In Ukraine, Beer Is Not Alcohol

Nation

Drinking Nation

6 June, 21:33

Alcohol abuse and addiction take a heavy toll on the nation's health, longevity and productivity. Drinking starts early and the beer and booze are cheap.

The sight of teenagers drinking beer, champagne or even vodka in public places – often with cigarettes dangling from their mouths – has become so commonplace that many adults in Ukraine don't even give the young drinkers a second look.

But public health advocates believe that more adults – including the nation's lawmakers – should be paying closer attention. They say the nation as a whole needs to take a hard look in the mirror at its culture of drinking.

"This problem is becoming a national tragedy," said Elina Shyshkina, a member of parliament with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko. Shyshkina is developing legislative measures to curb teenage alcoholism.

There are many telling facts, including the existence of more than 40 brands of Ukrainian-produced vodka alone. But beer is often the first encounter that teenagers have with an alcoholic drink. And in Ukraine, beer is regarded more as a soft drink, akin to Coca-Cola, under the law. The domestic brands are very cheap and widely available through street kiosks. And, unlike the minimum age of 18 for purchasing hard alcohol, any child can buy beer legally.

"Beer isn't alcohol, according to legislation, so anybody can legally sell it even to a 5-year-old child," said Konstantin Krasovsky, head of the Alcohol and Drug Information Center in Kyiv.

But beer isn't the only accessible alcoholic beverage to Ukraine's teenagers, despite the law.

According to a poll by the European School Survey for Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs, 70 percent of Ukrainian teenagers don't face any problems buying light alcohol, 60 percent easily get wine and 40 percent are able to buy vodka with no obstructions.

Where all this permissiveness leads is not surprising.

Figures from the World Health Organization suggest that adult Ukrainians consume about the same level of alcohol per year as Europeans. But Ukrainians have a preference for hard alcoholic drinks, and their children drink much more than in the rest of Europe.

A 2008 World Health Organization study found that 40 percent of children in Ukraine drink alcohol – mainly beer – at least once per month.

Ukraine had the highest rate among nations surveyed, followed by Israel. According to the European School Survey for Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs, many start drinking at age 13 or 14.

Moreover, alcohol abuse and addiction continues into adulthood, contributing to the nation's declining population (now 46 million people) and increased mortality rates. An estimated 30 percent of men aged 25-30 are alcohol addicted, for instance.

According to the Health Ministry, about 40,000 deaths annually are caused by alcohol poisoning and other related diseases, as well as alcohol-related accidents. So far this year alone, traffic police recorded more than 140,000 accidents caused by drunk drivers, in which 1,683 people died.

Then there are social costs that are not so easily quantifiable.

Heavy drinking impairs judgment and lowers inhibitions – contributing to a host of social problems, from economic productivity to crime rates and even careless behavior that, for instance, can lead to an increase in the number of sexually transmitted diseases.

Whatever the reasons – enjoyment, boredom, depression – that lead people to drink, attitudes get formed early at home and reinforced as children go out onto the streets and see that everyday drinking is a normal part of life and a big part of celebrations and holidays.

"If a child sees people drinking alcohol in public places, if mothers give their 4-year-old children beer to drink, then children will drink alcohol and nobody will stop them," said Iryna Vasylenko, mother of a 6-year-old child. Vasylenko said a majority of her friends who are parents allow their children to drink wine and beer.

Konstantin Myzhanovskiy, a therapist for alcoholics and drug abusers at Ukrainian Medical Center for Traffic Security, agreed. "If children often see their parents drinking alcohol during dinner, they will never believe it is wrong," Myzhanovskiy said.

Anatoliy Viyevskiy, head of Ukrainian Monitoring Center for Alcohol and Drugs, said 40 percent of children get their first taste of alcohol after being offered a drink by their parents.

Secondary school teacher Iryna Rudenko from Vinnytsya was shocked by the results of an anonymous poll in her school. "Almost all of them said they regularly drink alcohol and smoke," said Rudenko, who has seen teenagers coming to school drunk. The Kyiv prosecutor's office last year counted 132 cases of medical aid being provided to alcohol-poisoned children, while Kyiv police counted at least 110 crimes committed by drunk teenagers.

So what is the solution? Drink less, certainly. But how does society get people to do that?

Public health advocates say that Ukraine has taken positive steps recently by modestly increasing excise taxes on alcohol and adopting partials bans on alcohol advertising. Beer excise was hiked this week by parliament, and is awaiting the president's approval.

Advertising is now banned outdoors, on TV from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on the first and last pages of newspapers and magazines. However, many experts believe only a total ban on advertising is effective and that beer should be included in such alcohol advertising prohibitions.

Experts also say that stiffer tax hikes are needed to curb consumption, since Ukraine's beer and liquor remain among the cheapest in Europe.

Krasovsky of the Alcohol Drug and Information Center believes alcohol should be sold in special stores where children are forbidden to enter. He also believes beer should be reclassified as an alcoholic beverage on the legislative level.

Others, such as Viyevskiy, head of Ukrainian Monitoring Center for Alcohol and Drugs, call for better education in schools about the health effects of alcohol abuse and addiction.

Verkhovna Rada member Shyshkina of Tymoshenko's Bloc wants to stiffen fines for selling alcohol to minors or offering them alcohol. Shyshkina also proposes forbidding sponsorship of TV and radio programs, concerts and sport events by alcohol-producing companies. She would also increase tax from advertising of alcohol and beer up to 20 percent of its cost.

Other nations have banned drinking in public, requiring the alcohol beverages to be consumed in bars or regulated settings such as cafes.

Experts, however, say that Ukraine is far from adopting a coordinated national strategy and comprehensive response. Such a strategy and the will to carry it out may emerge in individual homes throughout the nation, the way that attitudes to alcohol are formed now.

Psychologists say teenagers drink alcohol because they don't feel their parents are helping them solve their problems. Rudenko said, among the children she polled, those who drink alcohol regularly said they badly crave more communication with their parents.

"They don't need the most expensive computers, they need understanding," Myzhanovskiy, the therapist for alcoholics and drug abusers, said.

May 9: Victory Day

Yesterday was Victory Day, a major holiday in the former Soviet Union celebrating the Soviet victory over the fascists in World War II (or the Great Patriotic War, as it is known here). On this day, veterans wear their old war medals, and citizens traditionally give them flowers to thank them for their sacrifices. There's also typically a large parade; in Soviet times, and in today's Russia, the parade features hundreds of tanks and missiles and military vehicles, and fly overs by military jets. In Ukraine this year, there was only one military vehicle, probably due to budget limitations.

Shortly after the main parade, there was also a march by the Communist Party Of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Anti-Fascist Committee, complete with Stalin placards and a sign equating NATO with the SS. Unfortunately, the battery on my camera expired before I could get pictures of them in action.

You can see a few pictures at my picture site.

Still Alive

Yes, I'm still alive, and celebrating spring. I posted some new pictures on my picture web site, including some leftover winter photos and some scenes from spring in my neighborhood. The website is http://picasaweb.google.com/cosmicstanphotos.

Morals commission gets tough on ‘The Simpsons'

Kyiv Post
18 February 2009

“The Simpsons,” one of the world’s most famous and successful cartoons, is not so popular with the Ukrainian State Commission of Morals. The commission, established to decide such issues, recently declared that the TV show violates moral principles.

The commission didn’t ban the program altogether, but recommended that TV channels air the show late at night. But media outlets and Simpsons’ fans argue that the cartoon’s value is in satirizing hot contemporary issues, such as stereotypes, American lifestyle, peculiarities of world cultures and, of course, politics, religion, same-sex marriages and war in Iraq.

Recommendations made by the commission are often challenged by journalists, who defend the right for freedom of expression. The commission’s decision to relegate the program to late-night TV is opposed by Oleksandr Asaulyuk, chief producer of M1 music channel, which has broadcast the cartoon in Ukraine.

M1 music channel stopped broadcasting “The Simpsons” at the end of December, right before the commission’s decision. But the channel did so because its license to air the program had expired. M1 is currently in the stage of negotiating a license extension.

“The people who made such a verdict on the Simpsons either don’t have a sense of humor, or they live in the Stone Age, or they simply have not ever watched the Simpsons,” he said adding that the cartoon had one of the best ratings on the music channel. Asaulyuk is, himself, a fan. He recalls the Guinness Book of World Records once listing it as the most popular cartoon of all times.

Vasyl Kostytskiy, head of the Commission of Morals, explained that members were analyzing “The Simpsons” at the request of two governmental bodies (the prosecutor’s office and National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council). Their task was to check the show’s compliance with the nation’s morals law.

“Our conclusion regarding ‘The Simpsons’ said that there was no violation of law on the protection of morals, but our expert believes that the time frame should be taken into account when demonstrating.” Kostytskiy said, pointing out that 400 episodes of the cartoon “were under investigation in many countries.”

The cartoon has raised eyebrows for its saucy humor. It has been banned in Venezuela, Russia and China. But Asaulyuk names such countries more as bad examples for Ukraine to follow. He believes other nations, such as America, care about their children even when “The Simpsons” are broadcast there on Sundays during prime time.

Venezuela and China appeared to have the same reason as Ukraine to limit “The Simpsons.” Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez decided the cartoon was “unsuitable for children.” Communist China said they wanted to give national TV programs the prime-time slots instead of “The Simpsons”.

Meanwhile, M1’s Asaulyuk disagreed that children should be “protected” from watching the show.

“I actually know people who didn’t want their children to watch ‘The Simpsons’ at a certain age, but my children who are 10 and 4 years old do watch, because I think that it is better for them to learn it in this form than learning it in the perverted form on the streets.”

Meanwhile, the morals commission asked the Institute of Psychology and the Institute of Children’s problems to study the cartoon, and determine its future in Ukraine. And a group that protests time restrictions on broadcasting “The Simpsons” was created in the social network, vkontakte.ru, which is a Russian version of American Facebook. Murad Chopsiev, a freshman student at National Kyiv University of Taras Shevchenko, is a member of the group.

“I am against limitations on the good old ‘Simpsons.’ It has many times criticized the realities of our life. That is why I believe that even though it sometimes crosses the line, it develops people’s outlook by developing critics and a wish to tell the truth,” he said.

Besides “The Simpsons,” another famous entertainment program, “Comedy Club,” was recommended to be banned from Ukrainian television altogether. The morals commission experts described the decision about the show as “harsh,” but found the program’s humor to contain too much swearing. Other shows banned in the commission’s most recent decision are: “Material Proof,” “The Witness,” “Most Popular Ukrainian Maniacs,” “Postscript” and “The Eater of Men.”

Wednesday, January 21, 2009; A13

Wall Street Journal

By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen

Russian gas reached the European Union on Tuesday for the first time in almost two weeks, marking the end to a dispute that left most of Eastern Europe without supplies during a bitterly cold spell.

Russia's state-controlled gas firm OAO Gazprom said Tuesday morning it had fully resumed exports to European consumers via Ukraine's pipeline system. Five hours later, gas reached Slovakia.

"Today we can finally welcome the resumption of gas supplies to Europe," European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said. "Our monitors on the ground report that gas is flowing normally," he said.

New Year's Chill

Russia stopped gas supplies to Ukraine on New Year's Day in a dispute over price and payments for natural gas. A week later, Moscow halted supplies to Europe accusing Ukraine of stealing the transit gas destined for Europe.

Ukraine, Russia and the EU had on Jan. 12 signed an agreement to deploy international monitors to oversee gas flows and resume gas transit. But that deal fell apart, leaving the EU wary that Monday's agreement might similarly unwind.

"That was the first time ever in my life when I saw agreements that were systematically not implemented, it's really incredible," Mr. Barroso said. The commission had been preparing legal action in case this deal fell through as well, he said.

Reassuring Europe

Gazprom's deputy chairman, Alexander Medvedev, reassured Europe there is no risk of Russian gas supplies being frozen to Europe in the future. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, oversaw the signing Monday of a 10-year supply and transit contract between Gazprom and Naftogaz Ukrainy in Moscow.

"A similar shutoff of Russian gas to Europe will never happen again, if Ukraine will be in compliance with the contract signed," Mr. Medvedev said. The EU depends on Russia for almost a quarter of its gas needs. Around 80% of that gas flows via Ukraine's pipeline system.

Under Monday's deal between Gazprom and Naftogaz, all intermediaries including RosUkrEnergo -- a trading company owned by Gazprom and two Ukrainian businessmen -- will be eliminated. Gazprom will supply Ukraine with 40 billion cubic meters of gas this year at a 20% discount to European prices, which, according to Gazprom's Medvedev, will average $280 per 1,000 cubic meters. Starting in 2010, Ukraine will pay full price. Gazprom will pay $1.70 for the transportation of 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometers -- the same as last year's level. The transportation fee will also go to market price starting next year.

 

MOSCOW, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The prime ministers of Ukraine and Russia said on Sunday they had reached an outline deal to restore disrupted gas supplies, while the European Union said it was waiting to see gas actually flowing on to Europe.

The row between the two ex-Soviet neighbours enraged the EU by leaving large parts of Europe without gas in the middle of the winter, and eroded Russia's and Ukraine's credibility as gas supplier and transit route respectively.

The dispute, the worst in an annual tug-of-war over prices between Ukraine and Russia, has pushed European consumers and policymakers to think hard about building new gas routes to cut their heavy reliance on Russian supplies.

"Gas transit, the Ukrainian side assured us, will be restored very soon," Russian state channel Vesti-24 showed Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin saying in a brief statement after the marathon talks, which lasted into the small hours of Sunday morning.

But Czech Industry Minister Martin Riman, speaking for the EU, said: "We remain realistic. Over the past few days we have seen several similarly hopeful moments. The only thing that counts for the EU is the resumption of gas supplies. For the time being it is not clear when this resumption takes place."

ONE-YEAR DISCOUNT

Putin, standing next to his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko, said Moscow had agreed to give Ukraine a 20 percent discount from the price European consumers pay, "on condition Kiev keeps preferential tariffs for Russian gas transit to Europe across Ukraine in 2009 at last year's level".

"We also agreed that, starting Jan. 1, 2010, we will fully move to gas prices and transit tariffs in line with European levels, without any reductions and discounts," Putin said.

Tymoshenko said contracts would be prepared by Monday.

"Once all the documents on gas transit and gas purchases have been signed, gas transit to Europe will be fully restored."

Neither premier spelled out the agreed gas price.

In Kiev, a spokeswoman for Tymoshenko said she would fly back to Moscow on Monday for a signing if the respective gas companies, Gazprom of Russia and Naftogaz of Ukraine, managed to finalise all details of the deal by then.

Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a Russian government source as saying: "It is expected that the documents will be ready for signing on Monday and will be signed in the presence of the prime ministers of Russia and Ukraine."

A Russian government source said the two sides had agreed not to use intermediaries. Previous deals have been complicated by the use of the Swiss-based intermediary Rosukrenergo, a 50/50 joint venture between Gazprom and two Ukrainian businessmen.

Putin and Tymoshenko were under intense pressure from the European Union to resolve the dispute, which has cut gas supplies to much of eastern Europe since Jan. 7.

While Putin had full authority to seal an agreement, it remained unclear whether Tymoshenko's domestic political rival, President Viktor Yushchenko, would respect the deal.

A source in Yushchenko's office said: "It is our understanding that this is an agreement between the two prime ministers and that the two sides in Moscow are now drawing up an agreement."

OCTOBER DEAL

Last October, Tymoshenko and Putin clinched a deal calling for a three-year transition period after which Ukraine would pay market prices.

Yushchenko had no objections to that deal and said repeatedly Ukraine must be prepared to pay market prices, while saying a formula had to be found to determine the price.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko had disagreed on some tactics in the run-up to the deal, notably on whether gas for Ukraine and gas transiting to Europe should be handled separately.

The all-night talks followed a meeting in Moscow of gas-consuming nations at the Kremlin on Saturday afternoon which failed to resolve the dispute.

Russia cut off supplies to Ukraine on Jan. 1 because it would not pay higher prices for its gas. Six days later, export flows to eastern Europe through Ukraine ceased amid Russian accusations that Kiev was "stealing" gas intended for export.

Kiev, whose economy is forecast to contract by up to 5 percent this year, says it cannot afford to pay market prices and wants Russia to pay higher transit fees for gas it exports through Ukraine.

A hurdle appeared to have been overcome when a consortium of European companies agreed to supply enough gas to fill the empty pipeline and restore pressure so that exports could resume.

But the key sticking point remained the price Ukraine must pay for its own supplies. Yushchenko insisted exports could not resume to Europe until Ukraine had agreed this with Moscow.

Gazprom wanted Ukraine to pay European-level prices of $450 per 1,000 cubic metres (tcm) of gas for 2009, up from $179.5 per tcm in 2008. But Ukraine, heading into its worst recession for a decade, had said it could afford only $201.

Russian Gas Deal Appears To Founder

Wednesday, January 14, 2009; A10

New York Times

By Andrew E. Kramer

MOSCOW — The feud between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas prices and transit fees has left large swaths of Europe without heat. Yet, what is baffling is that the dispute has always seemed overly technical and easily resolved, if there was the slightest desire on either side. After all, both countries stand to profit from selling fuel to Europe.

The latest agreement collapsed Tuesday, in a familiar cacophony of complaints and countercomplaints, and again over a seemingly trivial issue. With European Union monitors along the pipeline to make sure that Ukraine did not divert any gas for its own use, Russia agreed to resume shipments to Europe.

But rather than repressuring the Ukrainian pipeline system for exports, Russia's gas monopoly, Gazprom, ordered a single test shipment to see if it would pass through Ukraine to Europe, through a pipeline that was being used to supply the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Ukrainian authorities refused, saying they did not want to cut supplies to their own people, and Russia again halted shipments — not, some experts believed, reluctantly.

Political experts say that neither side is motivated to settle the dispute, because it has never been about the stated issues. Instead, it has been a proxy for far more fundamental and insoluble matters, particularly Ukraine's 2004 turn to the West in the "Orange Revolution," which deeply shook Russia's nationalists.

"The Russian side is appealing to a lot of technical details to explain why it still wants the conflict to go on," Vladimir S. Milov, president of the Institute of Energy Policy in Moscow and a former deputy energy minister of Russia, said in a telephone interview.

"It's very clear to see the desire to pressure the Ukrainian politicians, and pressure them that if they continue to pursue a pro-Western course and not adhere to the rules imposed by Moscow on the post-Soviet space, they will face difficulties," he said.

Nationalists in Moscow could swallow the loss of the Baltic states and Russia's former colonies in Central Asia, but they will never accept the notion of Ukrainians, nearly half of whom are ethnic Russians, as members of an independent, Western-oriented state, and potentially in NATO, no less.

Some other analysts point to the aftermath of last summer's Georgian conflict as another sticking point, noting that after the war Russia's president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, had claimed a "privileged sphere of influence" over former Soviet states.

"This is a continuation of the Russian-Georgian war, only by other means," Grigory N. Perepelitsa, director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, an arm of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said in a telephone interview. "There it was tanks, here it is gas."

This time, though, Europe is suffering as well, with hundreds of thousands of people in southeastern Europe living without heat for six days and factories shutting down in several countries. European officials again implored the two countries to resolve the disagreement.

Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, said: "Little or no gas is currently flowing. We are not at this stage jumping to conclusions. But this situation is obviously very serious and needs to improve rapidly. We do need to get to the bottom of this."

But getting to the bottom of Russia's goals, said Mr. Perepelitsa of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, goes well beyond the industrial details of gas transit.

Authorities in Moscow are seeking to discredit the Ukrainian leadership and portray Ukraine as a failed state, he said, while demonstrating to Central European nations that have supported Ukraine's membership in NATO that they can freeze if they continue to do so.

Also in play is a deep personal animosity between Russia's prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, and Ukraine's president, Viktor A. Yushchenko.

Mr. Yushchenko's face was disfigured in a 2004 poisoning that has never been solved, but for which many in Ukraine reflexively blame Russia. As it did in the disputed enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia before the Georgian war, Moscow has striven to divide Ukraine politically, broadcasting Russian-language television into the country, handing out citizenship to ethnic Russians in Crimea and, critics say, backing pro-Russian figures in Urkraine's political establishment.

Russian officials, meanwhile, say Mr. Yushchenko has stirred up conflict with Russia to detract attention from his dismal performance on the economy during the financial crisis, and because he has little hope of winning a second term in elections scheduled for December or early next year. They also see the hand of the United States in Ukraine's intransigence.

On Tuesday, Aleksandr I. Medvedev, Gazprom's deputy chief executive, raised a new allegation, saying that Ukraine had been taking orders from Washington after the United States and Ukraine signed a partnership agreement in December that included a clause on energy cooperation.

Mr. Medvedev did not explain why the United States would seek to disrupt relations, not to speak of the gas supply. In a statement, the United States Embassy in Moscow said that the allegation was "baseless."

But the ties between Russia and Ukraine, the two most populous successor states of the Soviet Union, are a tangle of alliances and vendettas, mercurial and often inscrutable. Mr. Putin, for example, openly backed Viktor F. Yanukovich, whom Mr. Yushchenko defeated in the 2004 elections after the Orange Revolution protests.

Yet, one of the leaders of those protests, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, has recently seemed to be leaning toward Moscow, refraining for a time from criticizing Russia's war in Georgia.

Indeed, so frustrated were some European Union officials by the latest bad turn in the gas dispute, some began to speculate privately that the two nations might be colluding to seed chaos on energy markets and drive up the price of the fuel that is their mutual business venture.

Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that the cutoff had caused spot prices in Europe to rise to a three-year high of $8.60 per million B.T.U.'s, compared with $5.52 in the United States. With prices expected to fall steeply this year, that could produce at least some welcome pocket change for Gazprom.