Mother of God", "Oh there, beyond the mountain" is no longer.

And does anyone care?

The last meeting with Leontovych is mentioned by his colleague from the diocesan school and music teacher Yakim Hrekh:

"It was after Christmas 1921. I was very surprised to see Leontovych walking towards me in the
yard. He was dressed in an old coat, on his head he had an original hat, which was sewn for him by his wife from an old blanket. He was wearing mittens (also his wife's work) and grey-black trousers with large purple patches. And he carried a large handkerchief tied tied to a stick with a gift for me - cakes. Visually he appeared to be a homeless traveler, starving, but in no way Leontovych…”

Such was the composer shortly before his death.
Leontovych's Grave and Memorial,
Village of Markivka, Ukraine

At this time he was writing his opera "On the Mermaid's Easter." An opera that, after the presentation of Ukrainian folklore, which so impressed Europe, could raise the bar of Ukrainian musical culture even more.

And Ukraine as a state.

However, he never finished the opera.

Vasyl Pawlowsky 
Independent Consultant

TMZ: Tomatoes, Mung Bean Sprouts and Zucchini

2020-12-10T13:27:00.000+02:00

TMZ is one of my little kitchen conjurings which includes tomatoes, sprouted mung beans and zucchini. Many are probably wondering: “What to hell are mung beans?” Well if you have ever purchased spouts to make chop suey and home, you’ve been eating sprouted mung beans, and you probably didn’t even know it.

Back Story

Practically everything I dream up personally in my kitchen is in order to eat food that is good for me, nutritious and tasty. While this is a stretch, how I came across the idea for using sprouts in my cooking, came about due to the fact that many friends in Ukraine were constantly posting pictures of their mushroom foraging outings. They were making me jealous and I decided to go to a site I had bookmarked many years ago. It was site where you could purchase your own DIY home mushroom kit.

While poking around the site I came across a number of different videos about sprouting. Thus the exploratory adventure began to learn more about how to sprout seeds for human consumption, and the benefits of eating sprouts. I will include more about that in a subsequent post. Within this recipe I will also include the ingredients for a spice mix I like to use in a number of different ways. Primarily I use to dredge some of the meats I like to prepare either on top of the stove in my cast iron pan, or in the oven. Though I like that mixture and the flavour it provides so I’ve started using in a variety of things I prepare.

Ingredients

One-half (1/2) teaspoon allspice

One-half (1/2) teaspoon finely ground black pepper

One-half (1/2) teaspoon finely ground cumin

One-half (1/2) teaspoon finely ground turmeric

One (1) teaspoon ground flax seed (can be purchased ground, I prefer to grind my own)

One and half (1 ½) cups of mung bean sprouts

Two medium sized tomatoes

Two small zucchini

Two table spoons, Virgin Olive Oil

Vessel

One six-inch cast iron frying pan (a personal favourite cooking tool of mine)

Putting it Together

This has to be one of my simplest recipes that can be put together quite quickly, when you have all the ingredients and have prepped them. Slice your tomatoes into pieces, the fluids of the tomatoes add to the overall cooking process. Slice your zucchini into pieces from three to five mm thick. Pour two tables spoons of olive oil into your pan and add all your ingredients to the pan.

The temperature you cook this meal at is not critical, though you do want to make sure all your ingredients are cooked. You will be able to determine this when you notice that most of your tomatoes have broken down, your bean sprouts have softened up and your zucchini slices have become almost translucent.

It is at this point that I add the spices and mix everything around making cure that all your vegetables are well coated in the mixture. Once this is don let everything simmer a a low temperature with something covering the pan. The reason to do this is to allow the fluids from the vegetables, which are significant in tomatoes and zucchini, to not evaporate into your kitchen, but to condense on the cover and be returned into the cooking process.

The reason to do this is to allow the fluids from the vegetables, which are significant in tomatoes and zucchini, to not evaporate into your kitchen, but to condense on the cover and be returned into the cooking process. Benefits This dish is low calorie and high in protein and many different nutrients. Recently, during this crazy pandemic and self-isolation, I’ve been revisiting many different books in my library. Particularly, those that can help me better understand the foods I eat.

In one of the books, The Ripple Effect: Sleep Better, Eat Better, Move Better, Think Better, by Dr. Greg Wells I learnt the following. In order to get the most bang per calorie buck I would have to optimize the nutrient-to-calorie ratio in the foods I eat. On the same page I came across an interesting formula: “H = N/C, which translates as health = nutrients per calorie consumed.” This was derived by Dr. Wells from a book by Dr. Joel Furhman entitled Eat to Live.

Dr. Furhman has developed something he calls the ANDI, which translates to mean: aggregate nutrient density index. While, I haven't used it in the past I will use it as a cheat sheet in making my choice of foods when in doubt, about my food selection.

In a snap shot this is what TMZ looks like. However, please note that this familiar “Nutritional Facts” label and the % Daily Value has been calculated for my personal weight. I weigh 121 kg, so I’m pretty certain if you weigh less, these values will be higher for you personally.

Though we can even dig a lot deeper into what this meal is comprised of using tools available in this day and age on the Internet. Below, is an extremely detailed nutritional analysis of what I call TMZ.

Nutrient	Mung bean sprouted	Zucchini	Tomatoes
Weight	310.5 g	392 g	246 g
Calories	93.15	82.32	44.28
Vitamins
Choline	44.7 mg		16.5 mg
Folate	189.41 mcg	78.4 mcg	36.9 mcg
Folic acid	0 mcg	0 mcg	0 mcg
Niacin	2.326 mg	2.764 mg	1.461 mg
Pantothenic acid	1.18 mg	1.439 mg
Riboflavin	0.385 mg	0.141 mg	0.047 mg
Thiamin	0.261 mg	0.165 mg	0.091 mg
Vitamin A	65.2 IU	1920.8 IU
Vitamin A, RAE	3.1 mcg	98 mcg	103.32 mcg
Carotene, alpha	18.63 mcg		248.46 mcg
Carotene, beta	18.63 mcg		1104.54 mcg
Cryptoxanthin, beta	18.63 mcg		0 mcg
Lutein + zeaxanthin	0 mcg		302.58 mcg
Lycopene	0 mcg		6329.58 mcg
Vitamin B12	0 mcg	0 mcg	0 mcg
Vitamin B12, added	0 mcg		0 mcg
Vitamin B6	0.273 mg	0.557 mg	0.197 mg
Vitamin C	41 mg	133.7 mg	33.7 mg
Vitamin D	0 mcg	0 mcg	0 mcg
Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol)	0.31 mg		1.33 mg
Vitamin E, added	0 mg		0 mg
Vitamin K	102.5 mcg		19.4 mcg
Minerals
Calcium, Ca	40.37 mg	82.32 mg	24.6 mg
Copper, Cu	0.509 mg	0.38 mg	0.145 mg
Iron, Fe	2.83 mg	3.1 mg	0.66 mg
Magnesium, Mg	65.2 mg	129.36 mg	27.06 mg
Manganese, Mn	0.584 mg	0.768 mg
Phosphorus, P	167.67 mg	364.56 mg	59.04 mg
Potassium, K	462.64 mg	1799.28 mg	583.02 mg
Selenium, Se	1.9 mcg	1.2 mcg	0 mcg
Sodium, Na	18.63 mg	11.76 mg	12.3 mg
Zinc, Zn	1.27 mg	3.25 mg	0.42 mg
Proteins
Protein	9.44 g	10.62 g	2.16 g
Alanine	0.307 g	0.557 g
Arginine	0.612 g	0.451 g
Aspartic acid	1.487 g	1.301 g
Cystine	0.053 g	0.114 g
Glutamic acid	0.5 g	1.141 g
Glycine	0.196 g	0.404 g
Histidine	0.217 g	0.231 g
Isoleucine	0.41 g	0.384 g
Leucine	0.543 g	0.623 g
Lysine	0.515 g	0.592 g
Methionine	0.106 g	0.153 g
Phenylalanine	0.363 g	0.376 g
Proline		0.333 g
Serine	0.102 g	0.435 g
Threonine	0.242 g	0.259 g
Tryptophan	0.115 g	0.094 g
Tyrosine	0.161 g	0.286 g
Valine	0.404 g	0.482 g
Fats
Fat	0.56 g	1.57 g	0.49 g
Saturated fatty acids	0.143 g	0.325 g	0.069 g
Butanoic acid	0 g		0 g
Decanoic acid	0 g		0 g
Dodecanoic acid	0 g	0.012 g	0 g
Hexadecanoic acid	0.099 g	0.278 g	0.049 g
Hexanoic acid	0 g		0 g
Octadecanoic acid	0.025 g	0.035 g	0.02 g
Octanoic acid	0 g		0 g
Tetradecanoic acid	0 g		0 g
Monounsaturated fatty acids	0.068 g	0.122 g	0.076 g
Docosenoic acid	0 g		0 g
Eicosenoic acid	0 g		0 g
Hexadecenoic acid	0 g	0.012 g	0.002 g
Octadecenoic acid	0.068 g	0.114 g	0.074 g
Polyunsaturated fatty acids	0.18 g	0.662 g	0.204 g
Eicosatetraenoic acid	0 g		0 g
Octadecadienoic acid	0.13 g	0.247 g	0.197 g
Octadecatetraenoic acid	0 g		0 g
Octadecatrienoic acid	0.05 g	0.416 g	0.007 g
Fatty acids, total trans	0 g	0 g
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrate	18.44 g	12.19 g	9.57 g
Fiber	5.6 g	4.3 g	3 g
Sugars	12.82 g		6.47 g
Sterols
Cholesterol	0 mg	0 mg	0 mg
Phytosterols	46.58 mg
Other
Alcohol, ethyl	0 g		0 g
Ash	1.37 g	4.12 g
Caffeine	0 mg		0 mg
Docosahexaenoic n-3 acid (DHA)	0 g		0 g
Docosapentaenoic n-3 acid (DPA)	0 g		0 g
Eicosapentaenoic n-3 acid (EPA)	0 g		0 g
Theobromine	0 mg		0 mg
Tocopherol, alpha	0.31 mg		1.33 mg
Vitamin D (D2 + D3), International Units	0 IU	0 IU
Water	280.69 g	363.5 g	232.52 g

So now you have the complete run down on what is in TMZ. My post on sprouting will be out shortly.

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

I've got the pickling bug. Now it's Red Pickled Garlic

2020-11-04T01:07:00.003+02:00

More pickling because it seems I have caught the pickling bug! I’ve moved on to something else to pickle. It's garlic and I call my recipe Red Pickled Garlic. Those who have read my previous recipes I laid out some of the principles I work by in my recipe for Crunchy Hot Beets. One of those principles is to reuse something I’ve already made previously in concocting some new edible dish. Well I at least hope that turns out edible, though having started cooking when I was first taught to make crepes by my father when I was nine years old, I’ve had about 49 years to figure out what works and what doesn’t. If you haven't figured out why I call this recipe Red Pickled Garlic, you soon will.

Ingredients

Garlic - between eight and ten cloves, it is dependent on their size;

Between 200-300 ml of the remaining pickling fluid from Crunchy Hot Beets, see that recipe to find out what’s in the pickling fluid, though making a fluid that will give you red garlic, is one extra step as you will have to clean and cook the beets in your pickling fluid

Pepper corns – one (1) teaspoon.

Vessel

One 250 ml preserve jar with lid

Putting it Together

The 250 ml preserve jar will be your basic measure to determine how much garlic you will need.

To estimate how many cloves you will need before you peel and quarter your cloves, separate the cloves from the bulb and place them one at a time into your vessel of garlic you will want to leave about 1/2 cm to the top of your vessel so you will be able to complete submerge the garlic quarters in the pickling fluid. If you have not saved the fluid used to make the Crunchy Hot Beets, you can still pickle your garlic, though you won’t end up with red garlic quarters, they will simply be white. When making that pickling fluid, it would be your option as to whether you want to include any crushed dry chili peppers.

While you are peeling and quartering your garlic cloves, you could start heating your pickling fluid in a small pot of sauce pan. Over the years, particularly when preparing dinner for friends I’ve come to understand that timing things well, is sometimes critical to the end result, though in this case it is just a matter of practicality.

As you get about three quarters of cleaning and quartering your cloves, bring the fluid you saved, along with the peppercorns to a boil. (If you had to make your picking fluid from scratch the whole process will take longer – this is one of the reasons I like to save things that can be reused)

Once you’ve peeled and quartered your cloves of garlic, place them in heat tolerant mixing bowl or measuring cup.

When your fluid comes to a boil you are going to pour it over your quartered cloves of garlic. Let the mixture stand until it comes down to room temperature.

Pass the mixture through a strainer while saving the fluid in another container. Spoon the garlic and peppercorns, and possible any pieces of the chili papers that are still around into your 250 ml preserve jar. Top the solids off with the saved fluid. Seal the tops and but your jar in the refrigerator for three to five days.

Uses

My original intent for picking garlic was to either add to salads or stir fried vegetables to add a little bite. Or to just have something as a condiment for things like beef, chicken, fish or pork. Though being Ukrainian, I’m accustomed to garlic and sometimes it’s just something tasty to nibble on, though garlic is a little milder when pickled.

Beautiful Red Pickled Garlic With Peppercorns

Benefits

Aside from really giving you unpleasant breath, pickled garlic is much more mellow than raw garlic; however, some of the positive health benefits may also be reduced when the garlic is cooked in the pickling fluid, given we know that there is loss of vitamins and minerals in the cooking of other vegetables.

Here are some of health benefits of raw garlic. Health Line lists eleven benefits, touching on many different aspects of human health. Their list is as follows:

Garlic Contains Compounds With Potent Medicinal Properties;
Garlic Is Highly Nutritious But Has Very Few Calories;
Garlic Can Combat Sickness, Including the Common Cold;
The Active Compounds in Garlic Can Reduce Blood Pressure;
Garlic Improves Cholesterol Levels, Which May Lower the Risk of Heart Disease;
Garlic Contains Antioxidants That May Help Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia;
Garlic May Help You Live Longer;
Athletic Performance Might Be Improved With Garlic Supplements;
Eating Garlic May Help Detoxify Heavy Metals in the Body;
Garlic May Improve Bone Health;
Garlic Is Easy to Include in Your Diet and Tastes Absolutely Delicious.

Similarly, Medical News Today also has a list, though it lists only ten health benefits for garlic; however, it includes more specific information regarding research that has been conducted regarding the health benefits of garlic. As I librarian/information specialist by training I found the piece in Medical News Today to be more informative. You can check it out here.

Vasyl Pawlowsky

Independent Consultant

Crunchy Hot Beets

2020-10-22T15:01:00.006+03:00

Foreword:

Living alone I have no need to be making huge batches of anything let alone these crunchy hot beets and given that I enjoy cooking and find it therapeutic, I’m not extremely anal when it comes to measuring portions. I also work with what I have at hand. For example in this recipe I had to know that I had the vessels to use. In short, when I cook I’m flying by the seat of my pants. So knowing that I had
five or six 250 ml preserve jars I decided on the amount of ingredients as I went along.

Ingredients:

Beets, about 1 litre

Chili peppers dried – 4 broken

Garlic – six cloves, I’ve come to love pink or Lautrec Garlic

Vinegar – Plain white or Apple Cider 300 ml

Water – 1 (one) litre

Vessels

Five (5) 250 ml preserve jars with lids

Putting it Together

Into one large measuring cup, mine is two litres, place the prepared ingredient’s below.

Peel and cut your beets into coarse pieces with the largest possible size being a cube of about a centimetre. I do a mix of cubes and smaller strips, the smaller more easily become infused with the taste of the garlic and peppers.

Lautrec garlic mentioned above has a pink coloured outer skin and has a wonderful and rich flavour the first time I purchased this pink garlic was about this time last year and it had a providence of Spain. Over the summer I found locally produced pink garlic, and while it is a little more expensive it’s definitely worth every penny. Clean six cloves, and cut them into coarse pieces. One such pink clove should render you about a dozen wonderful small chunks.

Mix the beets and the garlic well in order to make the distribution of the garlic pieces as equal as possible.

Mix the water, vinegar and crushed chili peppers in a pot, and bring this mixture to a boil.

Pour the boiling concoction over your beets and garlic. Cover it with a kitchen towel and let the mixture return to room temperature.

Empty the mixture through strainer and ensure to preserve the liquid in another vessel.

Spoon your beets, chili pepper and garlic pieces into your containers, in equal portions. In my case I filled five (5) 250 ml glass containers with the mixture.

Top off each of your containers with the fluid you saved.

Close your containers and put them in the fridge for at least a day. I’m experiment but these portions should keep for up to two weeks without any problems if refrigerated, though they may keep longer.

Health Benefits

This little concoction contains a great deal of positive. The beets here remain primarily in a raw form and raw beets contain more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants than cooked beets. Here I will just send you to our wonderful free encyclopedia.

Then there is the garlic... which for many cultures is used in the culinary process...Here is where you can learn more about the wonderful bulb.

Recycle, Re-purpose, Re-use

Not long ago I poached eggs for the first time in my life. In the household I grew up in we had three types of eggs: boiled, fried and scrambled. I went on to make omelettes with a variety of ingredients. My first poached eggs were just a short while ago. Given that one of the magic ingredients in poaching eggs is vinegar, I'm thinking of using the fluids I have left over after I finish eating my crunchy hot beets. I will report back about that culinary experiment. I think a poached egg would look wonderful in red...

Vasyl Pawlowsky

Independent Consultant

Enemies Within Ukraine

2020-10-20T19:26:00.000+03:00

“With friends like that, who needs enemies?” A common adage that many have heard more than once when someone earlier considered a friend betrayed a person. The theme of treason has to be brought to the fore in contemporary Ukrainian society that has far too many enemies within. When the USSR began to crumble in the late 1980s and finally collapsed in 1991, there was a great deal of work Ukraine needed to do in order to ensure the transition from a command to market economy. That took much longer than it should have for many reasons, though there was even a more damning factor which retarded Ukraine’s development in my opinion. With Ukraine’s independence referendum on December 1, 1991 things took time to change, particularly the rewriting of the old laws of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Some of Ukraine’s first enemies within appeared in 1993 when the sitting Verkhovna Rada voted for Law Number 3623-12. In particular it was Paragraph 2, of Article 2, which reads: “A Deputy can be chosen by a citizen of Ukraine, who has the right to vote, and cannot be less that 25 years of age on the day of elections”. The stipulation to become a deputy under Soviet law was the age of majority, which in Ukraine is 18 years of age.

I consider those deputies and Leonid Kravchuk, president of the day, as enemies of Ukraine. In passing that law, they shut out the youth of Ukraine who had sacrificed their health and well being during the Revolution on Granite, which marked it’s 30th anniversary this year from October 2nd through 17th. What was Zelensky thinking on July 30th of this year when he appointed octogenarian Leonid Kravchuk, modern Ukraine’s first elected president, to be the head of the delegation of the Minsk Trilateral Contact Group on the peaceful settlement on the situation in Donbas.

I believe Zelensky seems to be out of touch with the realities of Ukraine and seems to have little respect for Ukrainians and Ukraine’s history. That lack of respect stems back to 2010, when his comedy program mockingly used the Holodomor in one of their sketches. The lack of empathy for this historic fact has often been ignored and dismissed by Zelensky and his team of his groomers have taught him how to skirt his past and act presidential. Unfortunately, there is nothing presidential about his behaviour and actions, nor is much respect shown for the Ukrainian language by his string of candidates running in local elections on October 25, 2020 from his Servant of the People’s party. Since the day of his inauguration, I’ve wondered, “Which people he and his party members are serving?”

Ignorance, Indifference and Disrespect

Billboard and election literature of many different the party’s candidates are fraught with Google Translate errors, and Russian-isms. Many of these errors are ones that Ukraine’s elementary school pupils could easily pick out and laugh at. In preparing their election campaign materials, candidates are required to follow the party’s brand book. This book acts as a guide for many things, from the colors they can or can not use to standard templates for all their published materials. However I wonder where’s the gray matter between the ears of the candidates when it comes to using language. A number of these cock-ups started appearing on social media quite regularly within hours after billboards appeared, and within days of the official start of the campaign on September 5, 2020.

The one that first caught my eye within the first two weeks of the election campaign was the campaign poster of a Servant of the People’s candidate running in the Obolon district of Kyiv, who took hyperbole to the level of absurdity. Yevheniy Vandin’s poster reads: “We will make Obolon the Capital of Kyiv.” So I wonder if Mr. Vandin even has a clue of the meaning of the word “capital”. The definition of the
word I know is as follows: “n. 1. The capital city of a country or town of a country, state, etc.; seat of government”. As journalist and popular Ukrainian blogger, Maria Madzigon said in a video on the same topic on October 15: “You should have attended your geography classes, Vandin Yevheniy!”

While the foolish mistakes by native Russian speakers is quite understandable, the error of their linguistic ways will clearly reveal to astute voters where their sympathies truly lie. However, when it comes to the former comedian Zelensky the language and form of address he used to the citizens of Ukraine is totally unacceptable. To readers who have studied languages other than English, I’m certain you are aware of the two different forms of the pronoun you. Ukrainian is one those languages that used the two different forms. The common form ty, which would be tu in French as an analogy, and the more formal form vy, or vous in French. Though this really wasn’t Zelensky’s fault – his fault in fact was that he was addressing more than one individual – the citizens of Ukraine and in doing so he should have used vy or in French this would be vous.

The address in question has to do with Zelensky’s way of obfuscating the real problems that Ukrainians should be asking their president right now and this is verbatim what he said, “Hello! Yes, yes, I am directly addressing you [in the singular form], on October 25th at the polls, I will be giving you five important questions. By the way what will be the questions, about this later.” By now citizens of Ukraine have heard these five questions that will be not part of the balloting process as Ukraine’s electoral law does not have a provision for carrying this out during elections. However, as explained by the Presidential Administration, the five questions will be posed to voters outside the polling stations by pollsters from a private polling firm. If so, to quote a post of a good friend mine, Oleksandr Chernenko’s [VRU member 2014-2019, political expert, journalist] Facebook page on October 13, 2020: “Why is the president involved in this at all? If the "poll" is a private initiative, then why does Zelensky announce it? If it is an initiative of the president, then which law or which article of the Constitution provides for such powers? After all, he, as an official, must act exclusively within his powers. Everything else is an abuse of power.”

Health issues at this time are a problem throughout Ukraine, and the questions that Zelensky had no damn business in stepping beyond his prescribed duties as the questions he has posed are nothing but a smoke screen for his administration’s incompetence and corruption. Of the the 65 billion hryvnia earmarked to fight the pandemic, 35 million of this was transferred to the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, for pet projects such as road construction, while the people of Ukraine suffer. According to the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine’s Corona epidemic monitoring system Ukraine has had 303,648 confirmed cases of the illness; 5,673 deaths; 126,489 recoveries; 171,476 existing and a suspicion of 373,276 illnesses [https://covid19.rnbo.gov.ua/].

Questions to Zelensky

A day after Chernenko’s statements of October 14, Madzigon addressed Zelensky’s use of language as I did above and she also pointed out to Zelensky, that in a democracy it is not the president who should be asking questions of the country’s citizens, but it is they who should be asking him the questions. With that as a prelude she began with addressing some extremely poignant questions, while also addressing Zelensky’s election campaign promises, most of which he has not even come close to accomplishing. Before I continue with some of the questions she posed, let me add this about democracy and democracy building, something I’ve been involved in for more than three decades. Democracy isn’t just about going to polling stations to exercise one’s franchise. Democracy is about holding those the electorate has voted for accountable for their actions or inaction. This is just what Madzigon does and I will for you touch on just a few of her questions and statements below:

• Why did it cost your administration 12 billion to construct 30 km of highway, while under Poroshenko that same money build 80 km. Thirty and eighty do you recognize the difference?;

• Why did you spend the money from the anti-Corona virus fund, from the anti-Corona virus fund not for a battle against the pandemic but for roads? It’s brilliant! [she says while clapping];

• Why under Zelensky, under you, has the clear cutting of forests increased seven-fold?

• Why was the law on land passed without going through a referendum?;

• Why did you? You promised us that you would do everything without nepotism, and more than thirty of your friends in some way received positions. How do you explain this?;

• Why out of all of Ukraine’s previous presidents do you have the largest motorcade of 52 cars. Think about it? Fifty-two. I'm already silent about twenty guards around;

• Why is Medvedchuk free? Why is Medvedchuk still free?;

• Why didn’t you declare five million in income? In general, this is a violation of the law, you yourself said that you would resign once you violated the law.

While we will never know what Zelensky’s response would be to these questions one thing is clear Madzigon’s video in English translation is called: “WHAT WAS THAT??? #fivequestions” and clearly she touched a nerve with at least 14K Facebook users sharing the video and 954 users making comments.

I’m sure readers can well imagine that how users would have responded in their comments. One comment was as follows: “It makes no sense to ask Zelensky questions, because we saw his inappropriate behavior, false primitive answers and hysterical laughter when he was asked questions by British journalist Stephen Sackur.” This is in reference to Zelensky’s interview on HARDtalk, during his state visit to the UK. Watch and see if you agree with the comment made by one of Madzigon’s followers.

There was one question she asked which touches a nerve in me more than any other. “Why is Medvedchuk still free?” Ukraine watchers who understand the notoriety of Viktor Medvedchuk in the case of dissident Vasyl Stus, who was sent to the Gulag never to return, may have the same sentiments that I have to the “great traitor”! Medvedchuk, in my opinion, was always a crony of the Soviet system, and clearly raised in the spirit of the Komsomol and the Communist Party. I can not remember where I may have either read or heard that as the Soviet Union was collapsing, there were orders from the Kremlin, that Komsomol members must find a way to create a niche in the new reality that was upon them. In short, this meant that they must pillage what they can in order to become wealthy and Medvedchuk did so in Ukraine, just like many of those mentioned in Chrystia Freeland’s book The Sale of the Century did in Russia in the early 1990s.

Then and Now: Medvedchuk vs Kipiani

While I’ve never met Viktor Medvedchuk, though his behavior in working close to Leonid Kuchma, never invoked any confidence that he was working for the good of Ukraine and its people. Both he and Kuchma ingratiated themselves through their official positions during Kuchma’s two consecutive terms in office. On the other hand, I met Vakhtang Kipiani in the summer of 2003 a number of months after he had become the host and editor-in-chief of a program called Podviyniy dokaz [Double proof] on the 1+1 television channel. We met at the Writers House at 2 Bankova in Kyiv, with a group of other Ukrainian journalists. At the time I was working in local print media, and as a foreign radio broadcaster for Ukrainian Time, the oldest Ukrainian-Canadian broadcast based out of Montreal. Though what really tied us together the most was our different types of involvement in the Revolution on Granite, in short we are both part of the same brotherhood. Since then I’ve been a friend of Kipiani’s and have followed him in his historical research particularly on the Istorychna Pravda [Historical Truth] website and most recently the YouTube channel of the same name.

In 2019, after a great deal of research Kipiani published a book on the entire legal procedures against Ukrainian dissident Vasyl Stus [1935-1985], in which Medvedchuk was supposed to be acting in Stus’ defense, though Stus refused his him as a lawyer, which was within his legal rights, though Medvedchuk continued to act as his public defender, against his client’s will.

Kipiani based his publication on archival material and presented facts. The complete title translated is as follows: Characteristics of the case of Vasyl Stus. Collection of documents from the archives of the former KGB of the USSR. Then the good old defender of Ukrainians Medvedchuk, got a little pissed and decide to take both Kipiani and his publisher, Vivat, to court in order to ban the books’ publication and distribution. In particular Medvedchuk took offense with one chapter of the book that he considered to degrade his honour and dignity.

On October 19, 2020 the Darnytsia District Court in Kyiv handed down their decision against Kipiani and his publisher Vivat, and the must cease publication and distribution of this book. The entire legal process has possibly backfired on the “great traitor”. The court decision had a definite impact on the sale of the book and it may just backfire on “enemy number one of Ukraine”. Kipiani wrote the following two significant comments on his Facebook page. During the afternoon he posted the following: “ I received 157 phone calls today. I didn't have time to react to the majority of them, I'm sorry. Four radio broadcasts plus three television interviews, plus a dozen comments for media. (It's hard to be a superstar, yeah) P.S. In the evening, Facebook also forbade me writing comments and replying in Messenger, because it thinks that I produce spam 😉. Thank you to everyone for their support. Hugs to you all. I love Ukraine.” About three hours later he posted the following: “More than a thousand people wrote to me in Messenger about the book. I managed to answer somewhere in the hundreds. After that, the system began to issue an explanation that in order to protect against spam, my ability to respond is suspended. Though they did not say for how long. It may be some type of beacon. But please be patient - I will answer everyone.”

While much of Medvedchuk’s position in “defending” Stus is in the past and when he was but 26 years old working in Soviet system, dealing with dissidents, few know that his father was considered a Nazi collaborator and maybe his motivation to collaborate with the KGB in order to pay back a debt to the Soviet. That aside. Let’s look at his current behavior and who he is.

At the current moment Medvedchuk leads a political party that calls itself the Opposition Platform – For Life. The history of this “platform” has been nothing but a manner of disrupting Ukraine’s democratic and economic development. I have no other word than “douche bag” for the members of this party that is in the pocket of the Kremlin. Let’s not forget that Putin is the “godfather” of Medvedchuk’s daughter, and this is the greatest form of nepotism.

A Possible Key Response

The following is what was reported by RFE/RL regarding the Presidential Administration’s response to the court decision:

"Most of the content of the book is an exact reprint of the criminal case. That is, the purely documentary basis of the book does not cause the slightest doubt. Thus, it is by this logic of the book that VV Medvedchuk is a participant in a real process that took place in history, and not just a "character of the work." The participant's behavior is analyzed solely on the basis of documented facts, which are not a product of the authors' literary work and literary fiction.”

At the moment it seems like an appropriate response from Zelensky’s administration, that still has many questions to answer. Maybe they are listening on such a politically charged historical issues to the point that they understand that these things matter to many culturally aware Ukrainians, be they in Ukraine or beyond its borders.

I hope readers take the time to read the hyperlinks. As a professional librarian I love to provide value added information to the things I write. Particularly to what is close to my heart and soul. The questions posed by Maria Madzigon are all valid! My one wish now is that all Ukrainians who read English and have learnt something new will share all this information with their colleagues, family and friends.

Vasyl Pawlowsky

Independent Consultant

Dealing with COVID-19 and Self-Isolation

2020-10-11T19:16:00.005+03:00

Many people have been dealing with COVID-19 and self-isolation in many different ways. During the first six weeks I found the best to deal my self-isolation was looking to my love of creating. I began writing a lot more than I had been in the previous months. I was writing poems, and working on my stories for something I wish to publish in the future called "Ukrainian Episodes" and one can learn more about these on my Patreon page. Then I wrote poem which was called Take A Look Around. After a few days that writing led me in a totally different direction, in creating a melody for it.

Five months has gone by, and here in Quebec we've gone into another 28-day lockdown. In many ways the words I wrote then are still extremely valid. While I am a lover of music, my musical education is limited to a little bit of violin as an exploratory course in my first year of high school under the guidance of someone who really helped me appreciate music - Iwan Edwards, that was followed by two years of music playing trombone. Though throughout highschool I listened to everything from progressive rock to hard rock. So taking something I wrote as text to a melody was a great challenge. Though before I get into that aspect of things let me share the lyrics with you.

Take A Look Around – A COVID-19 Inspiration

Verses 1 & 2

I don’t know how you’re reacting.

I don’t know if you’re all alone.

Reach out to the people around you,

Reach out to all those you know.

Times are hard they’re not going to change fast,

Times are strange giving us some pain.

Look around, do your little part,

For some positive and healthy change.

Refrain

Take a look around.

Aware of your social distance.

Take a look around.

Much better for immune-resistance.

Verses 3 & 4

Stay apart, smile - nod in support,

To your neighbours, the grocery store,

To the human you’ve never met before -

Careful, safe - healthy mind and soul.

Do not fear, you’re really not alone,

Millions like you, alone at home.

Together, there will be a victory, -

Emerging stronger than we were before.

Refrain - as above.

Verses 5 & 6

Take some time to reflect on things,

Take some time for your family.

All this too will really come to pass,

Bide your time and you will see.

So I hope as I send this it out you,

Friends are safe, finding cool things to do.

So be clear that when this is all over,

Simpler things will be part of the glue.

April 15-27, 2020

Even before trying to make music I made my own mask:

The first thing I did in my creative process was to pull out my two Honer Blues Harps (harmonicas) and I started playing around. When I went for walks I would hum things to myself. Eventually

I enlisted a good friend and former roommate from my university years in this scheme and need to create to stay sane. I knew he played guitar, and in fact I used to use his guitar to try to teach myself guitar when we lived together back in 1987-88. In some email correspondence he told me he was playing a lot more ukelele and I recalled visiting him in November of 2019 when he showed me his three guitars and his Martin ukelele. So we both did our little thing and with my limited knows of music recording and mixing I came out with something that sounds like this: https://soundcloud.com/vasyl-pawlowsky/take-a-look-around

Unforutnately, when resctrictions were lightened everyone thought we were off the hook, though we are now back on it. Unfortunately, we are back to square one where we were five months ago. My feeling is that the words I wrote back in April still stand. If there are any of my friends who are musicians, please feel free to make this song a message.

Vasyl Pawlowsky

Independent Consultant

Member of SOCAN

Student Revolution on Granite Started 30 years Ago: October 2, 1990

2020-10-02T22:49:00.006+03:00

Today marks a very important day in Ukrainian history. It was 30 years ago that students began a hunger strike on what was then Square of the October Revolution, as many now know it has long been Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti. It was known as The Revolution on Granite, which would change not only the course of Ukraine's history but that of the entire USSR. which would change not only the course of Ukraine's history but that of the entire USSR.

This event is very close to my heart for a number of different reasons which I will share with you all today. In the summer of 1990 throughout the month of July myself and five other students: Nadia Homonko, Kateryna Kharuk, Roman Ivanus, Greg (Hryts) Kindiak and Yuriy Tatukh travelled to

Fax machine in foreground sold to finance the Hunger Strike.

Ukraine on the invitation of Studentske bratsvo (Student brotherhood, though we have are very special sisters as well) of the city of Lviv. During that trip I made many good friends, many who unfortunately no longer with us. In mid-August that very same year at the Ukrainian Canadian Students' Union (SUSK) Congress on the Erindale Campus at the University of Toronto, for a number of different reasons, I was elected president of the orgnaization.

A planned family trip took me back to Ukraine a second time that summer flying back to Kyiv with my mother and brother. When in Lviv I met with some of my friends from Studentske bratsvo. We visited with Andriy Vynnychuk (26.06.1968-05.07.1996) ) and his parents family who lived across from the Electron Television Plant. I had billeted with Andriy's family during my month long visit in July. I met with Markian Ivashchyshyn (06.09.1966-21.05.2019) who was head of Studentske bratstvo then and who informed me of a very important action that was going to take place at the beginning of October.

As president of SUSK he was telling me this in confidence, and told me that less than a handful of people in all of Ukraine knew of this plan. His instructions to me were very simple and specific. I was to call his mother on the evening of October 1, 1990 - to learn more information of what was supposed to transpired that morning. He also informed me that it would be wise for me to compile a list of media contacts in Canada when I returned home. I was returning to Canada and to my first career position as a Reference Librarian at McGill University's McLennan Library, and in that position I had the tools to do just that.

So in the two weeks leading up to October I used parts of my lunch hours compiling my contact list. Students in Ukraine were also making their plans for an event was to start on October 1, though the start of their activity was postponed for a day, as explained Oleksandr Doniy in his chronlogy of the event entitled Studentska Revoliutsia na Hraniti ( The Student Revolution on the Granite) published in 1995. While I was making my list, my friends in Ukraine were making their plans as well.

"On the eve of the action, at a joint meeting of the USS (Ukrainska studentska spilka, Ukrainian Students' Association) and SB (Studentske bratstvo), the organizational structure of its leadership was determined. The representative body was to be the Council of Hunger Striking Students, consisting of representatives of different cities, headed by three co-chairs, who would represent the West, East and Kyiv.

"The co-chairs were unanimously elected : Markiyan Ivashchyshy, head of the Student Brotherhood of Lviv, part-time student of Lviv Polytechnic Institute; Oles Doniy - head of the Kyiv the USS, fifth-year student of the historical faculty at KSU (Kyiv State University), Oleh Barkov - head of the USS of the city of Dnipropetrovsk. In order to carry out executive functions of the camp Taras Korpal, a student, of the Faculty of Philosophy at KSU. Various services for the future camp were also approved. Medical services was headed by Taras Semushchak, a student of the Lviv Medical Institute. Oleh Kuzan and Serhiy Bashchuk from Lviv headed the press service, and and security was headed by - Andriy Klishch. The date of the action, scheduled for October 1, had to be postponed, because on this day the opposition forces held another "all-Ukrainian" strike, which was able to realize in the form of demonstrations through the streets of Kyiv. With a general skepticism it was decided to postpone the start of the hunger strike to October 2 before this "all-Ukrainian" event".

Many things have changes regarding communications between Canada and that part of the world. Many forget that at that time to make a phone call to Lviv, one had to go through an operator in Moscow, The seven hour time difference provided a certain degree of security that information would be useless to eavesdroppers in Moscow. It took me about four hours to finally get through to Markian's mother in Lviv at about 02:00 hours Montreal time. It only took her a couple of minutes to read me the demands of the students, which numbered five:

Preventing the signing of a new union agreement;
Re-election of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR on a multiparty basis not later than the spring of 1991;
The return of Ukrainian soldiers to the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, as well as the provision of military service by young Ukrainians exclusively on the territory of the republic;
Nationalization of the property of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the LKSMU (Leninist Communist League Youth of Ukraine);
And the resignation of the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR Vitaly Masol.

October 2, 1990. Sign reads: I'm on a hunger-strike against the Masol Government

Photo Courtesy of Dmytro Kloczko.

I took the time to record our conversation and then later transcribed and translated for the series of about two dozen faxes that I would be sending to Canadian media outlets via my fax modem.

The day the hunger-strike started my good friend Andriy Vynnychuk to Moloda Halychyna (Young Galicia) the following: ""Despite the fact that this is an extreme measure, for us it is the only opportunity to protest."

Needless to say, I got practically no sleep at all that night... which kind of reminds me of a song by the 5th Dimension. When I arrived at work that Tuesday morning I went in and told my supervisor Mary Mason about what was going on and that I was exhausted. Mary understood my involvement in things Ukrainian and even let me have a nap, before my stint on the reference desk, and also had no problem that I had used my work phone number extension for media contact. On October 2, 1990 I did four different telephone interviews.

Having witnessed the events of Tianamen in 1989 via CNN, the days that followed were not easy for me, knowing that Moscow could be as cruel as Bejing. So that's my little back story.

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

Like Onions with a Bite? Try Ginger Spiced Pickled Red Onions

2020-09-29T17:56:00.003+03:00

Ginger Spiced Pickled Red Onions

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Dead time: Up to 90 minutes, about the time to get to room temperature

Packaging time: 3-5 minutes

Death-line (My personal way of saying use within): Two (2) weeks refrigerated.

Ingredients

500 ml water

250 ml vinegar (regular or apple cider)

Two (2) medium sized red onions

Three (3) table spoons finely chopped or sliced ginger

One (1) or two (2) dried chili pepper(s). Two makes your onions very spicy.

One (1) teaspoon of kosher or sea salt

Holding Vessels

Two (2) 500ml preserving jars with their covers.

Putting it Together

Measure out our water and vinegar into a saucepan with your salt.

Clean and cut up your fresh ginger into three table spoons worth add to saucepan.

Chop up your dried chili peppers add to saucepan.

Bring this mixture to a boil.

Clean your onions and slice into small pieces either using a mandolin or a good sharp knife.

Place the onions into a bowl that can handle heat. You will be pouring boiling liquid into it.

You should be able to get your onions ready by the time the liquids in your saucepan boil.

Once the ingredients in the saucepan come to a boil, let it boil for about a minute.

Then reduce to medium heat for ten minutes, then bring it up to a boil once more.

Pour everything from your saucepan over the onions and cover. Let sit until its at room temperature.

When at room temerature, pour everything through a seive, preserving the liquid in another container.

Spoon what's remaining in the seive into your two 500ml jars in equal portions.

Cover the ingredients in the jars with the fluid you saved in another container.

Cap the jars and refrigerate. Should be ready the next day.

I like to open them the first time in three to five days.

Uses

I envision a number of different uses for your Ginger Pepper Pickled Red Onions.

As a condiment to go with chicken or pork, or as a topping for hamburgers, hotdogs, tacos,

or in you favourite sandwich.

Window on Eurasia -- New Series: The Kremlin’s Top 5 ‘Propaganda Myths, Fakes and S...

2015-05-25T22:33:00.001+03:00

Window on Eurasia -- New Series: The Kremlin’s Top 5 ‘Propaganda Myths, Fakes and S...: Paul Goble Staunton, May 25 – Dmitry Bukovsky of Kyiv’s “Delovaya stolitsa” continues his series, “The Top 5 Propaga... COPY GOES IN HERE Vasyl PawlowskyIndependent Consultant
The commentary of this was first published on the WPawlowsky.com site.

Ban Hate Monger Valentina Lisitsia

2015-05-20T09:00:00.000+03:00

Ukraine hate monger Valentina Lisitsia should be banned from entering Canada and performing anywhere in this country. This should be the stand of anyone who holds normal social values and abhors hate speech of any kind, period.

I could not agree more with the president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress president Paul Grod who concluded an Op-Ed piece with: "The TSO is to be commended for their principled stand."

The question of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for taking the moral high ground is quite evident to anyone who had seen some of vitriol which Ukraine-born Valentina Lisitsia has shared in her twisted understanding of "free speech"! While she may reside in United States, for the time being we can only hope, the filth, disrespect and hate she spews out on social media, should be evaluated and qualify her as someone who should be refused the privilege of travel to Canada for any reason. As stated by Grod, "Individuals who proudly expound bigoted remarks should not be welcome to perform in Canada’s venerable cultural institutions that unite people of all nationalities, religions and ethnicities." Though, I would take it one step further and bar entry of her to Canada!

My first introduction to this gem of Moscow propaganda came to me from a piece by a talented musician and conductor Adrian Bryttan which dealt with the criticism of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko's use of the Ukrainian language. When I first saw this I immediately recognized a "underdeveloped Moscovite troll", and thus paid little attention to her!

Free Speech vs Hate Speech

There is always a fine line between what we can consider the right to free speech and where that right to voicing one's ideas falls begins to impinge on the right of others within society which one finds oneself. Valentina Lisitsia has while living in the USA has succumb to the propaganda induced world of Vladimir Putin, who like Goebbels and Putin's cronies of the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) have two principles in their propaganda campaign:

1) The better the lie, then it will be easier for those to believe it. (Goebbels)
2) There must be many lies, in order that a person chooses between a lie and a lie and not between a lie and the truth. (FSB of Russia)

Lisitsia, may have become a victim of her own miserable childhood while still in Ukraine,
or has fallen for Moscovy's labels of obfuscation, which has increased since the rise of Tsar Putin. Maybe this young misguided woman should be reminded how many Ukrainian women were raped by Russian Soviet soldiers!

While hate monger Valentina Lisitsia used the troll army of Putin to try to defend herself in anti-Ukraine and anti-Ukrainian statements, I wonder if she was ever aware that her statements and those of her criminal cohorts were public, and she planned to come to Canada?

Some may wonder why I state this, while I will let its interpretation open to the bodies that make decisions of admittance to Canada by people who have an intent or propose the annihilation of a particular group of individuals. Valentina Lisitsia, in my professional opinion has never been known as a pianist. Damn, the first time I heard of her through professional musicians was because of her hate and not talent.

Those who have been brainwashed by Moscow's propaganda program often labels Ukrainian patriots as Banderites, a twisting of Moscow's history, as Nazi collaborators and Moscow continues to use this dirty game decades later. It is probably factual that Moscow's version of the Nuremberg Trials were redacted in such a way that did not exonerate the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukraininska Povstanska Armia) as the original documents stated of any collaboration with the Nazi of the Third Reich. This is something I heard from a number of historians while living in Ukraine, and it would not surprise me one iota!

If this is the case, then how can we construe Lisitia's statement of using "Banderites" as fuel instead of coal for fuel as something evil and aimed at this very moment anyone who is a patriot of Ukraine. Why do I say this, because over the last year, many people in Ukraine - even Russian speaking individuals have been learning the truth about Stepan Bandera and his cause for a nation. To call for the burning of such individuals is a call for genocide!

Under the Canadian Criminal Code we find the following:

Hate Propaganda
Marginal note:Advocating genocide

318. (1) Every one who advocates or promotes genocide is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

Definition of “genocide”

(2) In this section, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part any identifiable group, namely,

(a) killing members of the group; or

(b) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.

This is just the tip of the iceberg by this "pianist". Just one other piece of Moscow's "fifth column" of useful idiots in North America.

The Nitty Gritty

Some of the finer points of Ukraine hater Lisitsia have been compiled by Julia Davis, at Examiner.com with quite the apropos title: Valentina Lisitsa’s vitriol: Nazi rhetoric or music to your ears?

When you see some of the statements this poor abandoned and sick child of the Russian Soviet legacy, you will clearly understand that hatred, bigotry and racism are things that are taught! While there are societal misfits in Canada like Terry Tremaine and much earlier James Keegstra, there is no reason that we should allow such a bigot into Canada.

Let us take a look at some of those statements made by this artist who is following in the propaganda footsteps of Goebbels, and her own beloved Russian Putin!

When we look into the vitriolic statements made by our wonderful pianist whore of Putin, this is what we find as a statement: “In a new, European, Ukraine the camps will give their subhumans condemned to gas chambers an opportunity to offset their carbon footprint.” So, you folks out there what do you think of such a statement? You figure it out! That is just one of her statements! Let's take a look at some of her others. In particular her perfect judgement of Ukrainian customs and those of what she considers sub standards in Africa. There is a clear and valid statement of racism in this sub-human-pianists ideas:So why should such visions of Valentina Lisitsia's view of Ukrainian culture and her statements be accepted in North America; should any individual with some strain of values be accepting such a low level pianist in Canada or even to be living in the United States. This is someone who should be be stripped of her US citizenship if she has it, and if not, be never be allowed to even live in the USA or enter any civilized nation.

So what does that leave her? Return to her lovely nation of Russia that she seems to love so much!

Banning Hate Mongers

While the Toronto Symphony Orchestra has taken the moral high ground they are not the only ones. In fact there are at least two musicians who feel a need a zero tolerance level for the likes of Valentina Lisitsia. However, when I read Adrian Bryttan's piece in EuroMaidan press entitled back in October of 2014 entitled: Demonstrators Protest Anti-Ukrianian Pianist Valentina Lisitsia he had my attention regarding the evil coursing through the veins of this "woman". More recently was pianist and music critic John Bell Young wrote an excellent piece aimed at the community which follows classical music an often pays very well for concert tickets.

Mr. Bell Young wrote wrote on April 10, 2015 in what he subtitled AN URGENT MESSAGE "Any association, particularly a paid engagement, with an individual such as Lisitsa will likely be perceived by the public as an implicit endorsement, suggesting the hiring venue may be in league or complicit with her racial biases...Perhaps even worse is that a public figure such as Lisitsa has chosen to use her position to spread hatred wherever she goes, and then expects the public not only to put up with it, but to compensate her through its purchase of concert tickets and recordings."

As a professional, Mr. Bell Young has hit the nail right on the head, and all communities in Canada should follow his lead. According to a piece in the Toronto Star by The Canadian Press "Lisitsa will perform with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in June as scheduled." This should not be allowed to happen given the hate and evil which this "pianist" represents. It is up to the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra to grow a spine an cancel the performance of this racist animal that was resents her father who was Ukrainian and for other authorities to ban her completely from entering Canada for any concerts. Besides there are plenty of better quality talent who sill live and reside in Ukraine and who are much more positive in their approach to life.

It is time for the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and its president Paul Grod to follow the lead of Mr. Bell Young who also stated in his piece, where he is reach out to the Spokane Symphony Orchestra, to refuse her performance: "In addition to your organization, we have also reached out to local broadcast and print media in Washington State, as well as those in the locations of other venues that have engaged her. We have also been in touch with national and local chapters of the Anti Defamation League, B’nai B’rith, the NAACP, and LGBT so as to advise them of Lisitsa’s racist remarks and rancorous, inciteful hate speech. We have advised these organizations about Lisitsa’s upcoming engagements, and those venues responsible for engaging her."

Such a hate monger should not only be refused to play in our excellent cultural facilities which aim to unite as stated by Paul Grod, she should be refused entry into Canada.

Time for those who have testicles to make some proper calls, she is but a part of Putin's "fifth column" which has been fooling most of the West. Wake and smell the shit that Putin is planting at your door step, before it is too late!

Vasyl Pawlowsky
Independent Consultant

The commentary of this was first published on the WPawlowsky.com site.

West Will Not Arm Ukraine With Lethal Weapons

2015-05-18T05:00:00.000+03:00

So the West will not arm Ukraine with lethal weapons, and I personally think this is a bad investment for security in the region. Don't worry, contemporary Ukraine and its friends will find a way to arm itself. The West has been anally hesitant on helping Ukraine to defend itself against a clearly aggressive neighbour called the Russian Federation, which I would much rather label as Moscovia, a failed state. The current behaviour of Putin and his entourage of the Kremlin is based on pseudologia fantastica or simply a bunch of lies which has been the basis of Russia for the last three centuries.

While many Western nations sit on the sidelines and wonder what is going on in the Donbas region of Ukraine, and get their information form Moscow sources, fed through Moscow's proxies, there are a number of nations that are standing up to Moscovia in different manners.

While the West continues to state it will not arm Ukraine with lethal weapons, the East, namely Japan, has stated in short "that we should be silent about arming Ukraine". In short it is no one's business but Ukraine and its supports to know.

https://twitter.com/OWawryshyn/status/585115548457009152

This is the first and only intelligent comment I have heard from any foreign nation that has openly stated that is supporting Ukraine in its efforts to ward off an aggressive Russia hell-bent on truly destroying the Ukrainian state, as it has been for the last three two four centuries.

A Sick Approach to Self Annihilation

I have plenty of times stated that Vladimir Putin and his philosophical scum-lord Alexander Dugin are individuals with "genocidal tendencies", and that being said let's not forget either Dugin's statement below and who Putin holds as his heroes. In case you haven't seen some of the statements of Dugin, take a look at this:

https://twitter.com/2111015/status/579064383952826369

Dugin's is not made up, and he has stated this on more than one occasion. He is simply an animal and I will quote a well known animal behaviourist at this time, because, just having re-read one of his seminal works forty years later, I understood one very clear statement in the concluding chapters of Konrad Lorenz's book King Solomon's Ring where he stated the following:

Wordsworth is right: there is only one being in possession of weapons which do not grow on his body and of whose working plan, therefore, the instincts of his species know nothing and in the usage of which he has no correspondingly adequate inhibition. That being is man. With unarrested growth his weapons increase in monstrousness, multiplying horribly within a few decades. But innate impulses and inhibitions, like bodily structures, need time for their development, time on a scale in which geologists and astronomers are accustomed to calculate, and not historians. We did not receive our weapons from nature. We made them ourselves, of our own free will. Which is going to be easier for us in the future, the production of the weapons or the engendering of the feeling of responsibility that should go along with them, the inhibitions without which our race must perish by virtue of its own creations?

This being the case it does not surprise me that that former adviser to Vladimir Putin would state:

https://twitter.com/UmlandAndreas/status/585343259280539648

While the barbarians of Muscovia have no innate desire to be compassionate to their so called "little brothers" in Ukraine, I think this will lead to their own downfall. The Grand Duchy of Muscovia has had grumblings from Siberia and has been successful any form of a national uprising in those geographic territories; though with the price of crude at what it is and with sanctions on Iran potentially being lifted this could cause crude to tumble even lower. In turn, this would give Putin and his criminal regime another good kick in the testicles, for an economy based on $110 plus crude price.

I've been aware of the frailty of the Russian Federation for over ten years now, much of this is now being echoed by simple union leader, Polish President and Nobel Prize winner Lech Walesa - that democracy will not come to Russia under it's current borders, In hearing his statements I understand that the discussions I had with fellow journalist/analysts in Kyiv many years ago was not for nought! It became clear to us , in speaking with a journalist friend's cousin, who works for Russia's border services, somewhere near Blagoveschensk or Chita, nowhere close to the Grand Duchy of Moscovia. Here, my friend's cousin stated, that there where many near-border settlements comprised of nearly completely of Chinese nationals involved mainly in questionable trans-border trade. That was back in 2005 and he claimed that the number of Chinese entering those regions far surpassed the number that were going back to China.

The Baltics, Diasporacentric and Expats

While many EU countries have been sitting pretty and being flip-floppers regarding there support of Ukraine for a number of different Eco-political reasons; the Baltic countries, well aware of the psychosis of Muscovy have stepped up to the bat with out a question. The presidents of Lithuanian and Estonia respectively, Dalia Grybauskaitė and Toomas Hendrik Ilves have been extremely vocal in their support of Ukraine in their Twiterplomacy, but they are not the only ones in the region.

Carl Bildt, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden (2006-2014), member of the Supervisory Board of the Institute of World Policy, has long been a vocal supporter of Ukraine. Though I know of at least one other of his compatriots living in Ukraine who at time can be extremely vitriolic towards Muscovia and I have a great deal of respect for him for his comments:

https://twitter.com/andersostlund/status/581771614775324672

While Anders lives and works in Kyiv, there are plenty of others who are of the diaspora ilk who have been contributing to Ukraine's cause. Some are personally know to me and I even provided Mark MacKinnon of the Globe and Mail whom I met years ago, with many of these contacts for this great piece on how Canada's diaspora has been contributing to the cause in Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/erlhel/status/574954384553025537

The Ukrainian community in Canada is one thing, but that same community must understand that Prime Minister Harper is on the cusp of an election and most of what he has been pandering are but red flags for the bulls during the upcoming general elections in Canada. The Ukrainian diaspora community should be taking the current government's actions with a grain of salt.

It is all very nice to send all kinds of non-lethal aid to Ukraine, but sorry, I think they can help themselves in that field at an extremely lesser cost in fact! This has been proven by the countless crowd-sourcing campaigns that are ongoing both in many Ukrainian diaspora communities and in conjunction with the crowd-sourcing community in Ukraine that has provided a great deal of support for Ukraine of a non-lethal type; however, it is time to change our train of thought.

Criminal Dismemberment of the Military Industrial Complex

Much of the bullshit that is going on right now in the eastern most regions of Ukraine and in other parts is due to the breakdown of international law. The Budapest Memorandum failed! Not a single nation that supported and signed that agreement on December 5, 1994 seemed to give a shit when "little green men" found their way into Crimea for its annexation! Most normal nations and people were saying: "What The Fuck!". However, not the signatory countries!

While the Budapest Memorandum stripped Ukraine of its nuclear arsenal, we saw a rapid decline in military spending in Ukraine. It is no secret that when Viktor Yanukovych came to power, he not only usurped constitutional power, he very quickly destroyed Ukraine's military and in fact may have formed Ukroboronprom, the Ukraine Defense Industry, on December 9, 2010 with a goal of centralization of the military industrial complex. In short, this centralization, may have been used for gaining great profits by Yanukovych and his cronies, while disassembling military personnel - there may have been an increase of exports with him and his criminal elite skimming as much off the top as possible.

However, it is not secret that Ukraine Defense Industry has a number of technologies that some have been requesting the West to provide to Ukraine. Nevertheless, has anyone ever considered the Skif ? This seems to be a comparison of the USA produced Javelin! Armaments are not my speciality; however, it may be time for innovative investors to start arming Ukraine in a silent manner as suggested by Ambassador Shigeki Sumi. Maybe this is just one of Ukraine's technology that needs a push forward in order that Ukraine can defend itself.

While, these heavy weapons may exist, there could be a possibility in light arms!

Kalashnikov has become a brand name of terrorists there is no reason why products of the company Fort in Ukraine, which supplies light arms could not be invested in. As a state owned company it may not be possible, but if the state changes its direction this may be possible, only time will tell. It seems that the company already produces its Fort 401 under licence from Israel.

Yes, while Ukraine has been kind of fallen to playing second fiddle as an arms exporter, maybe it is time that those interested in this terrible business, start, like Ukraine's diaspora in arming Ukraine so it can defend itself from the scum which I call Moscovia!

Vasyl Pawlowsky
Independent Consultant

The commentary of this was first published on the WPawlowsky.com site.

Social media and information warfare: A Thunderclap Case Study

2015-04-04T19:00:00.000+03:00

There should be no doubt in any sane individual's mind that Russia is waging a very hybrid war against Ukraine, which includes social media and information warfare, with all its trolls and scum that try to distract those working in Ukraine's interest from being positive. As pointed out by Paul Goble, Vladimir Putin is clever but not very creative. Just as he uses the Goebbels play book of propaganda, he has used Joseph Stalin's hybrid warfare playbook.

From what I experienced last week on social media the trolls have really gotten under the skin of some individuals who are concerned about the well being of kidnapped Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko and one in particular who started the Million Tweets campaign for her release with the hash-tag #FreeSavchenko. Clearly, when the trolls discovered that this campaign existed they began subversive moves in creating hash-tags which looked very similar to the campaign's hash-tag. If one was not careful and aware, they would inadvertently re-tweet these "troll-injected" hash-tags and thus in principle stealing from potential number of tweets that the #FreeSavchenko Twitter Storm campaign. The lead on the Twitter Storm campaign clearly was annoyed with this theft, which he claimed was a hack of Twitter by Moscow. In focusing his energy on dealing with this he was distracted from his main goal, to raise the awareness of Nadiya Savchenko's plight in a Moscow remand prison who had started a hunger strike on December 13, 2014.

I personally had been involved in this Twitter Storm campaign, but had made a conscientious decision to also drive the Thunderclap campaign started by a fellow Canadian living in Kyiv. This second campaign which I backed and drove became extremely successful and even got coverage on UAToday, a recent media project of Ihor Kolomoiskyi. The reaction of some involved in the #FreeSavchenko Twitter storm was extremely surprising to this airtime, was nothing short of childish. I vented about their reaction on Twitter but here I hope to lay the facts to bare, both as why a Thunderclap campaign can be an example of working smarter not harder, and some lessons learned from the two different campaigns I have run.

Why to @ThunderClapIt and my Ukrainian cases

The day after Yanuckovych's storm-troopers descended on students who voicing their interest in the move towards standards of the European Union, on Ukraine's Independence Square, I was contacted by a friend living in Kyiv in order to start, what was called a Thunderclap campaign to reach as many with one simple message. "Ukraine's government has gone too far. Bloodshed is not a a democratic value! Ukraine's people want to be in Europe."

For those of you who don't understand how Thunderclap works, here is a very simple explanation.

Thunderclap allows for those involved in social media, right now on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter to amplify their social reach through asking their contacts, followers and friends to lend their social contact to the particular Thunderclap. This is very personal when in doing so because most have a hard time in sharing their social reach. I can understand most people for not doing so, however, I still feel that those who are overly anal on this issue is totally out of touch with reality. If you are a person of interest of any security agency globally they have already hacked all your social media accounts. So don't worry about joining Thunderclap! You really are not a person of interest, unless you are ready to commit terrorist acts, or someone who is trying to battle Moscovy's trolls.

One of the biggest problems with Thunderclap is that when you invite others to lend their social reach, that is pretty intrusive for most. However, like I mention above, most are a little too paranoid about sharing such social reach. Such paranoia leads to health problems, so stop it.

Before, I will launch into the case of this Thunderclap I would like to share some the reasons for using a Thunderclap in the realm of social media. This is totally for the free version of Thunderclap, as I am certain if I had a sponsor to conduct my project I may have been able to determine many more interesting insights to this technology and social interaction on social media.

Reasons for using Thunderclap

You have a dead line to announce an event. You want many thousands if not millions of people to know about your message at the same time. The deadline helps get your solitary message out at one particular time and it is shared at that time by all those that support the message;
You need people go to a particular URL- you have a live event and you want to get people there regardless where they are on this big blue marble, you have to create a message that will be shared to visit that online event. By sharing your social reach you can reach out to thousands of more individuals than you could yourself or through your friends and organizations;
Short and Tweet compliant message. This means you are with in the 140 character limit set by Twitter, you must be short and sweet in you final message. It will resonate to all those who lend their social reach to you.
While the Thunderclap message may not be something that could be edited effectively for disseminating a message, it could be effectively be used to guide those in the cause to help distribute other pre-prepared messages from a particular website.

Amongst these mentioned reasons, it is very important to work smarter and not harder. While I know there are people out there that don't like my stance on this, that is their problem not mine.

Measuring Success With Thunderclap

Unfortunately measuring of success with many social media initiatives is truly impossible, the social reach one obtains with Thunderclap is very clear.

When you set your initial goal of social reach with Thunderclap, you will know throughout your campaign what percentage of your goal has been reached;
There is no second guessing and the entire social reach will receive on your dashboard;
Your reach, or access to a particular site will be measurable in an ongoing and final methodology.

As mentioned earlier, I was personally involved in driving two Thunderclap campaigns. Measuring success is very different because of both their causes and their goals.

The first campaign was very ambitious, and lets provide some reason why this was the case.

For any Thunderclap campaign there are a possibility of three different goal levels of supporters for your cause and who you believe will end their social reach to your campaign.

100 supporters;
250 supporters;
500 supporters.

These are key components when structuring your Thunderclap campaign, and many people, particularly venturing into this very new domain where there is a trust matter have to consider. Just how many supporters can you bring into your particular Thunderclap cause?

Understanding this number as a goal in starting a Thunderclap campaign is probably one of the most important factors which will determine success or not! Simple!

During our first Thunderclap we attempted to reach 500 supporters, the two of us running the campaign really thought this was possible though we were mistaken. Looking back over the last year I can understand there were many different reasons why this didn't happen, they included, but not limited to:

Not clearly understanding how suspicious users are of sharing their social media in any way, shape or form;
Along with this was the problem of just how naive users are about how technologies actually work, information technology education is in fact lacking in society as a whole;
A clear marketing campaign had not also been developed to market the Thunderclap campaign itself to explain the technology and how it works.

The first campaign reached a social reach of 188,975 individuals with 53% for of our goal of the number of supporters. As a result of not meeting or goal for the number of supporters not being met by 100% our message that was to go out to every individual within the social reach of 188,975 individuals was never Thunderclapped, and thus could be considered an unsuccessful campaign; however, the lessons learned during that campaign were invaluable in running the second campaign which became an information warfare tool in ensuring more people heard a very simple and plain message.

Doing it right for your cause

When I came on board to lead the second Thunderclap campaign, the cause to me was just. It was to make as many people globally aware of Nadiya Savchenko by sending out a single message to as large of a social reach as possible using the three social media platforms supported by Thunderclap: Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.

Unlike the first Thunderclap I had driven, the goal was much more reasonable and attainable based on our previous experience a year earlier where we had attained 53% of 500 supporters, or 265 individuals and their entire social reach of 188,975. This time we had set our goal for 100 supporters who would be willing to lend their social reach to our very simple message: "Unite with Ukraine to #FreeSavchenko from Russian imprisonment Разом визволимо Надію Савченко із російського полону." I thought how could anyone not want to join very clearly defined cause that had been clearly trending and that I personally had contributed to.

Unlike the first campaign which I had driven, this time I avoided one specific thing! The hard sell! If I was to gain the social reach I desired from the start which was quarter of a million social reach as discussed by my partner on this project, there was no reason I should waste time on trying to hard sell someone. My focus had to be finding my social contacts with great social reach and those which I new believed in the cause. They would help and they did!

In particular there was one fellow, who contributed over 77K of his social reach to our cause, and there was one moment during this informational war where I went one step further than most would. Maybe some people remember a journalist by the name of Irma Krat. She was held from some time by the terrorists of the DNR in Slovyansk. Irma and I have been social contacts for some time and as I was inviting my contacts to join this Thunderclap I discovered that Irma had become a victim of Moscow's trolls on Facebook and had been banned. This pissed me off a great deal, because it had limited the voice of journalist.

I spent some time to get Irma out of Facebook purgatory, not because I needed her on my Thunderclap campaign, but because I have lost a number of journalist and activist friends in Ukraine over the years. By be-all-and-end-all was not the Thunderclap campaign but to be involved in justice. I think anyone who has taken the time to dig deeper into my pages will know I'm not new to Ukrainian matters. Those of you who think you are new heroes, particularly Alex Smith aka @GlastostGone - think again. Your ego like that of so many Ukrainians harms Ukraine and doesn't help it!

Results of a not so perfect campaign

Just as a reminder! A Thunderclap campaign is either ALL or NOTHING. I'd gone through a nothing campaign and now I was going through an all campaign. A Thunderclap in which I knew the social reach would be whatever it was knowing that the goal of supporters was attainable.

I am one of the first to admit that I am not perfect, though that in itself is a strength and not a weakness. I have learnt a great deal over my nearly twenty-eight years working with Ukrainian and other non-governmental and volunteer organizations. For the most part, I find most organizations in Ukraine much more professional than their counterparts in the west; however, newly formed organizations during civil upheaval are staffed by totally non-professionals who make inappropriate judgement calls. While I have evidence of this I do not to expose individual, but their non-professionalism really pisses me off. I had been approached by this organization to consult on both social media and potential Thunderclap campaigns. In all honesty the hypocrisy of these individuals is criminal to say the least!

While this piece was to look at how to use Thunderclap, it has and will become a way of exposing the hypocrisy of those trying to take advantage of a political situation. But no, I will not do that. The culprits know who they are. They are not better or worse than I am, they are just very misinformed and misguided in what they are trying to do.

If you are trying to increase a social reach or global understanding of what allies are trying to do, you to become an enemy of the state you are part of by putting down others. The Thunderclap campaign which I directed was covered on UAToday - not because we tried to push on TV but because journalist from that station contacted my friend and partner on this project - Luc Chenier. Yes, I know there are some of you who hate professionals, well it's time to soak it up. Take some time to listen to this interview to better understand what we accomplished:

http://uatoday.tv/society/social-media-activism-and-the-online-information-war-over-ukraine-406963.html

Continuing the conversation

"Changing the subject in order to change the conversation," this is the way that trolls work for globally. The Thunderclap that I was driving was very much aimed in that direction. This is a key element for any Thunderclap campaign. How to continue a conversation and ensure that it gets into the public eye!

In any Thunderclap campaign it is important to ensure that you get to the final goal. Though this is also the campaign that should exist when dealing with any type of media. I happen to understand old and new media, thought not as a professional but as a user. No, I am wrong, I understand all media better than most having been on the media divide.

So, I put forth the following posit! Why were individuals so anal about the success of our Thunderclap campaign? I hope that they are not afraid in entering into a discussion a little longer down the path. Some of the comments I know about regarding not even seeing the above mentioned TV segment is a enough to show the hypocrisy of NGO's in Ukraine. I have no need to do that, but what I do need to do is share my positive experience.

We were two individuals, with a desire to let the world know that Nadiya Savchenko was on a hunger strike and illegally detained in a Russian reprimand prison. Clearly there were some individuals who felt we were doing the wrong thing! Using a technology to disseminate information in a sensible manner! Sorry to the people we may have pissed off, but we reached our goal. You on the other hand, are still struggling and totally misguided in terms of social media.

While those who are misguided, there are those who do appreciate the work of professionals. In particular, my partner on this project, Luc Chenier, received a message from Ukraine's Minister of Finance, Natalie Jaresko on February 15, 2015. The daunting task that Ukraine's government now has after years of kleptocracy is a daunting one, the this is the shout out which a government official took the time to send.

Message From Ukraine's Minister of Finance, to Luc Chenier
on LinkedIn Regarding Our ThunderClap Campaign For those who want to continue to deny that we are all a drop in the bucket towards positive activities contribute to public awareness about Ukraine, continue doing so, we know who you are; and clearly government officials also know that there are people who look at things professionally and who will continue to do so!

Meanwhile

For anyone, who wants to learn how to work smarter and not harder, take some time to follow the following very primitive flow chart.

The Thunderclap process!I together with one partner, gained a social reach of over 350K, and it was not because we worked hard, but we leveraged the technologies that were available to us. You can see that particular extremely successful Thunderclap campaign here. I am completely ready to share more of the lesson's I have learned on how to complete a successful Thunderclap campaign, though for this we have to discuss these matters on a personal and commercial level.

I've don't have to be a hero for Ukraine, I've done my time on the ground. I will do things for Ukraine and others who can understand my knowledge and experience. I'm not a whore, and will never be. I know my value, and right now I can say that my value and if you try to put me down, it simply shows you are idiots and falling into the hands of Moscovy.

Yes, there was a political bent to this piece, but at the same time I hope someone out there learns a bit about Thunderclap as a tool in information warfare. Clearly, there are many who seem to not understand what side we are fighting. I hope they grow up and stop being children soon! The sooner the better!

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

The commentary of this was first published on the WPawlowsky.com site.

Andrei Sakharov's Theory of Symmetry

2015-01-31T17:00:00.000+02:00

It has been a quarter of a century since the passing of Andrei Sakharov a Nobel Prize winning physicist, dissident and civil rights activist, and I sometimes wonder how little has changed in Russia since then? Particularly since Russia's invasion of Crimea and its incursion into the Donbass region with some of the finest of its elite troops and hired mercenaries from over four-thousand kilometres away. These actions on behalf of the Kremlin, while now different from those which were part of Sakharov's “theory of symmetry” on Soviet society, have created much of the same effect as during Soviet times.

Additionally, the West's reaction to the Kremlin's “debonaire terrorist” attitude towards Ukraine and all aspects of international law has resulted in the Russian rouble being the worst currency in the world. I a typical isolationist and Soviet mentality, there has been a call to make it illegal for retailers to advertise the price of their goods in any currency other than roubles. Paired, with this the Kremlin is recruiting a whole new echelon of “patriotic snitches” known as “stukachi” in Soviet times; let's not forget that the Russian Orthodox Church has played such a role for the Kremlin since the passing of Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow.

While many individuals would probably never remember such a day, the day that I heard of Andrei Sakharov's death is frozen in my mind's eye like it was yesterday. In the mid to late 1980s I became extremely active in the Ukrainian-Canadian students' movement, both in helping to revive Ukrainian Student's Clubs at the universities I attended and taking an active role in the Ukrainian Canadian Students' Union, hereafter SUSK, leadership as Vice-President Laurentian as the position was then called. As anyone who knows me I have always tried to maintain contact with friends wherever we end up on the face of the planet and in December of 1989 while studying at McGill University and in my official position with SUSK I was informed by colleagues in Ottawa that we would be having a visiting scholar from Ukraine who had spent a semester at the University of Alberta, and who was returning to Ukraine, via the standard route in those days – Montreal – Moscow -Kyiv.

Our Visitor – My Task

After his stint at the University of Alberta in Edmonton Vasyl Yaremenko travelled eastward before returning to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the USSR. A good friend of mine Wally Barabash drove him from Ottawa to Montreal where he delivered a talk on the situation and revival of the Ukrainian language in Gorbachev's period of “perebudova”. While our visitor stayed with well-known Holodmor historian professor Roman Serbyn, my friend Wally stayed with me until he had to drive Vasyl Yaremenko to the now non-existent Mirabel Airport some sixty-five kilometres north of Montreal and designated as our international airport of the day.

The day he was to leave was a cold sunny and bright December day. Vasyl Yaremenko had made one request of myself and Wally before he drove him to the airport. It was a simple request and one that was not uncommon for the time. It was to help him in selecting a boom-box for his son Bohdan. Clearly it would have to run on the 220 alternating current which electric and electronic devices operated in that part of the world.

Vasyl Yaremenko told me the price range he had budgeted for the day before Wally and I picked him up at Professor Serbyn's. This was not something I was not familiar with and thus I selected two electronics stores located proximate to Roman Serbyn's home, knowing both the quality of goods sold at the store and understanding the possibility of haggling with the shop-keep.

The News

When we walked into the shop cluttered with wall-to-wall electronics the first thing the three of us heard was the familiar hourly call signal of RFE/RL for shortwave broadcasts. It turned out that my first choice of shops was that of a former Refusenik who had managed to emigrate under the work carried out by Nathan Sharansky. It was then that we heard the news, in that cluttered but welcoming shop, that Andrei Sakaharov had died. He was sixty-eigth.

The four of us looked at one another. It was like the end of an era. Sakharov had embodied so much energy that was totally against what the entire Soviet system stood for. We all looked at one another, there was a complete silence in our space, with the exception of the announcer's voice, of the other relevant news from that part of the world. A part of the world still captured under the yoke of Moscow – in an evil system of domination and subjugation.

The shop-keep held his fore-head in his right hand when he heard the news, Yaremenko shook his head, stating that this was a great loss for freedom loving people everywhere, but particularly in the USSR.

It took a little while to shake this, but clearly longer for Yaremenko and the shop-keep. Once the initial shock wore off, I together with Wally took the time to narrow down the selection of the appropriate unit. Then we left the haggling on the price to the two, pretty-well peers, to work out the price. The entire haggle session which lasted about ten minutes was carried out in the Russian language and eventually Vasyl Yaremenko made a decision with our help. We walked out of that cluttered shop with a boom-box which would be appreciated in the future by his son Bohdan.

I'll never forget that day that when I heard of Andrei Sakharov's passing.

Before and After

Andrei Sakharov while in the Soviet Union fell very much in line with what was Dwight Eisenhower's concept of Atoms for Peace. The role he had as a physicist who understood his own nuclear undertaking came out in the early 1960s against nuclear proliferation. As time went on, Sakharov was branded as an enemy and traitor of the Soviet Union. Interesting now Moscow has returned to such labelling and ostracizing of their critical members of their society. Today, if Sakharov were still here he would face the same shit he faced when he protested against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He would be against Russia's Invasion of Ukraine and that is twenty-five years after his death we should honour him.

As for the decisions I made with Vasyl Yaremenko, I would learn about that connection during the summer of 1990.

During a SUSK planned trip to Ukraine in the summer of 1990 which started on July 1, I would learn of some close connections on a trip that meant a great deal to me. The first connection was primarily a connection with my deceased father. He unlike many who had travelled to the new world by ship had made a decision to fly to Canada his adoptive home after the great war.

My father flew from Brussels to Shannon, Ireland. This was followed with a hop to Gander, Newfoundland, and then on to Montreal. At about the same age as he was coming to the “New World” I was flying in the opposite direction with stops in Gander and Shannon. Howecer, my final stop in Kyiv and not Brussels, my paternal homeland.

Our Ukrainian student contacts of the day had contacts in Kyiv whom we would eventually be staying with for our first few days in Ukraine's capital – Kyiv.

On the first day of our stay I was introduced to a number of students and even one who I had know as one of the first graduands of the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Program – Ivan Tkachenko whom I had met the in Ottawa the summer before, while I was employed at the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa. When our small group of six students finally met Ivan and his family we were instantly introduced to his like-minded friends.

A Visit to Kharkivskiy Massiv

While it never really hit me at the time, during my first visit to Kyiv in July of 1990, I was getting some extremely privileged experiences. Ivan Tkachenko's father walked us from their flat on Gorkovoho, now Antonovycha, over to Pushkinska Street and through Shevchenko Park on that muggy July afternoon the day of our arrival. Ivan's father, a film maker, told us of how Jews were marched along Volodymyrska and then north to Babyn Yar. As we walked past 33 Volodymyrska Street my fellow student and friend playfully opened the door what was still the KGB HQ in Ukaine and fired off a few snaps with his camera. None of the officers were thrilled with his antics, and they followed him out on to the street as we passed his camera amongst our group, denying any such “espionage” had taken place.

We then went to the sight of the Church of the Tithes, looked out on Podil and Obolon'. In 1990 Ivan Tkachenko clearly stood out. He was wearing a pair of long-shorts with the cartoon character “Yosemite Sam” blazing his guns and clearly a shout out to the people of Ukraine of 1990.

While chronology doesn't matter in this retelling of this tale, eventually we all ended up at an apartment at Kharkivskiy Massiv. At the moment we arrived there we only knew we were at Bohdan's place and that his parents were at their “dacha”, or cottage.

Right to Left - Top to Bottom: Bohdan Yaremenko, Ivan Tkachenko, Yuriy Tatukh, Greg Kindiak, Nadia Homonko, Kateryna XXX, XXX XXX, Vasyl Pawlowsky, Serhiy Taran, Roman Ivanus

It was not long after we arrived there, our host Bohdan put on some music and we were invited to have some drinks. In less than half an hour of being there, one of my fellow Canadian students asked Bohdan where he had gotten his “boom box”. Of course he went on to explain how his father had been in Canada a few years earlier, and how this guy Vasyl had picked out such a great piece of equipment for him. In all honesty, it didn't take me or anyone else to realize the connection and that I had been a principle of advising Bohdan Vasylovych on this particular product for his son.

Full Circle - 25 Years Less a Year

As we all know, Viktor Yanukovych – for anyone with normal vision, understood him as both a criminal and vassal of Moscovia decided to change Ukraine's publicly declared vector towards Europe, towards one aimed in a different direction; that of Tsar Putin's Eurasian Economic Union as a manner to re-establish the Soviet Union in USSR 2.0.

When it became clear that Yanukovych was not going to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, Mustafa Nayyem called on students to come out to Maidan, Kyiv's main square, though I think he is given too much credit for this movement as new generation had come to fruition from the Orange (R)evolution. They were not going to be fooled again, and it wasn't simply his call to action, but their own initiative and the witnessing of empty promises of Viktor Yushchenko, the poster boy of democracy in Ukraine. Unfortunately, too much credit is being given to people like Nayem who may be great at what they did and do professionally but are far from ready to be involved in politics in a still very immature political culture with no party discipline and no political checks and balances.

While, many like to credit Nayyem with what happened and what started the EuroMaidan movement – they are all mistaken and have oversimplified the situation and once again catapulted, a number of individuals who are popular, into politics for the wrong reasons. This,which seems to have bevcome a phenomenon of Ukraine's last two revolutions, will once again retard political development in Ukraine. It is equally as stupid as Yulia Tymoshenko's populist tact of utilizing Nadia Savchenko as a political candidate in their retarded and non-democratic but populist list system.

A few days after Nayem, purportedly started the Euromaidan movement via Facebook, there was a brutal crack-down on the peacefully protesting students on Maidan.

When that happened, my old acquaintance, Bohdan Yaremenko, then in Ukraine's Foreign Service and then posted in Istanbul, called a spade a spade. He equated the crack down on student's on Maidan as being the same as the Nazi regime upon Jews in Germany during the Third Reich. He wasn't far off, but given the criminal regime of Yanukovych then he was recalled from Istanbul and his political post.

Let's Not Repeat Mistakes

I hope for the sake of those who died of the Heavenly Hundred and those who are continuing to die in the Donbass region, that those who've been elected to the Verkhovna Rada will continuously check themselves and the reasons they are there. They must all realize that if they become complacent in the requirements for change that there are still plenty of civic watch-dogs ready to snap at their heels, and if necessary, bite them in the ass.

The newly formed Cabinet of Ministers has been in principle been given carte-blanche for a year. How well the government will perform will not only be their responsibility, but that of the VR in ensuring that required reform legislation is passed. Though we've seen a similar scenario, where some good legislation made it through the VR, though it was never implemented or enforced – and when people broke the law they were never punished. This has to change if Ukraine wants to move forward, and not besmirch those who have paid the ultimate price.

There is unfortunately a group of members of Ukraine's VR that will do everything possible to throw a spanner into the works and make it more difficult to pass legislation. The extremely unimaginative and ass-backwards thinking group that calls themselves the “Oppositional Block” consists of twenty-nine members in the Verkhovna Rada. A good number of these individuals are dubious characters and leftovers from Yanukovych's criminal regime who should all be sitting in prison for their voting behaviour on January 16, 2014, for a package of laws which would restrict practically any type of civil dissent and give law-enforcement agencies wide-ranging powers to suppress such dissent. This legislation came to be known as the “Dictatorial Laws” passed on Black Thursday.

To not repeat many of the same mistakes made in the past in particular on deputies who've been elected to the VR – is that their immunity which puts them above the law must be eliminated immediately. This immunity is similar and a hold over to a period when Sakharov postulated a “theory of symmetry”. “...Our state is similar to a cancer cell – with its messianism and expansionism, its totalitarian suppression of dissent, the authoritarian structure of power, with a total absence of public control in the most important decisions in domestic and foreign policy, a closed society that does not inform its citizens of anything substantial, closed to the outside world, without freedom of travel or the exchange of information.”

This quote of Sakharov's is the exact direction to which the Russian Federation is returning. A Russian Federation guided by a KGB crony with a Napoleon Complex.

Supporting Rule of Law: Quick Wins

While, Ukraine is making very valiant efforts to breakaway from its Soviet legacy, the most important changes it must make are in Rule of Law. This is something I have written about in the past, though at this time, I would like to direct you all to my fellow Canadian, Daniel Bilak's opinion piece in the Kyiv Post called Nine Quick Wins For Justice.

While, I am not an expert on legal matters, I can support those matters that I felt effected my decade experience living in Ukraine. We all know that i will agree with QW1, as it is something I have stated above.

QW2: I remember when I was still working in journalism and about to make my way back to librarianship/information services at one of Ukraine's leading law firms in early 2003 when Ukraine's new Civil Code came to light. I saw many things where the conflict of interest of the State and private interests created expenses to many parties which were unnecessary.

QW3: The issue of judges in Ukraine must be investigated, not only at the level that Bilak mentions but at all levels. Transparency and rule of law are once again important. In 2001 I had a family member in a regional city whose husband wanted to take things into his own hands and use a third party outside of the law. I convinced her and him to work with civic organizations in that city to resolve their issues.

QW4: Yes, the issue between civil servants and public masters needs a change, both between the understanding of those civil servants and on behalf of citizens expecting service and not being dictated to. Ukraine could benefit by removing up to three layers least of duplication in services which are to work for society and its people.

QW5: Over ten years ago there were projects supported by TACIS and other organizations for such important aspects of Ukrainian life. Unfortunately, internal corruption of the system, never let those project come to fruition.

QW6: Please remember that volunteerism and civic activism has been by many as a way to ingratiate themselves and close family members. I know this for a fact and I have plenty of evidence to prove it. Let's be careful with this area. I know it inside and out.

QW7: I know this area personally having spent easily close to five times at a least for equivalent services in Canada – and that was in the best case scenario. Along with this from a Canadian point of view; the idiocy of company seals and stamps is nonsense and an additional cost creating a nonsensical industry of stamps.

QW8: Under the current situation, the rule of law is not being satisfied.

Finally Daniel Bilak's “Quick Win's” and I hope that there will be an appropriate implantation of these Quick Wins.

QW9: Communication is key. There are plenty of top notch NGOs which I had the great opportunity to work with. Communication was always their key and they have trained many along the way. I hope that as in the past that the government of Ukraine and it's advisers continue to listen to the tell of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation.

I'm not someone dislocated from the needs many of us have had for a quarter of a century. I hope that those new “foreign” members of the government will make sure these matters are implemented, and they will bear the necessary fruit.

Foreign Input

Ukraine must take the proper steps that Ukrainians from abroad have taken for so many years. Ukraine, somehow always rejected a Jewish model. A model of inviting Ukrainians and foreigners to build a nation. Those who reject this approach are simply out to lunch, but at the same time only wanting to garner more than they are worth. This same approach of barring new approaches to investment took place during the 2012 Euro bid and unfortunately the transparency that is necessary will not tell us all who Sadoviy really is? I experienced this personally therefore I have a great scepticism of what Samopomich involved with Sadoviy is. If you followed the matter in 2012, you will have to wonder? Is Samopomich a criminal organization as all other political parties. I hope I am wrong, but at the same time I will love to say – I told you so. I have very little trust in Sadoviy and his team in terms of professionalism based on my personal professional experience.

Now,when experience is important, we again have the Soviet approach towards a new government that wants to gather the best people possible. Let's make every possible moment count for Ukraine's new government. Let's help Ukraine move as far away as possible from a theory of symmetry.

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

The commentary of this was first published on the WPawlowsky.com site.

A Call to Ukrainians and Supporters of Ukraine to Look at Something New

2015-01-31T16:45:00.000+02:00

The Ukrainian community regardless of where it is, is always looking for money to support the countless projects that are underway. This has even become more of a reality in the last year. It is time that the community try to find something new in social media. Just over two weeks ago I wrote a piece about a disruptive social network which would change the way things work in social media in that it would actually feed back to those who made that platform successful! I said that Tsū was disruptive and I think I was right for a whole 100%. It is time for us to look at something new.

In the last month since this new social platform, that pays its members to post, comment and share content, they have beaten any growth records of social media in the past. In fact it is pretty incredible. Within a month they have one MILLION members!

One of the founders Sebastian Sobczak has already released a campaign to support the drilling of a well in Africa for clean drinking water in a particular village. The platform that Mr. Sobczak and his team at Evacuation Complete LLC has developed is not just to make money but to do good. Raise money for its members who can then give to organizations of their choice either through the platform but in the very least make money by creating content, sharing it, liking it and commenting on it and that of other content creators.

The background

In the early stages of my examination of this extremely new platform I thought it was some time of MLM scheme. But in conferring with a number of social media gurus through reading their take on things, and reviewing Google Hangout video recordings, I understood that this was something completely different. It was then that I wrote my first piece on this new disruptive social network, that was for a change letting content creators maintain ownership of their content. This was and is something that other social networks use to drive advertising revenue, and profit from users publication.

The management company of Tsū is called Evacuation Complete LLC, and they have acquired, from my research, 7 million capital to become whatever they want to become based on their platform. If they choose to become another type of PayPal then so be it.

The platform that they are developing can truly empower many people, including the Ukrainian community if it so chooses to take part.

If the Ukrainian community doesn't take part we will be left behind the eight ball. I in less than three weeks have earned one dollar! And this is without a network to support me, it is simply based on sharing of content, my own or of others, up to eight times in a 24 hour period; liking other people's content, and making comments.

I believe that if Ukrainians came together on this platform we would simplify many matters of financing that which we are already crowd sourcing.

The Mechanism

One can only become a member of Tsū by being invited. When you are invited to Tsū , you become a child of the person who invited you. Like in any type of structure of developing relationships, it is expected that you too will invite others to join you in your venture. Unlike, MLM schemes where you have to pay money to do this, your decision to join Tsū costs you nothing but your agreement with the company and some type of positive relationship with the person who invited you into a PARTICIPATIVE EXCHANGE. Yes that is what makes the system work, cooperation and participation of your NETWORK. It works well for everyone involved. And trust me, it is important that you support your friends. We all have done this on Facebook and other social networks, but have we ever been paid to do this? I would like to see our community grow stronger due to this new Social Platform that is fair to its users!Ninety percent of the money it makes from advertisers, sponsors and partners goes back to the companies users/members.

I have invited people and organizations I know that are Pro-Ukrainian, and along the way I have met friends and followers that like what I post and share it. This is how we make money.

I have had some people that are scum of Moscovy make comments on what I was putting forth and and I had no problem turning them off. The thing that drives this social network is quality content. It's a completely new network, something that is disruptive and new, and I believe we as Ukrainians, and supporters of Ukraine should join it en mass.

How To React

Currently I have invited a few people and organizations that I know and who could use some support. While I would like many of you to join me as a child, I do not think this is the best way to support our community. Right now I have three or four different organizations or individuals that need support on what they are up to.

The first is EMPR – EuroMaidanPRmedia – Please join them at https://www.tsu.co/EMPRmedia
The second is an artist and Ukrainian patriot - Serhiy Kolyada - https://www.tsu.co/Kolyada
And third is Tyler Gooden – Film Maker – American supporting Ukrainian values - https://www.tsu.co/Tyler_G

Please do not hesitate to sign up under their positions or mine: http://tsu.co/uamuzik .

I will provide everyone what I know about how things work. The primary matter is providing quality content, this is what drives the system. By the end of the third week of the platform's operation a great deal of spammers and people who look at this as a get-rich-quick scheme have been eliminated.

In working together and supporting one another the Ukrainian community can generate income from a system that is totally disruptive.

Anyone who joins the system I will provide information on how to use this system. Right now there are people who are making money. Our support of one another can help us make money and in turn help us to support the things we would like to support.

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

The commentary of this was first published on the WPawlowsky.com site.

Tsū: A New and Disruptive Type of Social Media

2014-11-13T14:00:00.000+02:00

Every once in a while something new jumps into the foray of social media that either goes unnoticed or really shakes things up. In this case I want to write about the latter case and a relatively new arrival that some social media gurus have called a new and disruptive type of social media. This new social media platform is an extremely hot topic for discussion among some of the top social media experts globally and it isn't just because its new, it's because Tsū has presented a completely different business model than anyone out there to date.

Learning to crawl

Being a little of a disruptor myself I joined this new social network called Tsū, ten days ago, so I consider myself a bit of a newbie there, but given the age of the network so is everyone else. Tsū, pronounce Sue, is the creation of Sebastian Sobczak and his co-partners and was launched on October 14 of this year, though it has been in the works for six years already. As a social network it is extremely new, though it is gaining traction with those who are content creators, and those who specialize in marketing the content of other creators on social media. So why are these specialists so excited and interested in something this new. One of the most important reasons is that Tsū allows content creators to own their content, and in return have a pay back methodology to award creators of content that is shared. Revenues at Tsū are acquired from advertising, sponsorship and partnerships, and of those revenues, the company keeps all but 10% and redistributes the remaining 90% content creators on the system in two different ways.

Though before I explain how these payouts are made let's clarify some definition of terms and also state though I like many others along with the platform itself are still in an infancy stage and learning to crawl, the people at Tsū are making adjustments to the system daily to keep their platform as a place to share great content and eliminating the “get rich quick” scam artists who are creating a lot of spam and false promises and at times outright lies about what their earnings are. Though nevertheless, I think that this new platform has a lot of merit and over time if I only make say $50 for sharing content in the first year, it is still $50 more than I have ever received from sharing, and liking posts on Facebook while that company makes a great deal of money by targeted advertising based on the content I share and like.

Tsū seems to consider that each user will be growing a family. For example in the picture below you can see me at the top with a tree like structure, with my children below. Yes, I only have 6 kids, but that's not bad in just ten days! The platform allows you to see who your grandchildren are as well, and it is this structure that is important in the pay out.

If my content was to generate say $100.00 then what would happen? First of all Tsū, would keep $10 of that for its needs of maintaining the platform. The remaining $90 would be first divided in half, with $45 going to me as the content creator and then the remaining $45 being divided down the line to my children, and their children and so on. This is illustrated in the image below from the FAQ on Tsū's site:

However, the returns that you get from your children, grandchildren and further down the line is not reflected here, but the royalty algorithm that Tsū uses is based on an infinite thirds basis, which means that at each level down the amount paid out diminishes by 1/3 but it keeps going down as far as the eye can imagine. While they say that this goes down through your grandchildren, however, from what I gathered from a panel discussion which I have included below, payments go down four levels.

Children, Friends and Followers

When you are invited to join Tsū you become someone's child and to log on to the system you have to know their short code. Other social networks give different names to it, but “in short” it's your user name. To simplify matters I used the same short code as my Twitter handle, where I have just over sixteen hundred followers – would love them all to join me here. “Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Say no more!” So on Tsū I can be reached at http://tsu.co/uamuzik and I invite you to join as one of my children if you are not already on Tsū. You will then also be able to invite your friends to join you in the Tsū family tree.

Friends are people you either know or get to know over time after following them, their posts and their content. You can invite them and they can invite you, though invitations have their limits. You can have up to 50 pending friend requests in Tsū during a seven-day period. You can either accept them or reject them, but you should do something with them. I suggest you examine the profiles of those who ask you to be their friend. Check out their content, is it something that interests you, are they missing the message of Tsū? The folks are trying to build a social network of quality content and not one full of spammers, and they even want to pay you for your effort!

In reality, the way I see it is that Tsū is trying to create quality content sharing platform, where quality content drives advertising. Though for advertising to be driven by content there has to be some type of algorithm to drive that advertising to the client that has the greatest potential of being a click through or the appropriate target audience. One would guess that your friends will both like and share your content and post comments on that content, because the sincerely like the content. However, in order to limit spamming and maintaining quality content, Tsū has set up some limits, therefore you have to think about it before you share content. Each user is limited to 8 shares a day or once ever three hours and twenty-four posts in a day, or once an hour. While I have digressed somewhat, as often is the case with storytellers, who are the people who become your friends if you don't know them?

Well clearly they are those who become your followers. Your Followers, for the most part will also contribute to liking and sharing your content and there is no limit on how many people follow you, though there is a limit to the number of people you can follow and that is thousand (1000) people; however, as you get to know your followers you can convert them to friends and drop them as followers, because your friends are automatically following you and seeing your posts and hopefully sharing your quality content.

Like all Social Media, you will have to make some effort to develop a following. Though at this early stage of the game of this network, putting in one hour a day now will be like needing a full day of work to achieve the same results six to twelve months from now. You will be able to connect your existing Facebook page and your Twitter account to Tsū and you can post to both of those SM accounts directly from Tsū, so check it out. It's free!

Sharing Quality over Quantity

When joining Tsū you don't have to abandon the social networks you are already involved in, you can connect them to Tsū, allowing you to post your content not only there but to your other social networks. Though due to the limitations on Tsū, you will have to be selective on sharing your very best content there, as that is what is going to bring you the best possible audience.

If you have a some great graphics, some video or memes that you created and think could go viral, or you are a producer of great content, then I would say Tsū could be for you. I know a few of you that I've followed for years and some only months and I think it's time you use a totally new platform as a means of disseminating your creative. You will be limited to the number of posts you make of your own material, you will be limited to how many times people will be able to share your material, though I believe those people sharing your content will be those who are interested. I can think of a few musician friends that could benefit here, as well as civic activists, independent researchers/journalists and other creators of content. While Tsū may be new and still small, its business model can become sustainable for the company that runs it, and for content producers.

The area of my specialization is pretty narrow compared to the global market place, but I have always believed in quality over quantity in many of my pursuits. Build it, don't spam, and people will find your material, like it, share it and help you out. This is far from being a get-rich-quick scheme but if you have quality content to offer, why not offer it via a platform that provides the potential of giving something back to you the creator.

Your goal on Tsū should be to develop a social network of children and friends who produce great quality because in the long run that becomes part of you. As someone I know on a number of different social networks and social media guru Michael Q Todd posted today on Tsū. “If you only get friends and followers by spamming you will have nothing but spammers as your friends?” He is exactly right! So create and share great stuff on Tsū once your hear and invite your friends who are creators to be your children.

A Continuous learning process

I've always been a bit of risk taker and jumping into Tsū for me is just another change in life and something that I have to learn. My maternal grandfather always used to say “If I don't to learn something new each day, the time will quickly come that I will have no place on this earth.” The things that creative minds of technology give to us provide me with the stimulus to help me learn many new things everyday, and Tsū is just one of these little things that I am now learning and in fact I'm enjoying quite a bit.

Though let me say this, I'm not expecting Tsū to make me loads of money, but if in an year it makes me enough to pay part of any of the bills I have or even buy myself a pint or two, then I'm a couple of pints ahead of other social networks that don't compensate me for the content I have provided, shared, liked and commented on.

As a librarian/information specialist I always like to provide individuals information in order that can make their own decisions in adopting new technologies. Below are a number of links to pages that I found informative in my decision making process as to whether or not I would join yet another social network. However, it was the last three that I consider to be coming not from some business writer who is paid for a business story but information provided by some to the people who are tops in the industry of social media and networks. Their understanding of the potential of Tsū weighed more heavily than the other two informational pieces though I'm sharing them with you to give you some background as to what Tsū really is about.

Informational piece in Opt-Talk on the New York Times blog which appeared nearly two weeks after Tsū went public.
http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/the-social-network-that-pays-you-to-friend/

From the Daily Finance website, and just another news story.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/10/29/tsu-new-social-network-pays-you-posts-friends/

This piece is short and sweet and comes from Berrie Pelser in the Netherlands who I consider someone who is well respected in the field of social media and marketing using social media.
http://hosting.ber-art.nl/tsu-becoming-new-twitter

This is a piece by Ron Callari and as the title suggests, Tsū at the right time, will become a company that will be involved in financial transfers, a market which is much more lucrative than what the company appears to be on the surface. In fact, in interviews, Sebastian Sobczak, one of the co-founders of the company very clearly lays this out as vision for the company.
http://inventorspot.com/articles/will-tsu-become-next-paypal

This is a video of a Google Hangout entitled Why we are excited about getting into TSU so early #TsuClan, hosted by Michael Q Todd, with some others in the industry who really know their stuff: Ryan Conley, Ben Fisher, Randy Hilarski, Robby Ball, Yoriko Todd and Christine DeGraff and the host himself.
Why We are excited about Tsū

Join me on Tsū at http://tsu.co/uamuzik and let's get disruptive!

Vasyl Pawlowsky
Independent Consultant
The commentary of this was first published on at: WPawlowsky.com site.

The V4 Must Help Ukraine Win its Struggle for a Democratic Future

2014-08-02T20:00:00.000+03:00

In the near future I will be having guest posts from contacts I have globally. The first of these guest posts is below.

By Volodomyr Valkov

In November 2013 Ukraine was peacefully preparing to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union at the Vilnius summit. Back then it would have probably been considered an absolute hallucinating nonsense to say that in just several months Ukraine would be swallowed by the murder of civilians, outright annexation, terrorism, military conflict, missile fire, and crashing planes.

In a matter of a few months Russia has stolen a huge part of Ukraine’s territory, forever introduced the reality of terrorism into the hearts of many Ukrainians, orchestrated a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine, and started the process of creating two grotesque breakaway republics known as the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic. The most recent and most somber consequence of this political whirlwind is the tragic loss of lives in the downing of flight MH17.

There are important conclusions that we need to draw from the crisis in Ukraine. First, Russia (as in Vladimir Putin and his circle) has zero tolerance for the democratization of the post-Soviet space, especially in neighboring Ukraine. After all, Ukraine transports 80% of Russian gas to Europe, is the second largest buyer of Russian gas after Germany, has over 1,800 defense enterprises – some of which have unique capabilities in the indigenous production of ships, submarines, missiles, and other armaments – and possesses valuable human capital and large reserves of fertile land, important minerals, and natural resources.

All of Ukraine’s assets would be easy to control if Viktor Yanukovych had stayed in power. Yanukovych and his pro-Russian successors were supposed to oversee Ukraine’s accession to the Eurasian Union. Yanukovych almost completely eroded Ukraine’s defense potential, maintained Ukraine’s astronomic energy inefficiency, increased the presence of Russia’s military base in Crimea, amended the Constitution to usurp power, limited civil liberties, and was about to sell Russia control over the Ukrainian gas transport system.

The second lesson is that international security is a fragile concept. A difficult conflict can develop very quickly, affecting many more states that the warring parties themselves. The shocking way in which the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 has rapidly affected many different countries is a demonstration of the unpredictable, gruesome nature of conflict in a globalized, interconnected world. In a matter of days, the supposedly limited conflict has instantaneously spilled over to the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Great Britain, South Africa, the United States, Canada, and Germany.

Most likely, even the Russian side did not anticipate that the MH17 disaster could have ever been produced by terrorists under its control. Nevertheless, Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, and the ideological and material sponsorship of the military fighting in eastern parts of Ukraine, including the supply of sophisticated weaponry to these terrorists, has irresponsibly claimed the lives of too many innocent people.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has been given different names, including hybrid war and proxy war. The main point is that it is, in fact, a war. Currently, the war is limited, but the fate of MH17 demonstrates the susceptibility of this war to expansion.

The countries of the V4 must take important lessons from this tragedy. Their own experience of Soviet rule and thus a deeper understanding of Putin’s actions, must serve as a constant reminder that only a democratic, united, and independent Ukraine can be a reliable, secure, and beneficial neighbor and partner. The V4 need to pass this knowledge along with foreign and security policy recommendations over to the rest of Europe and their allies in order to help Ukraine win its struggle for a democratic future.

Volodymyr Valkov is a human rights activist, researcher, and political analyst, as well as a project manager at the American Jewish Ukrainian Bureau for Human Rights “UCSJ” in Lviv, Ukraine. He holds an MA in International Affairs from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

This piece originally appeared at: Visegrad/Insight

I hope you enjoyed reading this guest's post and look forward to having more of his material in the future.

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

Seems Like FINA may be Against Russian Aggression

2014-07-29T23:01:00.000+03:00

The FINA World Masters Championships are being held in Montreal from August 2-9th and there was something that caught my attention while I reviewed the schedule, and could be an indicator that FINA is against Russian aggression in Ukraine. This is not the first time that an international sports governing body has made, or what seems to have been a decision that will not affect the participants in their sport, but does clearly send a message of disapproval of some political events in the world. FINA or the Fédération Internationale de Natation oversees the sports of swimming, open water swimming, synchronized swimming, water-polo and diving.

Some of us can remember the boycott of the Moscow Olympic in 1980 shortly after the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan. In total sixty-five countries did not take part in the Moscow games that summer in protest. The following Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles were boycotted in a kind of knee-jerk reaction to the previous Summer Olympic Games, led by the USSR and their friends, totalling either sixteen or eighteen nations boycotting the Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games in 1984, depending on the source you want to believe.

As a volunteer for this international competition in one of the sports I dedicated a good part of my young adult life to, I decided to explore the schedule. Everything seemed pretty normal. With competition of Synchronized Swimming and Waterpolo beginning as early as tomorrow Sunday July 27th. A few days for swimmers to train and acclimatize before a competition at such a level starts on Sunday August 3, 2014, and with the official Opening Ceremonies taking place on Saturday, August 2, 2014.

As I scrolled down the page what hit me were the words which followed the words ~~Closing Ceremony~~ was followed with the following: There will be no Closing Ceremony on Aug 9th as requested by FINA and because of the presence of the mayor of Kazan, Russia, at the Opening Ceremony. When I first read it I had to think twice. In fact it was a similar knee-jerk reactions as the Soviets had had in 1984. Why couldn't have his presence been refused in the first place for the Opening Ceremony. Hostilities, towards Ukraine from the part of Putin's Puppet army have been going on for some time now, but now in retrospect it must have been the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH 17 on July 17, 2014 which would have been the last straw and drew FINA's attention to what is really going on in Ukraine.

Schedule of the 15th FINA World Masters Championships, july 27th to August 10, 2014
While all sports can be very political, FINA isn't the big money-maker that FIFA though seems to have in this move at least made a minor statement. It is time that the international communities pressure FIFA from taking away the World Cup in Russian in 2018. Please visit http://boycottputinnow.com to put pressure on the World Cup's sponsors and join other such efforts on social media to take away the WC-2018 from the evil empire of pariah Putin.

Whether we can consider this as a vote against Russian aggression in Ukraine can not be certain, but I'm sure many are asking why did it have to take the lives of 298 innocent victims for the world to wake up. I know I will have to treat anyone I meet at this competition fairly, as a volunteer of the organizing committee, but so help me if I meet anyone who watches and believes the blatant propaganda being spewed out by Putin's Propaganda Prostitutes. I may just have to direct them to someone who doesn't know better of what is going on in the world, after politely telling them what I think.

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant
The commentary of this was first published on the WPawlowsky.com site.

Moscovy's labels of obfuscation

2014-07-25T14:30:00.000+03:00

One of Putin's heroes is the king of the labels of obfuscation Joseph Goebbels. Putin began taking plays from the Goebbels' playbook of propaganda very early in the information war with Ukraine. In order to not only gain favour in Moscovy and all the other territories which he reins over in typical dictatorial form, but also to find the best way to totally confuse and obfuscate the situation in that part of the world for journalist and media outlets with very little knowledge of the politics of the region nor of the history of the regions well enough to understand they would become unwilling prostitutes of Pimp Putin because of his labels obfuscation.

Pimp Putin made the right call and unfortunately journalists at very good networks have been suckers for his labelling and have continued to use completely inaccurate labels of obfuscation in their reporting and headlines. Clearly their editors are just as guilty and not very savvy, nor seem to care about reporting the truth but rather simply sell copy. It is time that all you journalists, editors and networks stop being suckers for the propaganda of Putin.

I've been an active observer of this region since the early 1980s. I've read its mainstream and dissident literature, I've met with dissidents. I've been actively involved in the democratization process in the region, and I understand many of the nuances that most media junkies, and journos don't. There are some journos who do understand but are dictated by politically correct editorial policy. It may be time for the editorial boards to reconsider their policies when it comes to reporting on particularly Russia, which I would prefer they call Moscovy.

The More Lies the Better

While Goebbels had a certain principle of how to make up lies, Putin's prostitutes have taken this to a whole different level. However, before I get into the lies of Putin's prostitutes let's uncover some of the simple labels that Putin has used to obfuscate not only the facts within Moscovy, but also in the West.

Some of Putin's favourite labels have been, though many of these were born during the time of Stalin: “anti-Semites”,“Banderite Fascists”, “fascists”, “Kiev Nazi Junta” and “pro-Russian separatists”.

This banner reads:
The rules of Russian Propaganda
1) The better the lie, then it will be easier for those to believe it. (Goebbels)
2) There must be many lies, in order that a person chooses beween
a lie and a lie and not between a lie and the truth. (FSB of Russia)

These are just a few of the labels that Putin and Moscovy has used to support his cause in destabilizing Ukraine as he is trying to rebuild USSR 2.0.

Unfortunately, many of these labels have stuck with global media outlets, and they are so far from the truth that the media that use such labels should be ashamed of doing so.

During the early periods of the unrest in Kyiv because of criminal Yanukovych's flip flopping on the Association Agreement with the European Union. It was clear that the label “anti-Semites” was a just one way for Putin and his prostitutes of drumming up international feelings against Ukraine. This became very clear when a friend of mine Maylakh Shelekh had asked trough another journalist that I disseminate the following letter entitled: Open Statement to the International Democratic Community from Ukraine. This international statement in itself shut out Putin's label of “anti-Semite”.

The label of Banderite fascists and fascists has long been a label of Moscovy to try to discredit Ukrainians who were trying to fight for their independence as a nation. From my contacts in Ukraine I had learnt that the volumes that exonerated Ukraine's freedom fighters from the Nuremberg trials were never published in the Soviet Union. Enabling Stalin and his scum hoard to continue it's anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, during the late 1940s and until his death. Even as recently as yesterday Professor Andrey Zubov who had been dismissed of his position at Moscow State University earlier this year for opposing Putin stated the following in a recent interview: “In the Soviet Union, to condemn something, especially after World War II, all you had to do was call it fascism. So "Banderites" were called fascists, although, of course, it was not true.” So by assocication none of the first three Putinite labels hold water.

The label of “Kiev Nazi Junta” was a carry over from Soviet times to try to garner support of the older generation. In adition Moscow had gone as far to try to use the Banderite lie, on May 25th during the extraordinary Presidential elections after criminal Yanukovych fled to Moscovy.

Prior to that day Moscovy's hackers had tried to plant a malicious virus in the Election system computer which would have announced their own predetermined election results. Luckly, this hack was discovered and the continuation of Moscovy's 400 years of lies could not be continued. Their primary National TV station announced that Dmytro Yarosh had received 37% of the popular vote, as per their cypber attack, though the reality was much different. A full analysis of this escapade is available at the Christian Science Monitor website. Just one more sample of different type of label of obfuscation, and one of electoral tampering.

Clearly the “Kiev Nazi Junta” had not come to power but the labels addopted by the Goebbells school of propaganda supported by Vladimir Putin, continued to use this label. However, all of these labels had somehow not stuck with the savvy Western media, there was one that did and it is completely shameful that Western media took this label hook, line and sinker.

The label that really is totally inappropriate is “pro-Russian separatist”. This term is completely absurd for a couple of reasons. A friend of mine who lives in Ontario outlined it as follows:

“If I run 100km south to the Ontario-New York border with a bunch of guns, cross over, arm some local thugs and gangsters, start shooting and torturing people and then declare a tract of land to be an “independent” republic, what does that make me? At a minimum I'm a FOREIGN invader (even though the land I have invaded speaks the same language as me: English, or American, or Canadian, if you prefer). More than likely, Americans will label me a terrorist. No one will call me a “separatist” or a “pro-Canadian rebel”. That would be nonsense.”

As my friend explained to many on Facebook above, it is nonsense that those individuals who are in the East of Ukraine are even being called pro-Russian separatists, when one of their leaders like Igor Strelkov and others are Russian citizens, are armed and financed by Russia but are in Ukraine. For the most part those being captured by the Ukrainian military are people who are being paid my Moscovy to kill Ukrainian soldiers. Starting from $1000 a head.

Ukraine has for centuries fought for its independence, the West has been a little indifferent, for the most part believing Moscovy. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! The West should be ashamed of its understanding of the liars in Moscovy. They have had plenty of apologists and individuals and Universities which received nice presents for programs of Russian Studies, Russian Literature etc. All that was and still is bullshit. The Russian language was contrived, it is not a slavic language therefore can not be the older brother of Slavic nations, though as I often do I have digressed; however, it is time for the West to not only punish Moscovy for its current transgressions, but also for its 400 years of lies.

I have never had so much hatred for anyone from Moscovy and those who are Putin's prostitutes. These include neighbours, and the zombies of Putin's prostitutional media campaign. This is the first time in my life I have ever been so filled with such anger, though I am happy that Putin has done one thing – united Ukrainians globally.

Moscovy's Changing of Labels

As of the July 22, Russia Today, or as I would rather call it Rarely Truthful, and the right hand of propaganda of the Kremlin started using a totally new set of labels: “Russia Today changes its vocabulary for war in Ukraine. Now pro-Russians who used to be "rebels" are "Ukrainian militia". With many Chechens.” This was a journalist friend of mine's post on Twitter.

Sorry but Twitter is a news source of media we have to acknowledge. It is information, and unfortunately not always verified, but information that is topical.

I'm surprised that Moscovy has still not turned to the world to promote one of Rarely Truthful television's greatest heroes.

His name is Graham W. Phillips a Ukraine hater and British citizen. Yesterday I heard that he stepped on a land mine that ended his life. If he did good riddance, he was a sex-pat in Ukraine and Ukrainophobe, no doubt on Putin's payroll. Oh, maybe I sound a little callous? Not really I'm being a realist in regard to my paternal homeland. This character has no roots in that part of the world and he decides to travel to Ukraine continuously bad mouth the nation and its history, a nation that has been under attack for the last 400 years. What ever happens to him in unsafe territory is of his own doing. If he in did in fact did hit an anti-personnel mine, then he had it coming. It was his employer Putin who never signed the Ottawa Treaty banning the use of Anti-personnel mines.

As it turns out it was only wishful thinking on the part of many who hate this Phillips character. It turns out that he is in protective custody of the Ukrainian army this time. This is the second time that he is in custody, and in fact it is time that Ukrainians look into who this guy really is well they have him in custody. Find out what makes him tick, find out about all his pent up hatred for Ukraine and Ukrainians, and find out if he like other scum from the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine deny that the Holodomor ever took place and that it was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people by one very evil man, Joseph Stalin.

Social Media Reveals the Lies of Putin

I, like many others, have grown tired of the oh so many lies of Putin's propaganda machine. I lived in that part of the world for over nine years. In fact I love that part of the world and most of its people. I probably understand both its positive and negative nuances better than the academics here who study the country from afar. And certainly I know that part of the world a lot better than ninety-nine percent of all journalists who report on it. So it is very clear why most are still falling for Putin's propaganda, and using his labels. I can't really blame my fellow Canadians for not have a clue as two what is going on in that part of the world. Though it's not their fault, because Ukrainians have never had the financial wherewithal to dictate what you babble about. Though it is time to think about a more global issues, and the security in Europe had to deal with what the scum Putin will do next.

It has unfortunately taken the lives of two-hundred and ninety-eight individuals for the world to wake up. The terror which is caused by one man alone by the name of Vladimir Putin has finally come to your back yard. Canadians lost one of their fellow citizens on July 17, 2014, and today, July 23, 2014, was a day of mourning in the Royal Kingdom of the Netherlands as the remains of the first forty of its one hundred and ninety-two losses, one of whom held dual Netherlands/USA citizenship, were returned home.

The inappropriately labelled orange boxes have apparently been delivered to the UK and so far according to reports there is no evidence that they have been tampered with, though had they been it would have come as no surprise to anyone with as much as a gram or two of sense in their heads.

Though today it is very clear there that those who are in Ukraine and who had access to the crash site not only interfered with the OSCE team that was on site, but decided that it would be a great idea to benefit from the ravages of war. Yes, this is now considered a war zone by the International Red Cross.

Today the Donbas People's Republic – read Terrorists, was clearly identified through their own admissions that they had pillaged the belongings of the victims of flight MH17 and these items would be used to finance their struggle. This looting has been confirmed by the fact that when families of the victims would call their phones, they would be answered by complete strangers.

Meanwhile, back on the Russian side of the Ukraine-Russia border an over zealous Russian soldier decide he wanted his five seconds of stardom for their followers on the Russian Social Media platform Vkotonkte, which literally means to be in touch. Vadym Grygoriev wrote, “We've been shelling Ukraine all night long!” However, he was either technologically inept, drunk, or both and forgot to turn off the geo-tagging feature of the device he used to reach out to his loving followers. This location was clearly recognized as being on the Russian side of the Ukraine-Russia border. Though he is not the only one, Ukrainian actvists have been finding more and more of these Russian soldiers who are revealing their positions. Clearly such a provocation by Russia is yet another attempt to roll out the war horses for a full incursion into Ukraine. I hope that somehow this evidence can be used against Mad Vlad and all his prostitutes and Putin's Pricks.

Vadym Grygoryev a fellow with a few chomosones
or brain cells missing reveals how Russia shelled accross Ukaine's border.
Today, the Netherlands has filed a claim of International War Crimes against Russia, Ukraine has to add its weight to this suit. It has plenty of evidence of kidnapping, torture and the indiscriminate killing of individuals because they spoke Ukrainian. Putin's Moscovy continues in its war against Ukraine in trying to eliminate a people and a nation. Putin and all those who have been his prostitutes in this venture must be punished. That included all journalists of Rarely Truthful propaganda media regardless of their nationality. They have spread lies and hatred conjured up by very evil people in the Kremlin.

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

The commentary of this was first published on the WPawlowsky.com site.

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