It has already been almost four months since I arrived in Ukraine for my Fulbright Project. Time has already flown by, and my experience thus far has been filled with challenges, pleasantries, and disbelief. Kyiv is definitely in an awe-inspiring transition, and living here has opened my eyes to more than I could possibly have imagined. It a lot of ways it has already shaken my world view, and I am sure it will continue to do so in the upcoming months.

Let me start by explaining my research, which is moving along quite well. I have been reading literature on Ukrainian films and have been watching as many as I can obtain. I have been researching the symbolic peasant imagery often used, the economic situation for the industry, and how that all ties into nationalism.

As of now the conclusions I have drawn are as follows:

After decades under Soviet censorship, film directors want to tell all the stories they were never allowed to tell.

1. Oligarchs who control the industry will show whatever sells and will work with the law as long as it pays.
2. Due to Ukrainian television, music, and laws under the Ministry of Culture - Ukrainian language is becoming more and more popular to watch and read and people will choose it over Russian (this is even the case in Donetsk - a large Russian speaking area, particularly with children's films). The one problem tends to be advertisers who wish to have the movies in Russian.
3. Many filmmakers feel that the government is sabotaging the strength of Ukrainian culture (referring to Party of Regions).
4. Further another problem is Dovzhenko's works, particularly “Earth.” He was the founder of Ukrainian cinema and his cinematographic style is still being copied today. I believe that it is negatively impacting the audience - who finds it outdated, un-hip, and pointless, as the notion of a peasant Ukraine is no longer one of pride. Furthermore, Dovzhenko was a Soviet patriot and his style of blatant symbolism has bogged down today's films and caused them to be detached from the audience interest.
5. Many in the industry also feel that the language question will resolve itself - as the younger generation is raised and no longer forced to speak Russian in every aspect of life Ukrainian will once again become standardized. It will take decades but it will happen. As of now, I believe a way to fix this lack of interest in current Ukrainian films is to not make esoteric films but to create popular cinema such as a Cossack style cowboy comedy which would engage the youth and give them a greater desire to watch Ukrainian films.

As part of my research, I also attended a press conference held by major Ukrainian filmmakers to publicize a website they have created to promote Ukrainian films. I have also been in contact with two independent filmmakers, and two well-known artistic filmmakers, Oles Yanchuk and Vadim Kastelli, and will be interviewing them soon. I will also be interviewing the owner of the Odessa film studio, and the owner of the Ukrainian film theater chain in Kyiv - the same man who convinced the government to impose Ukrainian dubbing on all foreign movies. I also attended the Molodist Film Festival, and have watched numerous contemporary Ukrainian films ranging from the Cossack theme to abstract experimental film. Many are beautifully filmed; however, it is in my opinion that the plot and themes are too esoteric and conceited (a.k.a. focused on flaunting the filmmaker's own intellectual prowess) to stimulate the audience, such as in “A Prayer for Ivan Mazepa.” It will be a daunting challenge to convince film makers to move beyond this style of cinematography to something more perceptible to the audience. In many ways, for this very reason, current Ukrainian filmmakers are useless and irrelevant to the movement of nationalism and Ukrainian cultural development.

Aside from my research, I have been busy working as a Project Officer for the NATO Liaison Office in Ukraine. The NATO Liaison Office was established in Kyiv in April 1999 to facilitate Ukraine's participation in the Partnership for Peace and to support Ukrainian efforts in the area of defense reform. As a Project Officer, I have organized the Partnership Network for Civil Society Development Task Force meetings on Euro-Atlantic Integration, National Security; Security Defense Reform, and Defense Industry Restructuring. My duties include consultations within the strategic community in the formulation of security and defense policy/civil democratic governance, holding workshops and consultations on improving the effectiveness of the national security system, assessment and monitoring of action plan content and implementation, devising analytical materials and workshops on international and Euro-Atlantic experience and market/cooperation possibilities, composing contract agreements between the NATO Liaison Office and second parties.

I participated in the Municipalities, EU Regionalism and Institutional Reforms Training Program, organized in the framework of the Szeged Centre for Security Policy Process - From Europe to Europe Project. It was held in December 2007, and dealt with Euro-regional integration, journalism integrity, NATO membership, corruption, and municipalities restructuring. It was a very beneficial conference to attend, and I was able to witness what popular and intellectual opinion is in Ukraine regarding the EU and NATO, and more importantly, what the various regional views are.

I also participated in the U.S. Embassy's Cultural Outreach Program. I gave a 45 minute lecture on NATO-Ukraine relations to Kyiv Public School #57. Besides work, I have been busy making many friends and attending many events. Recently, Colin Powell spoke at the Kyiv School of Economics on the topic of Global Policy. I was also invited to the French Embassy's celebration of a new burgundy wine and to the Lithuanian Embassy's celebration of Armed Forces Day. I have met and socialized with members of the Chief of Staff of Ukraine, and one of my closest friends is the French Deputy Ambassador to Ukraine. Further, I joined the Democrats Abroad group, which meets weekly to discuss U.S. politics. Through them I met former Congressman Tom Andrews who now works for the National Democratic Institute. I have made many exciting and interesting connections that will hopefully help my future career. I have also been seeing as many dance concerts, operas, plays, and movies as I possibly can.

On December 15, my family came to visit and we met several new family members in western Ukraine that I had not seen or heard from in a long time. I showed my parents all the sites in Lviv and Kyiv, and we spent New Year's Eve on the Maidan listening to the concert, hearing President Yushchenko give his address, and finishing it off with a magnificent fireworks display.

More interestingly, we visited Chornobyl and the sarcophagus and surrounding villages on December 17. The expedition was a special thematic trip "Chernobyl glory's places,” designed to mark the 1st anniversary of establishing in Ukraine a Chornobyl Mitigation Veterans Day. This trip focused on the critically important spots and material objects of the mitigation of the worst of the Chornobyl disaster, many of them remain unknown to the ordinary visitors of the zone. Our guides were Alexander Sirota, an ex-resident of Pripyat-town and now the leader of the NGO (and chief editor of) PRIPYAT.COM, and Sergi Mirnyi, an officer of Chernobyl radiation surveillance several months after the explosion, now a writer, scriptwriter, scholar of Chornobyl and contemporary disasters and an expert in their mitigation.

We saw: the field camp of the 25th brigade of radiation-chemical and bacteriological protection - the zone checkpoint "Dytjatki" - PUSO (vehicle decontamination site for military machines) Rudnja-Veresnja - the abandoned village of Zalissja - Chernobyl-town bypass road, constructed in the first month of the explosion - the live village of Paryshiv - PUSO Lelev - the eliminated village of Kopachi - concrete-reloading unit (was used to build the sarcophagus) - the decontaminated Red Forest (located in the area of the first and worst release of radiation immediately after the explosion) - the abandoned Pripyat-town (a bus tour over the town, a short walk in the town and seeing an armored patrol vehicle of radiation surveillance, which took part in the mitigation, and the barbed wire fence, built by the mitigation workers to protect the town from looting) - the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) (the sarcophagus, the memorial at the square next to the administrative building, once the site of a large parking area for the vehicles, which brought thousand of men for mitigation work at the NPP) - PUSO Kopachi - the Chornobyl-town (the site of the parking lot of armored patrol vehicles of radiation surveillance, the monument to the heroes of Chernobyl, the buildings of the Operative Group of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR and of the Governmental Commission on the Liquidation of the Consequences of the Accident at the Chernobyl NPP,” the memorial park and an open-air exhibition of vehicles, which took part in the mitigation . It was a remarkable and eerie experience. Spooky in many ways…

While my family was in town, I also discovered more about my own family history. I have learned that I am related to Hetman Ivan Vyhovsky through marriage. My great-great-great-great aunt is Olena Stetkevich who married Vyhovsky. The Stetkevich family was nobility and resided in King Danylo's court. I also learned that on my mother's side of the family, as a teenager, my grandmother, Ivanna Halchak, pulled off a movie-esque escape from Poland-occupied Ukraine after being forced to work as a serf on a Polish farm. Her mother Parastasia and her sister and two brothers continued to live on their farm in what is now Poland. My grandfather, Walter Jasweyitcz, was deported to Germany after he gallantly refused to fight for the Nazis.

On my dad's side, I learned that during WWII, grandfather Paschyn fought in the Halychyna Division of the Ukrainian National Army. His mother, Tekla Procyshyn, raised him alone as his dad died fighting in WWI on the Austro-Hungarian side. She had two sisters and a brother, Darko, who worked as a secret agent for the Germans during WWII. He had to change his name to Rokosky as a result. Grandmother Maria Stetkevich, spied for Ukrayins'ka Povstans'ka Armiya (UPA), a Ukrainian guerrilla army of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, aimed to create an independent Ukraine. She also wanted to study medicine at Lviv University but was denied since she was a woman. She had 7 siblings, and her father was a Catholic priest in Lviv. They also lived in Vienna for a while and grew up with servants. Today her siblings live in England and California.

For me it is very exciting to be discovering my own heritage in a time when Ukraine is changing a lot. In many ways it can serve as a model to other Eastern European countries, and EU integration looks promising. Yet in many ways, there is so much more to do, particularly establishing a stable government without snap elections, which does not seem likely. If such is the case, it will hurt Ukraine's chance for EU integration in the future, as the EU partner countries are looking to include new members that are economically and politically stable, and able to carry out effectively EU integration tasks.

Another major development here is that SHELL backed out of an oil deal with Regal Petroleum leaving the oil fields in Ukraine unutilized. Sex-trafficking is still a huge problem as is the overall feeling of victimization. UNESCO just recognized the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 as genocide, an event that brought over a thousand people to celebrate a Mass in remembrance of it last weekend.

Religion is also being talked about greatly. The latest effort to bridge the Orthodox-Catholic divide were Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II's remarks in France, where he spoke poignantly of how the Christian identity historically shared with Europeans should promote dialogue on issues, such as human rights and peace, even with atheists and members of other faiths. The patriarch was pointing out that, while they may differ on specific political issues today, a profound religious bond actually underpins Western and Eastern European cultural and political values. One way to increase West-East ties is to expand the definition of what is "Western" through dialogue with Orthodox Christians. The goal of such a dialogue would be to stress the common roots that bind various religious traditions, to encourage models of tolerance that do not presume secularism, and to balance the disparate roles of church and state. Such a dialogue would allow Europe to build a new foundation for East-West relations that is based on the common Greco-Roman and Christian heritages. Most important, it would promote a greater understanding in the West of the Orthodox Church's de facto role as the largest nongovernmental organization in Eastern Europe. In this capacity, it inspires s the philanthropy, social welfare, and civic activism, which help to establish a healthy civil society.

Ukraine's market economy, which includes how people acquire jobs, basic consumerism and “buy and sell” properties, is also very interesting. Ukraine seems to have adapted the hard-core idea of capitalism and “me” persona. Corruption is rampant here, but in many ways it is actually western companies and governments who introduced corruption into Ukraine and yet claim that Ukrainians are the corrupt ones. They often tend to take advantage of the opportunities here by insisting on bribes to get their way.

Education is another interesting issue. Most of the universities here are corrupt, and it is only the young who have any idealism and willingness to change the system. A major problem lies here in the weakness that humanities lack critical thinking, a leftover of the Soviet education system. Unfortunately, most of the rectors of the universities are from fields of hard sciences, which had an excellent education regime, so they have a hard time understanding how and why the education system here needs to change.

Another topic that is especially important to me is how NGOs are relatively ineffective in Ukraine since they cannot work with a government without direct representation. Since the Verhovna Rada is party elected there are no actual representatives of regions, and people just vote for a party. It is similar on the regional, oblast and municipal levels and is a core reason for the lack of a government in Ukraine. It is really true because you know all anyone cares about is keeping their head down, doing their job as not to get fired, and appeasing the party bosses rather than having any horizontal communication and achieving anything. That is the main problem with Ukraine. Everyone is focused on maintaining the dominant-submissive or patronizing roles here and having every man for himself mentality. However, I think that in some 15 years it will change as the youth gain power.

It seems to me that Ukraine is living through the equivalent of an American Industrial or Robber Baron Age, where we had our "oligarchs" who then became pillars of society, sort of as Pinchuk here is doing. It is funny, because it is easy for us Westerners to judge, but we don't really have a right to try to be a moral compass for anyone else. I believe that it is all part of the transition to mature capitalism.

Finally, the biggest update to mention is that Tymoshenko is now Prime Minister. The next few months will reveal whether this strong-willed character will bring any tangible changes to Ukraine.

I hope this update has given you a chance to experience my life here.

Though my Fulbright experience will soon be coming to a close, my Ukraine experience will not. I have decided to stay in Ukraine for at least one more year in order to really establish myself and complete my research. For me, it has been quite an exciting time in Ukraine, especially with the return of warm weather. I continue to network and get involved in the community. I have joined the Kyiv Multinational Rotary Club, and have helped to organize a charity ball to raise money for the purchase of an incubator for Chernobyl zone hospitals. I have also joined the International Women's Group of Kyiv, which has given me the opportunity to not only interact with women professionals, but also to attend cooking clubs, art classes, and walking tours. Finally, I have also become a member of the Forum of Young Leaders in Ukraine and the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce. Both groups address pertinent issues in Ukraine and allow for members to create solutions.

My research thesis examines the economic and artistic reasons for the abysmal state of the film industry in Ukraine. It suggests solutions through the introduction of producer-orientated funding, privatization of studios, increase of grant competitions and argues for a transformation of artistic style, which still seems to be stuck in the 1960s cinema movement.

My research increased two-fold these last few months. I have interviewed various professionals in the film industry including filmmakers Oleh Chornyi, Arkadiy Myhailenko, and Oles Yanchuk. I have also spoken with Kinopalats owner Bohdan Batruch, Odesa Film Studio Director Alexander Tkachenko, the Minister of Culture Vasyl Vovkun. I have completed my research, which I hope will be published in the journal Kinoteater. The conference in Mikolaiv was very fruitful and enjoyable. I hope to present my research to the university, the Dovzhenko Film Studio, and Bydynok Kino.

I have also kept myself busy by volunteering on “Europe Day” at the United Nations Diversity Table, which consisted of informing the public about diversity issues, joining Amnesty International, and attending Gogol Fest! However, probably the most exciting experience so far was giving a lecture to Kyiv-Mohyla Academy on homosexuality in the United States as well as traveling to Ternopil for Easter, where I became ill and had a fever of 105 degrees Fahrenheit!

However, I have to say the absolute most fantastic aspect of my experience was meeting my soon to be husband Andrew, an Australian (diaspora Ukrainian) on my first day here. It was fate and that week we were already an item, and now we are planning our wedding on August 2009 in Kyiv. Talk about destiny!

Over all, this has been a fantastic experience, and probably the greatest opportunity I have been given so far.