Fifth Century ad
Some evidence suggest that Kyiv may have been founded close to the end of the fifth centuiy (some historians are of the opinion that the foundation of Kyiv may have occurred even earlier). More substantial evidence points to the formation of a conglomerate of the Eastern Slavic tribes centered around Kyiv. By the end of the ninth century Kyiv becomes the capital of a state that gradually expends over a vast territory stretching up the Baltic Sea in the north and almost to the Volga in the east. The dominant ethic element in this state was Slavic but the areas further to the north were inhabited by the Finno-Ugric tribes. A considerable role in the early history of the Kyivan state, which came to be known as "Kyivan Rus" was played by the Vikings from Scandinavia.
AD 988
Grand Duke Volodymyr the Great converts Kyivan Rus to Christianity, with Kyiv becoming a major religious and cultural centre in Eastern Europe.
Eleventh through Twelfth Century
"The Golden Age" of Kyivan Rus which becomes, after Byzantium, the biggest and culturally most advanced state in Eastern Europe. The peak of Kyivan Rus' development is the reign of Yaroslav I after whose death a process of feudal disintegration begins.
Thirteenth Century
Feudal strife leads to the formation of several principalities with Kyiv remaining a nominal centre. When the Mongol invade Kyivan Rus the Slavic resistance to the invasion is greatly weakened by the lack of any concerted action against the invader. In 1240 Kyiv is besieged and captured by the Mongols. After the fall of Kyiv, the Halytsko-Volynske principality becomes the political and cultural centre of Ukraine; later, one of the rulers of this principality, Danylo, achieves the actual and formal status of a king.
Fourteenth Century
The biggest part of Ukraine comes under the Domination of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. After the union of Poland and Lithuania, the Ukrainian autonomy is limited still further.
Sixteenth Century
Zaporizhska Sich, a sort of a Cossack republic is formed by the end of the century (its centre was in the area of the present-day city of Zaporizhzhya). Gradually, Sich acquires enough military and political strength to start playing a role in big-time politics.
Seventeenth Century
In a war of independence the Polish rule is overthrown in a part of Ukraine; the country is ruled by hetman, and some of the principles upon which the state rests are similar to those of the Dutch republic, or of the British state during the rule of Oliver Cromwell. In 1654, Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky is
I'orced by an unfavourable political situation to sign a union treaty with the Muscovite state.
Eighteenth Century
Early in the century, Hetman Mazepa, motivated by a growing concern about an increasing interference of the Russian Empire in the Ukrainian affairs, makes moves directed at establishing a grater autonomy or even complete independence of Ukraine; he becomes an ally of the Swedish King Charles XII who invades Russia with an excellently equipped and trained army. In the Battle of Poltava in 1709, the Russian army defeats the Swedish-Ukrainian troops. By the end of the century, Ukraine completely loses its autonomy and is divided between the Russia and Austrian Empires.
Twentieth Century
In 1917, following the Revolution in Russia, Ukraine becomes autonomous and a little later independent (November 1917 - the Ukrainian People's Republic is proclaimed; January 1918 - full independence is declared; western and eastern Ukrainian lands are united in one state). This independence, which is upheld by the national revival movement that began in the pervious century, is short lived, and Ukraine becomes an arena of a bloody civil war in which several forces, domestic and foreign, vied for supremacy. The Bolshevik government that comes to power as a result of a coup, pursues an aggressive policy against Ukraine. By 1920, the Bolshevik forces are victorious, and two years later Ukraine is integrated into the Soviet Union. The Stalinist economic and socialist policies result in a massive disruption of agricultural production and Ukraine is hit by several famines, the most disastrous of which is that of 1923-1933, when millions of Ukrainians die of starvation.
1939 - in accordance with a secret protocol of the German-Soviet Non- Aggression Pact of August 1939, the western Ukrainian land which hitherto were under the Polish rule, are reunited with the rest of Ukraine. In 1941, Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union and Ukraine once again finds itself among the countries the hardest hit by the war. Ukrainian resistance both to the German and Soviet rule begins in Western Ukraine; the Ukrainian Insurgent does not lay down its arms after the defeat of Germany and countries fighting against the Soviet regime well into the 1950s.
1945 - the Soviet Ukraine becomes one of the UN founding states.
1986 - in April, a reactor explodes at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, about a hundred miles from Kyiv; the explosion and radioactive fall-out result in the worst man-made technological disaster of all times. Millions of people are affected by the result of the Chernobyl disaster.
1991 - on 16 July, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopts the Declaration of Ukrainian Sovereignty; the movement in support of independence gains momentum.
1991 - on 24 August, Ukraine is declared independent, following an abortive coup in Moskow (the coup was an attempt to prevent a disintegration of the Soviet Union). In December, a referendum is held and the absolute majority of the Ukrainian population votes for independence. The first president is elected (Leonid Kravchuk), and a slow process of building an economic, social and political foundation of sovereignty begins; within several months, Ukrainian independence is recognised worldwide.
1994 - in the second presidential elections, Leonid Kuchma gels more votes than the incumbent president Kravchuk; in 1999, Leonid Kuchma is elected for the second term in office.
1996 - on 28 June, Verkhovna Rada, after much debate, adopts the new Constitution of Ukraine; on 2 September, hryvnya, the new national monetary unit, is introduced.
- the Roman Pope John Paul II visits Ukraine in June.
August 24, 2001 - Ukraine celebrates the 10th anniversary of its independence.
- on 31 March, Parliamentary elections will be held.
GEOGRAPHY AND POPULATION
Ukraine, with a territory of 603.7 thousand sq kilometres and a population of 48.4 million people, is one of the biggest countries of Europe. o- Administratively, Ukraine is made up of 24 Oblasts and one Autonomous Republic (Crimea). The capital city is Kyiv.
Ukraine is bordered by Poland, Slovakia, Hungary,- Romania and Moldova on the west and south-west, aiid by Belarus and Russia on the north and north-east; on the south, Ukraine is bordered by the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
The longest river is Dnipro, and the biggest mountain chain is the Carpathians. It is in the Carpathians that the geographical centre of Europe is located.
Among 454 cities and towns of Ukraine the biggest are: Kyiv (population 2.6 million); Kharkiv (population 1.6 million); Dnipropetrovsk (population 1.1 million); Odesa (population 1.1 million); Donetsk (population 1.1 million), and Lviv (population 802 thousand).
67 percent of the Ukrainians live in towns, and 33 percent live in the countryside, with the ethnic Ukrainians making up 80 percent of the population; the rest are Russians, Belorussians, Rumanians, Tartars, Jews, Germans, Bulgarians and others, 126 ethnic groups in all.
CLIMATE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
Ukraine's climate is temperate continental, and subtropical at the southern coast of the Crimea. The mean temperature in January is -5° C (+ 23 F) and +20° C (68 F) in July.
95 percent of the Ukrainian territory is spread out over the Eastern I European Plain; 5 percent of the territory is taken up by mountainous areas; 14 percent of the land is covered with forests; 4 percent — water reservoirs; 1.6 percent — swamps. 71 percent of all the land in Ukraine is arable, with 12 million hectares (30 million acres) having the fertile black soil (chornozem). 5 percent of the world's mineral resources are concentrated in Ukraine (coal; iron and manganese ores; uranium; graphite, and rock-salt).
BRIEF HISTORY
The Ukrainians are believed to have descended from those Indo- Europeans who settled in Eastern Europe. The available archaeological evidence suggests that roots of the pre-Ukrainians may be found in the Trypillya culture which dates from the fifth-to-third millennia BC; there may be some links to other, ancient cultures which flourished in the territory of the present-day Ukraine, including the mysterious Scythians.
The pre-Ukrainians maintained trade and culture contacts with the ancient Greek city-states which sprang up oh the shores of the southern Crimea in the 7th-6th centuries BC; later, a part of the Crimea was included into the Kingdom of Bosporus which for a period of time was a major rival of Rome in the Black Sea area. The ancient Romans established their outposts in the Crimea, to be succeeded by the Goths and the Huns.
At the end of the tenth century, the city of Kyiv, the date of whose foundation is uncertain (it is safe to place the foundation of Kyiv not later than in the fifth century AD but it may be much older), became the capital of a powerful state, Kyivan Rus. It stretched as far north as the Baltic, as far south as the Black Sea, as far west as the Carpathians, and as far east as the Volga.
In 988, Ukraine-Rus was converted to Christianity, and the Christian culture was conducive to the rapid development of towns.
It was in the 11th century that the language spoken in Ukraine-Rus began to acquire features which later would develop into Ukrainian.
Kyivan Rus was a bulwark of European civilization, a sort of its easternmost Ultima Thule, at the edge of the Great Steppe, which was roomed by nomads who kept making incursions into the Ukrainian-Rus lands, some of which were widely disruptive and destructive.
The 13th century saw a devastating invasion of the Mongols which dealt a mortal blow to Kyivan Rus which had already been weakened by internal strife, with local rulers vying for power over Kyiv.
Tragic as the invasion was, it did not destroy the Slavic culture as it was upheld in the Halytsko-Volynske Principality in the western part of what used to be Kyivan Rus. This principality proved to be strong enough to withstand the pressure both from the east and from the west, fending off the attempts of the western crusaders to subjugate it. One of its rulers, Dariylo, was crowned a king, and his kingdom preserved, to a great extent, the cultural heritage of Kyivan Rus:
A considerable part of Ukraine later came under the domination of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania but preserved much of its cultural originality. The official language of Lithuania in the 15th century was what is called "Old Ukrainian;" the. city of Kyiv acquired the status of a free city which it was granted under the Magdeburg Law.
Poland, Muscovy and Turkey, attracted by the fertility of the land and advantageous geographical position of Ukraine, were the neighbours that wanted to establish their control over parts of this country. The Zaporizhian Sich which emerged as a sort of a Cossack state in the area around the southern reaches of the Dnipro River, gradually acquired the status of an upholder of freedom and cultural traditions. In the mid-seventeenth century, after a period of wars of independence fought under the leadership of Hetman (military and state leader) Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ukraine once again emerged as an independent state formation. „
In 1654, the hetman, in the face of an imminent invasion from Turkey and Poland, was forced to sign a treaty in the town of Pereyaslavl with Russia which put Ukraine under the protection of the Russian tsar. As later events showed, it proved to be a turning — and tragic — point in the history of Ukraine — Russia was turning into an empire and an independent Ukraine was not something it would tolerate. Only five years after the treaty in Pereyaslavl was signed (the treaty gave considerable rights and privileges to the Ukrainian land owners and nobles, Ukrainian clergy and autonomy forthe Zaporizhian Sich Cossacks), a much stricter control was established by Russia over the hetman and the Cossack starshyna (self-government); the number of Russian troops stationed in Ukraine also grew considerably.
In the early 18 th century, an attempt of Hetman Ivan Mazepa to break free from the Russian clutches badly failed. TTie last vestiges of autonomy were done away with; no traces of former liberties were left and serfdom was introduced. At the end of the 18th century, Ukraine was torn apart by Russia and Austria.
In spite of the loss of statehood, prominent cultural figures of Ukraine, and later an ever widening circle of Ukrainian intellectuals, never abandoned the hope of restoring Ukraine's independence. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw an upsurge of activity in the national liberation movement and a growing national awareness gave the movement the muscle and blood. The First World War triggered revolutions as a result of which three empires collapsed — the German, the Austrian-Hungarian and the Russian. Thus favourable conditions were created for Ukraine to make a bid for independence. On January 22 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed a sovereign state, and its first president was Mykhaylo Hrushevsky, an eminent Ukrainian historian, political and public figure.
The period of time from 1917to 1921 proved to be the years of great trials and tribulations for the Ukrainian people. The Civil War raged in the land with many sides vying for power: the Russian White Guards; the German forces; the Bolsheviks and their Red Army; the Polish army, and the anarchists — there were too many of them for the Ukrainian armed forces to deal with. The .situation was further aggravated by rampant banditry and attempts by Britain, France, Greece and Rumania to join the fray and get whatever advantages they could out of the confusion. The successive Ukrainian governments, fighting against overwhelming odds, succumbed and the power was eventually seized by the Russian Bolsheviks, alas not without help from their Ukrainian "comrades." In 1922, Ukraine became "a soviet socialist republic," one of several in "the friendly family of nations" — the Soviet Union.
. Ukraine had probably never before experienced that much horror as it did being a soviet republic. The 1930s saw the famine of staggering proportions which in 1932-1933 took lives of at least 8 million people; hundreds of thousands intellectuals and "other subversive elements" were either shot by Stalin's firing squads or exiled to Siberia. The idea was to "liquidate" the very foundation, upon which the Ukrainian national identity could grow into a national liberation movement.
In the 1940s, Ukraine was the hardest hit in the war of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. Three million Ukrainians died at the front, and five million perished in the areas occupied by the Nazis. The material damage to Ukraine was estimated to constitute about one thousand billion dollars.
The post-war reconstruction made Ukraine a rather developed industrial and agricultural land; Ukrainian culture was allowed to develop within the boundaries set by the communist regime; on the other hand, any deviation from the official line was fraught with danger of prosecution and imprisonment. Dissidents and "Ukrainian nationalists" continued to be arrested, tried and sent to concentration camps up to 1985.
The 1980s were the time of growing national awareness and social unrest. On July 1990, Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian Parliament, adopted "The Act on State Sovereignty" which was a first step to regaining full independence.
POLITICAL SYSTEM
On August 24 1991, Ukraine proclaimed its independence, and during the referendum held on December 1 of the same year, the Ukrainian people confirmed their choice of independent development by saying "yes" to it. Leonid Kravchuk was elected the first president of a newly independent Ukraine; in 1994, he lost the election to Leonid Kuchma who was re-elected in 1998.
Ukraine faced a multitude of very difficult tasks which had to be solved within a short period of time: a new political system; had to be built; new statehood principles based on law had to be introduced; a new system of national security and defence had to be created; new relations with other countries of the world had to be established — Ukraine wanted from the very start to be into the European and world community; social, economic and ecological reforms had to be carried out; the nuclear weapons were to be scrapped. The. enormity of all these large-scale, time, labour and finance consuming tasks was further exacerbated by the multiple crises the country was living through — economic, political and psychological. On top of all that,
Ukraine continued to deal with the consequences of the Chornobyl disaster (21 percent of the Ukrainian territory was polluted by the fallout radioactive materials and it affected 7 percent of the Ukrainian population).
In 1996 a new constitution was adopted; the runaway inflation, which was endemic throughout the former Soviet Union, was curbed and the national currency, hryv-nya, was launched.
Ukraine was the first among the post-soviet countries to establish working relations with the European Union. A charter was signed with NATO in 1997. Over the years, Ukraine sent its peacekeepers to the Balkans; it was a guarantor of peace in Moldova;
Ukraine is a member of the Council of Europe and of the Security Council of the United Nations Organization.
At present, Ukraine is a presidential-parliamentary republic. Verkhovna Rada — "Supreme Council" — is made up of450 deputies who are elected for a 4-year term. In the spring of 2002, the fourth parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine, and they introduced considerable political changes to the distribution of political power. Viktor Yushchenko's Nasha Ukrayina block of parties received 23.53 percent of the votes cast; the Communist Party of Ukraine collected 20.4 percent of the votes; the third were Za Yedynu Ukrayinu election block of parties; Yuliya Tymoshenko's opposition block was the fourth with 7.2 percent of the votes; the fifth came the Socialist Party which won 6.94 percent of the votes, and the sixth were the social democrats with 6.24 percent of the votes. In other words, six major political forces entered parliament, and the elections could be regar ded as evidence of public support for the reforms and for the "pragmatically minded" opposition.
Of the things that are of particular concern for Ukrainian society two are the most acutely felt: corruption in many echelons of power and the economic ills. According to the results of the polls conducted by the Razumkov Social Studies Centre around the time when the eleventh anniversary of Ukrainian independence was celebrated, 92 percent of the Ukrainian citizens are of the opinion that they can in no way influence the decisions taken by the central power; 91 percent believe that their constitutional rights are regularly violated, and almost 59 percent think that the elections are undemocratic. On August 24 2002, the Independence Day, President Kuchma addressed himself to the Ukrainian people with a speech, in which he proposed to carry out a radical political reform in the country: to introduce a European-style proportional representation election model; to give Verkhovna Rada more rights in forming the government, and to reduce the responsibilities borne by the president.
ECONOMY
Ukraine possesses a considerable economic, industrial and agricultural potential; it has gained a wide and positive experience in such industries as metallurgical, mining, energy production, chemical and metal-working. Grain harvests can be up to 50 million metric tons a year (Ukraine has long been as "the bread basket of Europe").
At the same time, Ukraine has inherited from the Soviet Union a malformed and inefficient economic complex and outdated material basis. At present, Ukraine is going through a difficult transitory period. Structural reforms, particularly in the industrial .sphere, are badly needed but they are implemented either too slowly or not at all; industries with the closed cycle of production are insufficient in number; the law system is flawed and because of its imperfections cannot stimulate the growth of the private sector of the economy, or provide conditions necessary for the successful development of small-sized and medium-sized businesses; investments are slow to come.
In the post-soviet period, the gross national product of Ukraine has dropped by 52 percent; the industrial production shrank by 48 percent and the agricultural production was reduced by 51 percent. Unemployment has become a major problem. According to the International Labour organization the level of unemployment reaches 11.7 percent of the labour force, and if all other forms of hidden unemployment are included — shorter work days, days off and vacations without pay, etc. — then the figure will be much higher— up to 30-35 percent.
All of these factors contribute to the existence of "the shadow economy" which has reached such proportions that now, according to some: estimates, about half of the Ukrainian gross national product is produced in the "shadow" sector which employs about 11 million people. A sharp social polarization of the Ukrainian population has resulted, with 10 percent of the population earning 40 percent of all the revenues. Poverty is on the rise. According to data provided by the Administration of the President, 25 percent of the population falls into the category of "poor" and 14.7 percent can be classified as "very poor" or "destitute."
Positive changes in Ukraine's economy began in 2000 thanks to the agrarian and administrative reforms, and to the continuing denationalization and privatization. According to the statistical data supplied by the government of Ukraine, the industrial and agricultural production has been growing ever since, and as a result, the income of the population has been growing as well. In the spring of 2002 the average monthly salary constituted 400 hiyvnyas. Food and consumer industries have been improving particularly fast. Heavy-duty and super heavy aircraft, Fiuslan and Mrlya, made by the Antonov Factory in Ukraine are Ukraine's foremost competitive products at the world market. At present, a priority is given to the development of high-tech industries.
The past two years have amply demonstrated that Ukraine still has a considerable potential for further economic growth.
CULTURE AND TRADITIONS
Ukraine has been developing its own original culture since very early times of its history. There were periods when Ukrainian culture experienced considerable influences of other cultures, notably those of Byzantium and of the
Vikings (in the medieval times of Kyivan Rus), but basically it preserved its general original quality. The Old Ukrainian language was used as Latin of Eastern Europe for a period of time.
Though oral literature existed in the very early periods of Ukraine's history, written elite literature began to develop from the end of the 10th century, after the adoption of Christianity which gave a big boost for the development of culture in general. The churches of Kyiv — and their number — caused admiration of foreign travellers visiting the city in the 11th and 12th centuries. The eleventh-century Grand DukeYarso-lav the Wise founded a library which became one of the biggest in Europe, and promoted the institution of schools, including those for girls. In later centuries, literacy was widely spread in Ukraine.
In spite of a turbulent and dramatic history, Ukraine has preserved a cultural constant from the early times of its existence. Book printing began in Ukraine in the 16th century and the first establishment of higher learning — the first not only in Ukraine but in the whole of Eastern Europe — Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, sprang up in the early 17th century.
Notwithstanding its colonial status, Ukraine had a wide spectrum of art and literature which entered a phase of stepped-up development in the 18th century. Poetic and prose works written by Taras Shevchenko, the most revered cultural figure of Ukraine, Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Lesya Ukrayinka, Ivan Franko, Mykhaylo Kotsyubynsky and other authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, were a worthy contribution to world literature,
Folk music, and later symphonic and opera music were and are among Ukraine's cultural strengths.
TOURISM IN UKRAINE
Incoming tourism was on the rise in 2001-2002. 11.9 million foreigners (with 5.8 million of them being tourists) from 172 countries of the world visited Ukraine in 2001. The first nine months of 2002 saw an increase of 5 percent in foreign tourism. Today Ukraine has 1300 hotels and hotel facilities and 3304 health improvement and resort centres.
The countries which supply the greatest number of tourists are: Russia, Moldova, Belarus (and other countries of the former Soviet Union), Hungary, Poland, Germany, Israel, the USA, Slovakia, Austria, Great Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, France, Greece, Malta and Canada.
The areas in Ukraine with the highest tourist ratings are the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea; the Carpathians; the most visited cities are: Kyiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk, Sevastopol, and Lviv
.
RELIGION
Ukraine is tolerant to religious confessions of all kinds.
The biggest religious denominations are the Orthodox Churches of the Kyiv and Moscow Patriarchates (the Kyiv Patriarchate, dissolved in the Russian
Empire, was re-established after Ukraine's independence). The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Greco-Catholic Church, banned in the Soviet Union, were revived after Ukraine regained her independence.
51.6 percent of the Ukrainian population declare themselves Orthodox Christians. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has 9515 parishes (which constitutes almost 70 percent of all the parishes) in Ukraine; The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate has 3156 parishes; The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church has 3463 parishes, and the Greco-Catholic Church has 1055 parishes.
There is a number of other Christian confessions: Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical Christian Baptist, and others; Judaism and Islam are practised religions as well.
STATE HOLIDAYS
I January — New Year's 7 January — Christmas 8 March — International Women's Day 27 April — Orthodox Easter 1-2 May - Labour Days 9 May - Victory Day 15 June-Holy Trinity 28 June - Constitution Day 24 August—Independence Day
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UPS AND DOWNS OF THE UKRAINIAN ECONOMY
The development of Ukraine's economy has long been determined by Wo factors: the chernozem black soils (Ukraine possesses about one fourth of all the chernozem in the world) and the extremely advantageous geographical position at the crossroads of international trade.
International trade began across, from and to the territory of Ukraine in the ancient times.
The biggest trading partner then was ancient Greece, and the biggest exports were grains, foodstuffs, cattle, and timber, and the most important imports were metals, decorations, fabrics, wine and cooking oil.
In the early medieval times, the huge state of Rus-Ukraine, maintained lively trade relations with Byzantium, and the items traded were metal and handicraft articles, jewellery including. The favourable weather conditions and fertile soil made Ukraine a major producer of grain (in the early 20th century it was often referred to as "the breadbasket of Eurppe").
In the 14th- 15th centuries the first manufactures craftsmen's guilds began to be set up in the western parts of Ukraine, and in the 17th century manufactures began to emerge in its eastern parts as well. In the 19th centuiy the transition from the purely agricultural economy to a mixed industrial- agricultural economy commenced and developed. In the regions of Donetsk and Kryviy Rih, rich in iron ore, heavy industries started to be developed. By the end of the 19th century, Ukraine, being only a small part of the Russian Empire, produced 70 per cent of coal, 75 per cent of iron ore and over 50 per cent of pig iron of all the imperial production. In the early 20th century, 90 per cent of wheat, exported by the Russian Empire, came from Ukraine.
The Bolsheviks, after establishing their regime in Ukraine in the end of the 1910s, pursued the policy of industrialization, and the 1920s and 1930s saw a great upsurge in the development of heavy industries. In fact, the rates of industrial growth were unprecedented. By 1940, the industrial potential of Ukraine grew, compared to 1913, seven times.
At the same time, the economy of Ukraine remained tightly connected to the economies of the other "republics" of the Soviet Union, with the economy of the Russian Federation being the major partner. The artificially sustained integration had resulted in Ukraine's economy being lopsided and badly dependant on the industries located outside its borders; as a result, 80 per cent of the industrial production in Ukraine by the end of the 1980s had no complete technological cycles of their own and had to rely on imports.
The regaining of independence, the change in the political order of the country and gradual democratisation of Ukrainian society, opened the way for building up the foundation of the market-oriented economy. However, the transition from the planned, command economy to a socially oriented market- type economy was not an easy one, and the economy took a deep plunge in the first years of independence. It did not come as a surprise, and was quite cxpected. However, nobody thought it would be as bad as it actually was, and (he desire to see things done as fast as possible led to miscalculations and wrong assessments in the economic sphere. Besides, it was hoped that the great mineral deposits, richness of the land, favourable climatic conditions, intellectual and labour potential would make the transition much smoother. The weakness of many technological complexes was ignored; neither were other potential problems properly considered: mis-balance in the distribution of resources and in inter-banch industrial connections; disparities in the levels of development of various industries; technological deficiencies; much too great emphasis on the producing industries to the detriment of the consumer industries resulting from the economic policies pursued under communism; the disproportionately big share of the military complex in the economy; inordinately high consumption of the energy resources in some industries, etc. All of these factors aggravated the economic crisis.
During the years of the Soviet power, the resources of the coal-rich Donbas region had been thoroughly depleted and consequently social problems were galore. These problems had not been solved under the Soviet regime and it was the independent Ukraine whose economy was too weak yet to deal with major challenges, that had to face them. The equipment was obsolete and in bad repair, and urgent renovations were badly needed. The market-oriented economy did not need the military-industrial complex blown out of all proportion; neither it could fully use the abnormally large sector of heavy industries. All of this slowed down the free development of the Ukrainian economy still further.
Part of the Soviet legacy was the underdeveloped consumer industries and services which could potentially provide millions of jobs. Ukraine had to create the new business infrastructure from scratch.
In the years from 1990 to 1999 the economic crisis raging unabated led to the fall in the gross national product by almost 60 per cent; the industries shrank by almost 50 per cent and the agriculture by over 50 per cent. At the same time, the actual average wages and salaries decreased almost four times and pensions became smaller four times too.
Not enough was done to prevent further sliding down into crisis, for which there were several reasons. Liberal tendencies — privatisation, albeit slow; decentralization, private enterprise, easing of restrictions on trade, foreign trade including, etc. — were detrimentally counterbalanced by the negative tendencies — runaway inflation; growing unemployment; falling incomes; downturn in the industries and increasing social problems.
According to some encomists, the turning point cam( in the first half of 1997 when the economic situation began to improve. The improvement would have proba biy developed faster but Ukraine was hit by the general world financial crisis of 1997-1998. In the seconc half of 1999, there again appeared signs of definite improvement and the economic stabilization soon became an established fact. The economic upturn began gaining momentum and it was boosted by a number of measures taken in response to the presidential decrees. The reviving processes were particularly noticeable in the metallurgy, shipbuilding, processing and consume goods industries. The production of the agricultural sector was considerably increased as well as the construction of new housing. The new system of the agrarian relations began to be worked out.
Investments grew in size and in number, and starting from 1998, investments into the basic capital grew faste than GNP and industrial production. The labour productivity entered an upward swing and it was also a good indication of positive changes occurring in the economy.
According to the Derzhkomstat (State Committee o Statistics), the labour productivity in the industries grev 120 per cent compared to 1997, and the nominal GNI grew by slightly over 108 per cent in the first 11 month of 2001 compared to 2000.
There are all the reasons to hope that the positive economic trend will continue into the future.
By Volodymyr PIDDUBNY