The first installment of my series from Ukraine is up on Slate now:
KIEV, Ukraine—At the end of Kiev's main street, Khreschatyk, with
its advertisements for mail-order-bride agencies and posh boutiques
selling $3,000 opossum-fur duffel bags,
stands a monument to an older Ukraine. Two burly 20-foot-tall members
of the proletariat—one Russian, one Ukrainian—stand manfully, chests
thrust forward, together holding up a five-pointed star inscribed with
the hammer and sickle and the words "Friendship of Nations." The
formerly exalted spot is now somewhat cheapened by the presence of a
few rickety attractions, like bumper cars and a shooting range where
you can plink empty beer cans with a Kalashnikov-shaped air rifle.
Monuments
like this are usually a good barometer for how a former Soviet republic
feels about its relationship with Russia. Lithuania, which sprinted as
fast as possible from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
has moved its Soviet-era statues to a museum park,
and Estonia even went so far as to remove a World War II memorial from
the center of its capital city. On the other end of the spectrum, Lenin
still stands tall in the central square of Minsk, the capital of
Belarus, a country that regularly entertains proposals to reunite with
Russia.
Ukraine is a bit more ambivalent. The Friendship of
Nations monument stands next to a panoramic lookout spot over the
Dnieper River, and most people who come to the monument barely pay it
any attention; it's just something they pass by to get to the view. The
base's inscription (a relief text that read "In Commemoration of the
Reunification of Ukraine with Russia") has been removed, though the
outline of the letters is still visible
because decades of pollution discolored the background around them. The
statue now sports a little Ukrainian nationalist graffiti. But the
Russian and Ukrainian workers still stand side by side.
The friendship between Russia and Ukraine is on the rocks these days...
Read the whole thing here.
