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

“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.

A Call Out to President Poroshenko – Your Inaugural Address

Image: CNN


Dear Mr. President Poroshenko,

As a Canadian of Ukrainian heritage and someone who has dedicated at least all of my adult life to Ukrainian issues including working on democracy development during my nearly ten years living in Ukraine, I would like to congratulate you on your election on May 25, 2013 and upon your inaugural address which you made on June 7, 2014. I wish you Godspeed in trying to accomplish all that must be accomplished during the very difficult times for our nation.

Yes, I have claimed Ukraine as “our” nation because true Ukrainians wherever they may be hold Ukraine in their hearts and minds. While still under the yoke of Soviet oppression many Ukrainians beyond its borders carried our flag when no one had an inkling of the significance of the azure blue and yellow of our country's flag. Things have changed greatly in nearly a quarter of century though it is due time that Ukraine takes its place amongst civilized and dignified nations.

I would now like to comment on your inaugural address. Not as some highly paid analyst, but as someone who looks at things in a slightly different way. Anyone who has read my commentary in the past clearly know where my loyalties lie.

No Modern Ukrainian Nation Without Bloodshed

While the world in the past held up Ukraine as a poster-child of democracy just a little more than nine-years ago after the Orange (R)evolution, I somehow understood very quickly that I was completely justified in refering that period in 1994 as a period of evolution and not revolution. In 2011 I was asked to write an OP-ED for a Ukrainian e-publication, due to some tecnical difficulties I ended up having to self-publish my opinion piece, entitled “Bigger Sticks and Carrots, for Some in Ukraine”. In that piece I clearly put forth the following:

“While I do not condone violent uprising in Ukraine as a way of bringing about the needed changes, it is a prospect that seems to become increasingly realistic if the current authoritarian trends continue to be exerted further and further. People are now being pushed and jostled a little harder than Kuchma dared to push! The decisively anti-national, and socio-economically erosive policies are in fact, riling people in Ukraine to the point that I have not once on various Ukrainian fora seen it being asserted that peaceful means of resistance are no longer considered to be a viable option.”

Apparently, my writing had sparked some discussion and one individual mentioned that sometime before my statements above, former Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada Dr. Yuri Shcherbak speaking to a Toronto audienced stated that “he believed the situation in Ukraine will not be changed without violence.”

Mr. President Poroshenko, unfortunately, my statements somehow became prophetic. There were many heros in Ukraine's past – though these contemporary heroes, Ukraine's Heavenly Hundred was just the beginning, unfortunately. Since then through criminal means have been used to try to destablize Ukraine and more innocent lives were lost. It was very appropriate that you had a moment of silence for these heroes. There have been others who have become innocent victims of these criminal/terrorists with extremely modern and foreign weaponry clearly pointing out who is santctioning their criminality. Those responsible have to be brought to full international accountability for their terroristic means of trying to destabilize Ukraine.

Fig Leaf and Bandit

Mr. President Poroshenko, I appreciate that you want to get down to business in creatng peace and stability and Ukriane's territorial integrity! Without these, conducting business in even its simplest forms is not even possible. You for certain understand the importance of stability for distribution networks, and even as a person going about their day-to-day business. Due to the criminal annexation of Crimea I have friends in Canada who's busineses have suffered a great deal as well as the possibility of Canadian-Ukrainian business projects. Not certain, but could a class action international lawsuit be launched against the perpetrators of this act?

The simple business operations have been denied to the people of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts – and I hear about this daily not only from distant contacts living in those regions, but also from a friend and neighbour who's wife is from Luhansk and still has family members there. I have another acqaintance now living here who's brother was involved ATO in those regions and who was seriously injured, and from thousands of kilometres away he has to comfort his mother. Though this even raises a more core issue? Why did these people leave Ukraine?

I wholeheartedly support that you don't need to be carrying out discussions with criminals and are trying to reach out to the common person in those regions – I believe that due to the media access and choice of media which they have been exposed to they are very suspect of you as President, though nevertheless there are probably thousands of individuals who wanted to vote last week though feared for their lives. Clearly a frank dialogue must be restablished with the people of this doubting region, but also with all of Ukraine.

Regarding mercenaries they should be allowed to ruturn home, though it sould be made official who was financing them and what they cost. If it is criminal Yanukovych, then it is Putin's responsibility to use his due influence on him and recall those soldiers of fortune being paid no doubt with funds which Yanukovych stole from the Ukrainian people, Putin for the first time in his life do the right thing. Extradite Yanukovych to Ukraine to face trial for his criminality or face the wrath of those he treated like second class citizens, much in the way the pakhan treats his underlings. Remember criminals like him have their own system of justice, so before any of that crap happens it should be also a priority for Ukraine to ensure all the funds he stole are repatriated, because his time of being pakhan are over and those funds will be absorbed by the pakhan of the Russian Federation.

Mr. President Poroshenko, I think that those in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that doubt just what a criminal Yanukovch ever was and still is. Find a public relations means to show these individuals just what an opulent pig he was. Clearly, the media they were watching in their regions wasn't lettting them see what a Nero he was. There was no violin for him in his collesium – his Rome burnt in a different way... as he fled to his puppetmaster, his cronies attempted to destry the evidence of just what a scum he was. His vassals of 17 years have to know the truth! Set up travel tours of Mezhyhirya at a reduced rate for those individuals so they can see the opulence with their own eyes. Let the see where their pensions went! I want them all to be free! Even those in Hughesivka – who want to speak Welsh?

Trust no one – Particularly your enemies

Mr. President Poroshenko, it is all very easy to say in retrospect that we should have done this over that! One of those matters was the Budapest Memorandum. Back in the years before that I had many discussions on Ukraine's nuclear arsenal – in my heart I told friends that I didn't believe that it would be respected. Particularly with a signatory like Russia that has been lying for the last half millenia of its existence. The friends I debated this the most about were some of the early heros of our country, even before Ukraine introduced the Hryvnia as its national currency!

“But freedom is not given once and forever. One must always struggle for it,” as you stated in your innaugural adress Mr. President is very to the point. I spoke on such a them to many while living in Ukraine with my deceased friend Ilko Kucheriv. In short, a greater part of democracy happens between ballot boxes. This was clearly demonstrated in the last six months in Ukraine. I just hope that peace comes to Ukraine and that we never again experience such violence preceding the vote, as demonstrated by the terrorists in the east of the country. Politicians have to be held accountable and have no right to be above the law. This is not part of a democracy!

Now to the military side of things! There are plenty of theories of how the military became nothing more than a piece of paper! I don't have time to get into it Mr. President, though I would like to commend those individuals who have used social media in order to crowdsource the funds needed for very short term needs of the Ukrainian army. There are a few individuals should be at least given a thank you, though it is time that the funds needed for Ukraine's military needs be raised by the state in order to meet its needs.

Regarding true hardware and techonologies! We have some unique manufacturers and now we must ensure they find local and international markets. In this stage of reorientation of the military industrial complex should be carefully evaluated. In addition, with a the type of friend Ukraine has as a neighbour, it is time for Ukraine to re-arm itself in such a way that such wanton use of terror never happen in Ukraine again.

On last matter, it is time that Ukraine's law enforcement agencies be reformed to meet the standards of Ukraine's western neighbours.

The Rule of Law for a New Ukraine

Mr. President Poroshenko, in your inaugural address you state, “It's time to build a new big country. Modern, high-tech, tenable, competitive country.” This is not a new idea, and I'm quite certain I heard such talk in the early 1990s, before Ukraine had a new constitution and before the hryvnia was introduced in the autumn of 1996 as Ukraine's national currency. However, why hasn't Ukraine developed as such over all these years? It is actually we could all enumerate a list as long as your forearm, but in fact it is a lot simpler than that. It's a very simple phrase and principle known as The Rule of Law. Many of Ukraine's problems can be solved by adhering to this simple princple.

Ukraine has plenty of good legislation on the books though it must be implemented equally and fairly for all citizens of Ukraine as well as to its visitors, and business persons. In order to do there there are many reforms which will be necessary and one of these is to reduce the ratio of police to population ratio and to ensure that those individuals are to there to police are there for the right reasons. This will involve the appropriate screening and training of what will be a new and professional police force. These law enforcement officials must be paid at a level which would put them in a position that would not require them to even have the slightest desire to ask for a bribe of anyone for any reason. In fact doing so would become extremely costly, with fines, relief of duty without pay and possible incarceration. They will have to be examplary individuals who will set an example for the rest of society. Now let's return to the police to population ratio. I examined this at the beginning of this year in my piece Europe’s Sado-masochistic Approach Towards Ukraine and having done a bit of research I found that “Ukraine has about 644 at a minimum and other sources say that it is closer to 800 police officers to 100,000 population. In Canada that number stands at closer to 202 per 100,000” and most of Europe's police to population ratios range from 200 to 350 per 100,000 population, though there some anomalies in some countries. A goal should be set to reduce the police to population ratio by fifty percent in the next five years while at the same time improving the qualifications of the officers. The omni-presence of police officers is not good for tourism, particularly when they can't communicate with tourists and being a positive image of their city and more greatly of all of Ukraine.

You Mr. President Poroshenko, from your own experience know and understand the benefit speaking English affords you. Would you not say that it would be good for police officers to be able to speak more than just Ukrainian or Russian? A half-hearted effort was made in a PR effort to teach officers foreign languages prior to the Euro-2012, this should be a part of continuous improvement of all officers, particularly of those who are in cities considered to be tourist destinations.

When, The Rule of Law – becomes a priority for law enforcement, the judicial system and the population as a whole the changes necessary to “build a new big country” will be much more achievable. In doing so there will be foreign individuals and companies who will be encouraged to invest in the people of Ukraine, its most important resource in order to develop different niches within Ukraine's economy. The road map to doing business in Ukraine should be clear without any surprishing hair pin turns in the road as often is the case. Disputes between investors and the beneficiaries of such investments bust be dealt with fairly, which has often not been the case since Ukraine has become independent. I hope you Mr. President and the team that you assemble will work fastidiously in this area. It will play an important role in Ukraine's future and its contemporary history.

A World Culture of Ukraine

You are completely correct in stating, “Nobody will protect us until we learn to defend ourselves.” Mr. President Poroshenko, well said in a military sense. Though those in people in Ukrainian society who are most vulnerable must also be protected by well targeted social policy and the rule of law. However, as grantor of Ukraine's constitution are you prepared to carry this over to cultural matters as well?

This is an area that will eventually need major reforms, though at this point it is not a priority, though it can be done by all consciencious Ukrainians simply as a matter of choice and the creation of a market demand. It must be given serious consideration if we are to develop a national cultural industry. This would include Ukrainian content laws which promote local musicians. This is something I have been dealing with for the last fifteen years in a number of different ways for Ukraine, but the same komsomol organizations let the garbage prosper at the cost of new talent. Music and culture can be a very vialble industry. Right now in Ukraine it is nothing, because of no structured policy and a lack of vision.

I will give you an example, in Canada because of Federal legislation and the competition created by it, I can hear about twenty contemporary bands who travel internationally, many that have not penetrated Ukraine yet, but who will in time. Sweden is another country who's cultural industry policy is well developed in exporting its cultural products abroad.

Ukrainian culture needs a policy. Not conceived by political hacks and musicians in favour of one group or another but composed of professionals who want to lift Ukraine culturally to a different level! It isn't what you think or what the average individual things about it. There has to be a systemic approach to culture, and this means cooperation and shared risk on projects, without the egos that so many seem to have.

This crisis has shown us a physical crisis – which I'm certain not all will ever understand, though the few times below have to be followed trough on in the cultural industry in Ukraine if it is to become a great country we would all like to see it become.
1) The last years of neglience of many aspects of Ukainian life has left us with a lot of third and fourth class artist making money for nothing!
2) We must eliminate the Soviet style of People's artist which has been simply another corrupt means of civil servants of lining their pockets, let the market decide on who is an artist, writer, performer or whatever other type of designations are given in the arts.
3) Copyright and intellectual property rights have to be respected in both contemporary arts as well as more traditional art forms.
Ukraine is a country full of uncut diamonds, they have to be show respect and given the opportunity to show their brilliance. Through the wise implementation of proper and progressive policies in this area, in concurrence with sticking to The Rule of Law, the progress that will be made in the very short period will give all Ukrainians regardless of where they live to be extremely proud to be Ukraine.

May God bless you and the people of Ukraine Mr. President Poroshenko in the challenges you face.

Sources: President Petro Poroshenko's Innaugural Address



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

Sixty-four years ago today

In 1952 at the age of twenty-six my father came to this country, the reasons he chose to settle in Montreal are not completely clear to me, but I know that a large part of it had to do with that he spoke French and knew no English when he landed in Montreal, after a flight that originated in Brussels and followed a path which was very similar to mine during my first trip to Ukraine in the summer of 1990. It would be thirty-eight years later that I made stops in Gander, Newfoundland, and Shannon, Ireland it was somehow befitting that it was on Canada Day that I was travelling to my father's homeland which he had never returned to.

He, together with his brother, like thousands of others had been shipped off to Germany to be basically used as slave child labour by the Nazis. Later when the Soviet front advanced into Germany it did two things. By the time this happened his older brother was at an age were he would have been expected by Stalin's criminal regime to be serving in the Soviet Army, as a result, having been discovered working for a Germany farmer, he was shipped off to the Gulag. He spent over ten years in the Gulag having been considered a deserter and Ukrainian nationalist. The second thing that happened with the advance of the Soviet front was that the farmer my father had been assigned to as a farm hand had been notified of my uncle's arrest. Amazingly enough the communication had come from the farmer that my uncle had been assigned to, and it had come by pigeon. The farmer my father had been assigned to had lost all three sons to Hitler's war machine and was not very sympathetic to the Nazis, he also knew my father was someone elses child and he did what he could to keep him out of harms way. His wife packed my father some food and the farmer gave him a bicycle allowing him to hightail as fast as he could in the opposite direction towards where the western Allies had been pressing into Nazi Germany. Had he not made it to wherever that spot was I wouldn't be writing this right now.

After spending some time in displaced person's camps in post war Europe, my father was hired to work in the mines at Charbonnages d'Hornu et Wasmes, Compagnie des Charbonnages Belges in Wasmes, Belgium all thanks to the Marshall Plan. After working there a short time and having gained a better understanding of the French language he enrolled in a professional course at the École professionnelle des Mineurs du Charbonage du Hornu et Wasmes, in Wasmes. On this day, October 1, 1949, sixty-four years ago today, he received with High Distinction what was called a Diplôme de capacité in a trade which is in the coal mining industry known as boisage in the French language. In English it is know as timbering, though more specifically Mine Timbering.

Being gainfully employed, and performing a task that was, and always be needed in the mining industry, he continued working in Belgium while many other Eastern Europeans were already clambering on to ships for North America. In addition to spending a great deal of time underground, having survived a couple of cave-ins, and waiting on tables during his days off, he and with who had become his best friend Mykhaylo Mykhaylowicz and who would later become my godfather, decided that they would not spend two weeks or more on a crowded ship and a great place to catch one`s death during the journey to Canada, but would fly. Canada's doors were open, and the monies from the Marshall Plan were probably running dry thus forcing them to make their decision.

I can not be certain when he had made the decision to come to Canada, but I do recall him explaining to me his logic of why he settled in Montreal, which had been formulated primarily due to his ability to communicate in French. With his homeland now completely occupied the the Soviets, he saw no reason to return home, he was a patriot and wanted to see his native land as a free and democratic nation, that would never come to pass in his lifetime though. He like the thousands of others who had come to Canada from the part of the world where he had been born, was also a very proud to be a Canadian. There was never a question of where his or their allegiances were. Canada had become a haven for him and hundreds of thousands of other Ukrainians prior to the the first Great War, before the next one, and after WWII had laid to ruin so much of Europe.

While my father probably never knew of the following speech by one of Canada`s greatest statesmen, I know that had been very proud to be Canadian, though like we often say about different sports. You can take the person out of Ukraine, but you can`t the Ukrainian part out of the person when they become a Canadian. I am certain that this applies to all the different peoples who have made Canada their home over the last one-hundred and thirty some odd years.

Sir Wiflrid Laurier, 1907 Author:Unknown

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes a Canadian and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet a Canadian, and nothing but a Canadian...

There can be no divided allegiance here.
Any man who says he is a Canadian, but something else also, isn't a Canadian at all.
We have room for but one flag, the Canadian flag...
And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the Canadian people.”
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 1907

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

Відновленне звернення до Українського народу

Монреаль — 11-ого вересня, 2013-ого року

Різні люди по інакшому з гадають це число - 11-ого вересня. Ось у цей день у 1971-ого року помер Нікіта Хрущов, у 2001-ому році всі ми можемо пам'ятати яке лихо стало над Ню Йорком, та в цей вже день помер такий Джо Завінул - музикант та творець надзвичайний! Але сьгодні я не хочу говорити про закінчення життя - але за початок!

Сорок вісім років тому народився одних із моїх “братіків” - правда що ми тільки коли Україна починала відновити своїх традиціях та історичну гордість. Цей “братік” мій народився в цей день 48 років тому. Я впевнений що він приніс велику гордість своїм батьками. Але теж коли починала Перебудова при кінцях 1980-нх років він приніс велику гордість своїм ровесниками які були горді що вони були Українцями! Він приєднався до “Студентського братства” міста Львова.

Були із них у нас гості на Конгресі Союз Українського Студентства Канаду (СУСК) у серпні 1989-ого року, декілька місяці після установчої з'їзду СБ у травні 1989. Це був наший покійний “братік” Андрій Виннчук та Дем'ян Малярчук. Але теж я там познайомив такого Івана Ткаченка! Він був одних із перших випусників програми який ініціював юрист з Канади пан Ігор Бардин. Велику пошану йому та це що він розпочинав ось десь у давньому 1989-ому році. Канадська-Українська Парламентська Програма! Завдяки сімії Івана ми через девять місяців пологодили багато різних справ. Іване, тобі та батькам велика подяка! Протягом моїх прибизно десять років проживання на території батьківщини, я пізнав багато других відпусників цієї програми який розпочинав пан Бардин. Велика подяка йому за таке бачення перед відновлення незалежність Української держави! Але я не тільки йому вдячний, але теж тим зякими я познайомився у літку 1990-ому році!

У 1990 СБ міста Львова запросили нас від Канадської сторони. Я не міг відмовитися та 1-ого липня день Канади я перший раз ступив на рідну землю! Правда що це ще була Радянська Україна, але я відчував що я вже став блищи до своїх коріння!

Через тиждень мого перебування, може трохи більше, бо ми ще їхали на Купало в Коломию, це сам по собі це би була ціла байка...

Мій новий колега Орест Васильців вирішив що мене запросити на день народження доні Михайла Гориня, та про яку всі Українці на Діаспорі знали. Я знаю що Орко хотів теж мені знайти свою пару, але йому не вдало! Царство йому небесний!

Ми пішли в гостях в гуртожиток в ЛЛІ. Там я познайомив з людьми яких після приблизно 24 років залишаємося друзями.

При кінці наше відсвяткування день народження Оксани починалися всі ці ритуали знайомства! Одних із присутніх — Андрій Рожнатовський... Він подарував щось дуже мале але дуже цінне — свій блокнот, маленький записник де він записував все своє, все українське, твори колег!

У цьому блокноті який А. Рожнатовський мені подарував на день народження Оксани Горинь – у гуртожитку при ЛЛІ. Це було десь у по середині липня 1990-ого року!

У блок ноті А. Рожнатовського на 23-і сторінці... З верху ліворуч.. власною рукою А. Рожнатовського.

Ігор Коцюруба


Я звертаюсь до тебе, Український Народе.
За що ж я кохаю тебе?
За те що мою Україну загнана в рабство. За те?
Не вже у кайданах неволі вам весело радісно жить?
Та доки ви будете брате матінку рідно ганьбить?
О Боже, яка ж вам різниця? Чи Сталін, чи Лиенін, Петро?
Коли ж ви усі українці відчуєте теє ярмо?

Звичайно пройшла адаптація ви зветься
совіцький народ
А де ж українськая нація? Де славний
козацький народ
Українці моліте ж ви Бога Про те не ставали
з могил козаки
Не встигла б до вас із Москви допомога
яничар порубали б козацькі полки.

* Воля або смерть *


Я хочу поздоровляти Ігоря Коцюрубу! Многая та благая літ тобі “братіку”. Скільки років не бачилися та зустрінулися на Майдані під часу Помаранчевої (Р)еволюції! Може час на нове звернення народові? Може вже пора що молодше покоління робили тих зверненнь!



Vasyl Pawlowsky
Independent Consultant

Shedding some light on Canadian History

Yesterday, I paid a visit to film maker Yuriy Luhovy's with a friend of mine who wanted to return a copy of the Ukrainian version of his multi-award winning documentary Genocide Revealed. During the course of his questioning Yuriy about other films I was surprised to learn that it was at that moment that that friend had first heard of the internment of Ukrainians during WWI.

He was equally surprised to learn of the Internment camp at Spirit Lake, Quebec, that at Field, Alberta and the many others. We gave him a short history lesson and mentioned how the father of the former mayor of the community Greenfield Park on Montreal's south shore, Steve Olinyk, though while not interned, had to report to police weekly to have his identity papers stamped, and to add insult to injury his father had to pay the police two dollars for them to do so.

For other episodes on that black page in Canadian history, and the precedent for the internment of Italian and Japanese Canadians during WWII, check out the Internment pages on InfoUkes.com. A more recent recount of a darker part of Banff, that somehow took nearly 100 years to be brought into the light in the Calgary Herald: "Luciuk: Banff finally tells story of Ukrainian internees - So-called enemy aliens were forced to do labour in national park"

Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

A not so holy visit

With the most holy of days of the Christian calendar just passed, most lay people will have probably recognized only one thing, that Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, fell one week later for Orthodox Christians than for other Christian denominations this year.

However, very few lay people and not that many more Christians know the difference between the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. They recognize that the various church groups set their Easter calendars according to different parameters but their understanding in many cases goes no further.


This year as Ukrainians were about to celebrate this joyous occasion, Oleksandr Yefremov, head of the Party of Regions fraction in the Ukrainian Parliament at a briefing wished everyone the best for the holiday celebrating Christ's birth. If someone has highly placed as Yefremov manages to totally misinterpret the meaning of Easter, then perhaps I am being too hard on laymen for their lack of sophistication on the differences between the various Ukrainian-related confessions.


I seldom poke my nose into church matters, coming as I do from Canada, a nation in which Church and State have been divided for some time -- and I like it that way. But nonetheless, no matter where you go, the Church, regardless of which one you talk about, has its politics too. However, when you get into the politics of the churches that exist in Ukraine the matter becomes quite difficult for even the best of history buffs to understand.


This is particularly true when dealing with the various Orthodox Church groups that have current or historical roots in Ukraine, as each seems to think that is more canonically right in their position. Let us begin this discussion by saying as directly and forcefully as possible: it is all about politics and ethics has almost nothing to do with this issue. Some of my Orthodox friends may be incensed by this statement; I am willing to deal with that. However, I defy anyone of them to prove that statement and the opinion it represents as being false or even misleading. It is not.


Anyone who cares to question my statement about the political name of the matter being immensely more important has only to consider a number of different pieces of information both directly and indirectly about the visit to Canada of Patriarch Filaret, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kyiv Patriarchate.


First, I received an itinerary for Patriarch Filaret’s visit from the Toronto Branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. This itinerary included a visit to the Ukrainian Care Centre, followed by a tour of St. Volodymyr Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, followed by a luncheon with community leaders.


However, a few days later I became aware in an e-mail sent to me by Bishop Paul Peter Jesep, a copy of his commentary: Aiding and abetting the Moscow Patriarchate, that there are agents of Moscow even in Canada. Most of the politically informed among the Ukrainian-Canadian community have known this all along but for the less well-informed this is likely to come as another dastardly and underhanded Moscow Patriarchate intrusion into matters that it should leave alone.


Before we elucidate further on this matter, perhaps we should introduce a fact into the discussion that sometimes escapes public notice. The hegemonistic and expansionist policies of the Vladimir Putin government and those of Patriarch Kirill, as head of the Moscow Patriarchate, are different sides of absolutely the same coin. Any former Soviet government that does not recognize – and steadfastly oppose -- this joint attack on its independence and sovereignty is likely to find itself in as bad or worse position of subjugation than it suffered within the Soviet Union.


It doesn’t take too much digging to understand just how Moscow has used the Church to do its dirty work. When Bishop Paul Peter Jesep sent me a link to his commentary on Ukraine Business Online he also sent me the supporting documentation of a letter from the Consistory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada signed by Metropolitain Yurij, born in Lachine, Quebec where I grew up. As a former parishioner of St. George's Orthodox Church in that same vicinity, I understood that they were continuing their dirty work.


As Bishop Jesep quite rightly makes the point in his commentary, Patriarch Kirill (Vladimir Gundyaev) is alleged to have amassed considerable personal wealth during his climb through the Moscow Patriarchate leadership ladder. Other publications recently pointed out, and included documentary photographic proof, Kirill has an extremely expensive watch given by a follower, alleged to have cost USD 35,000. Photographs taken at a public ceremony clearly showed the patriarch wearing the watch in question. However, in the same photo was shown in a Moscow Patriarchate publication, the watch had mysteriously disappeared, airbrushed into non-existence.


If I were in charge in the Moscow Patriarchate, I would be working very hard to have the same photo retoucher who made the Patriarchate’s expensive watch disappear make Metropolitan Yurij’s hate-filled letter sent to all his parishes also disappear. The letter commands all officials and followers of the Moscow Patriarchate to observe that Patriarch Filaret “cannot at this time be welcomed nor have banquets organized in his honour in the parishes, or their properties, of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada.” The letter even goes so far as to instruct that no one should even be in the vicinity of the visiting official, fearful that someone might be seen in a photo with Filaret and somehow thereby legitimize his visit.


What makes the letter by Metropolitan Yurij all the more obnoxious that it states that these hateful instructions are in “accordance and blessing of His All-Holiness Bartholomew.” The so-called Ecumenical Patriarch, at least theoretically head of the Orthodox Church worldwide, is a pitiful and pitiable figure who has little power and fewer resources. Increasingly, Bartholomew has been marginalized as the Moscow Patriarchate seeks to establish its pre-eminence among all Orthodox Churches, enriched and supported by the government of the Russian Federation.


My message to Metropolitan Yurij is simple and direct. I don't like corruption and I don't like the politics that are dictated from Moscow to you via Istanbul. Because you have chosen to play the political game and not one of any ethics you have chosen to pass on the instructions of Moscow, at least theoretical reinforced by the Ecumenical Patriarch.


For the reasons that Bishop Jesep points out, I could do no more than agree with him. Moscow, in not only Church matters has had much more influence than it is due, because of primarily a lack of understanding of the politics of Moscow, but also in the grandiose world of politics.


It is a mystery how Metropolitain Yurij, as someone who grew up for most of his life in Canada, can propagate the nonsense of Moscow, particularly supported by those parishioners of St. Georges Orthodox Church in Lachine, who grew up with him. I sometimes wonder how any of those who consider themselves to be ethical individuals can support his “aiding and abetting” of the Moscow Patriarchate that has one thing in mind – to destroy Ukraine and its people and believers.


Vasyl Pawlowsky Independent Consultant

The commentary of this was first published on the Ukraine Business Online site.

Bigger sticks and carrots, for some

A number of weeks ago I was asked to write an OP-ED piece for ePOSHTA. Since then there have been echoes of some of the ideas I have expressed here. Including from my friend Myroslava Gongadze in the Kyiv Post. Given that some time has passed, and the publisher of ePOSHTA had told me of some technical problems, I am publishing this here.

For years, Ukraine has been going through mock reforms and in my opinion they always seems they do so as a knee-jerk response to something that is troubling the West. In short it always seems to be not a carrot that works but a fairly large stick, somewhere along the lines of a two-by-four. During the entire Presidency of Viktor Yuschenko, it seems like no approach whatsoever was taken, and most of the world looked to Ukraine as the poster-child of democracy and it slowly made some progress, though much of it was in fact window-dressing. Yushchenko's crusader like attitude towards the Holodomor, was great, but what else if anything regarding Ukraine's future was accomplished?

Ukraine's poster-child status was deserved, but somehow, the West is also partially respsonsible for Yushchenko's demise, and never held up a big enough stick to neither Yuschenko nor to Tymoshenko who because of their ego's could never put the interest of the nation first. In the not so distant past, one of the biggest sticks that was always held over Ukraine's head was the Jackson-Vanik Ammendment which was lifted in November of 2005.

This was an important change, particularly to US-Ukraine relations regarding trade; however, the promises of the “orange leaders” from upon the Maydan, never materialized, and no one was held to their promises. Though this is not only a problem in Ukraine's democracy, but in all democracies. Somehow, it seemed to me as well as friends at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, that Ukrainians had come to think that democracy is about elections, and they had forgotten the most important period is really the inter-election period. Regardless of where we live, we are all too familiar with what the majority of politicians will tell their electorate in order to get elected. I will not delve into the period that I have heard some coin the “orange honeymoon”, but would like people to think about what has been happening in the last few months and more particularly since Ukraine's reversion to the 1996 version of Ukraine's Constitution in October of 2010.

One of the greatest matters that will strike a cord with any long-term Ukraine watchers and advocates of democratic progress and development is that the Rule of Law is essential!

The disregard for any law in Ukraine, has during its nearly twenty years of independence, been commonplace, unfortunately as are commonly excepted principles between what is right and wrong when dealing with businessmen and more particularly civil servants, who 90% of the time put their personal interests before those required by the positions they are supposed to carry out! The contempt of the law, seems to have been happening even more now than under what some political activists in Ukraine called Kuchmizm, in the period leading up to the Orange Revolution.

While I do not condone violent uprising in Ukraine as a way of bringing about the needed changes, it is a prospect that seems to become increasingly realistic if the current authoritarian trends continue to be exerted further and further. People are now being pushed and jostled a little harder than Kuchma dared to push! The decisively anti-national, and socio-economically erosive policies are in fact, riling people in Ukraine to the point that I have not once on various Ukrainian fora seen it being asserted that peaceful means of resistance are no longer considered to be a viable option.

As pointed out by the publisher of ePOSHTA, Myroslava Oleksyuk on a discussion list which prompted me to write this piece, “Former ambassador Dr. Yuri Shcherbak confirmed this when he was in Toronto last month. He believes the situation will not be changed without violence.”
However, given the current state of the Ukrainian national psyche (see analysis in Oleh Tolkachov’s article in Ukrainska Pravda), such drastic developments may, even now, seem to be hard to imagine.” 

The reprisals of arrest of those who are considered oppositional forces, has even lead to some condemnation by some in the West, while the government in Ukraine, claims that these arrests are not politically motivated. However, how can one believe anyone leading a country where the rule of law does not exist?

One of the greatest problem in Ukraine is what I would call a leadership vacuum. There is neither a viable leader nor a group that have completely clean hands. So many deals in Ukraine are made or broken on compromise. Until such a group appears on the scene that is without compromise and one that not only has leadership and vision but one that knows how to channel to the population a vision of Ukraine the country will remain a place that is economically plundered by a few, while the greater portion of the population eeks out an existence. This group must not only have wide appeal, it must be ready to take on a leadership role including a long term strategy for the nation, and then, and only then will it be possible to move in the right direction! A direction, that appeals not only to Ukrainians living in Ukraine, but those who live beyond Ukraine's borders and includes patriotic Ukrainian values not only of Ukrainian citizens, but those of the Ukrainian diaspora. Individuals who collectively have a better understanding of democracy than most Ukrainians in Ukraine. This may in fact still take a generation or two, and I know it's not as quick as we would like to see Ukraine change for the better, but is the closest realistic scenario.But there is the chance, that no such leader or group will ever appear?

Even for this to happen in my predicted time-frame, Ukraine has to develop a clear national policy on where it wants to go and to be led by individuals and groups who stop putting their personal interests first and put the interests of the country before their own. The indecisiveness of the nation, has existed since Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, and because of this indecisiveness that the phrase, “We have what we have!” by Leonid Kravchuk will continue to stick in the minds of many Ukrainians.

One of the main problems which Ukraine and Ukrainians in the diaspora face right now is one very absolute fact. The powers that be in Ukraine,at this moment in time, will use all means possible to marginalize the role of the diaspora. They, along with those who have their favor, may either willingly, or unwillingly, sow the seeds of conflict in our communities! Nearly a year ago, in some fora, stated that we must remain vigilant and this has not changed. In fact we must be even more vigilant!

We must focus on a positive and professional approach in the projects we pursue and to do this we must also pursue approaches to carrying out projects that will not always be congruous with the mindset of many of our community leaders, many who unfortunately are there by default and not because of leadership or vision!

Since, I have returned to live in Canada, in 2009, I have heard and seen countless examples of low level of professionalism in our community. As one friend and fellow broadcaster has said, on numerous occasions, “There are many Ukrainians who are top professionals in their fields, but once they are in the church hall, the local SUM or Plast branch, their professionalism is left at the door!” Think about it for a moment, and I am sure that you all know a few people who are just like that. Our communities somehow too, lack a vision, and when someone does voice their opinion and put forth a vision they are put down by those who are at the helm of our various communities around the globe.

While, this is not always the case with our national organizations who have a budget to operate and have in the past and still do hire extremely qualified individuals, this does not happen at the regional levels. There, nearly everyone has a mindset that non-profit organizations making money to be self-supportive in furthering their cause, and the cause of the community at large is somehow a bad thing. It is is simply not true. All organizations have a board, which often is for the most part slapped together pell-mell and made up of members who are their by default. Many younger people in the community have become disenfranchised by the community, because a resistance to change by older members. I'm not talking about older being octogenarians, I'm talking about many of my own peers who are in their forty-somethings. The status-quo is good enough for them, so therefore it must be alright for everyone else. Is it?

I'm not sure why this is the case, but it is a problem that the community has to figure out how to deal with. Maybe, it's lack of creativity, or maybe simply it is their insular vision, that hampers them in realizing what is truly going on in Ukraine and even in their own back yards. Or maybe it is that they are not in touch with the world in general? Meanwhile, adversaries of Ukrainian nationhood and culture are doing everything and using all contemporary means possible to discredit both Ukraine and Ukrainians wherever they reside on the face of this earth.

I am certain that there are many who have forgotten the days, when the world was fed a great deal of political rhetoric about how things are so good in Ukraine. It is possible that the same people and those who in Ukraine's nearly twenty years of independence have somehow forgotten, or never learned to read between the lines in all spheres of contemporary Ukrainian life, and began to see Ukraine through rose colored glasses once it gained its independence. Why is this? It is my opinion, that they and others like them have never fully understood the root of many of the problems and undercurrents in Ukraine.

When I visited Ukraine for the first two times in 1990, I too had a certain expected perception of what the country would be like. Though my perception over the last twenty years has developed to be a more realistic one. A Ukraine with problems that most Canadians, Americans and Europeans can not even fathom or begin to understand, because many have simply been tourists, and business people who seldom shown or told about the realities of Ukraine.

So may I propose for 2011 that the entire Ukrainian community that is concerned about Ukraine, as an independent nation, rethink their approaches not only to Ukraine, but to our communities.

For Ukraine, our leadership has to lobby at an official level with tenacity and willingness to ensure that bigger sticks are used in keeping Ukraine in line in the area of human rights, press freedoms, and most importantly the rule of law. Somehow, it seems that anytime Ukraine cries about its problems the world comes to the rescue with assistance in the form of a blank cheque. That blank cheque and any other assistance, including bilateral trade agreements in the future, requires not only strings attached, but iron chains.

For our communities, we have to think about the younger people in the community who want to try something new, different and innovative. Some of their ideas may even be considered risky, by conservative members of the community, but if it contributes to the common good, then we must nurture a younger generation, many, who have turned their backs on the community and not without reason!. To those individuals in the community who can contribute in a positive way be it in their actions or financially to do so, and the youth and supporters of innovative community projects should be given carrots, so they continue to do so.

Journalists and broadcasters, must professionally inform not only the Ukrainian community globally about important issues, but also politicians, the media and common individuals who are not indifferent to Ukraine or its people, history or culture regardless of where in the world they are. We should in turn demand that the international community carry a bigger stick when it comes to dealing with Ukraine, as opposed to them responding to their mock reforms and lack of adherence to rule of law and human rights. The carrot, is of a color which the current regime holds a disdain for, will not work in initiating any change in Ukraine. They need to be not only beaten with a two-by-four by the international community, but society within Ukraine, must learn how to beat those who do not live by the rule of law with not only a two-by-four, but with the iron that comes out of foundries of those who have become wealthy beyond belief.

I would like to close with my best wishes to you all readers of E-Poshta with my very best wishes for 2011, and to hope that together we can demonstrate to others that we can work effectively together and be agents of change within the global Ukrainian community!

What annoys me more than whining Russians? Read on!

So how did such a question come up. I read a lot for starters and for the most part it takes a lot to get under my skin. But then I saw some guy with a name of Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, writing for the English version of Pravda I said great, at least they have some native speakers writing for them, so we won't get something like Nadsat from A Clockwork Orange, but in this case it didn't really matter much. Not only could the guy not write, he was doing a couple of other things that would warrant a good rattling of his gulliver for doing so. While I do not condone violence this has got me pissed and the reasons for this guy to experience some ultraviolence are:

1. Bad mouthing my country, without substantiated cause!
   
2. Hence, no logic in any of his arguments!
   
3. Should be ashamed of himself for selling out to Russian chauvinists!
   
4. If he is a native speaker of English, he should go back to school.
   

Why am I writing this on my blog because in the past I have had my commentary that rebuts arguments by others removed, and Pravda.ru would be just the type of publication to do so. So here goes my response to this guy's article entitled Vancouver: Mutton dressed as lamb

Timothy, wake up and smell the coffee. You grovelling little panderer of Russian drivel.

First of all the fact that Russian athletes were asked for urine samples is no big deal. There were hundreds of other athletes who were also asked for urine samples as well as blood samples, in total 407 urine and 147 blood samples. Russia's athletes were not the only ones who were singled out so stop crying. WADA or the World Anti-Doping Association has its rules as does the IOC. National sporting bodies were to submit lists of their athletes that were tested and in fact ban the athletes themselves. Maybe Russia, which as usual never likes to owe up to anything it has done wrong and didn't submit a list thus drawing attention to its athletes. That wouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

Now let me address the second point our little droog Timothy makes. "The death of a Georgian athlete on a corner which miraculously was elevated the following day..." Firstly, that athlete has a name! Oh I forgot, Georgians are no one in your opinion... And if Moscow had it there way they would have gone all the way to Tsibisi in the Summer of 2008. His name is Nodar Kumaritashvili! Why did I use "is" - because I will remember him, as if he were still alive. The evil part of you really wanted to write, "one less Georgian to worry about!"

His death was an accident. Athletes knew the track was fast had been on it earlier, and were stating they were having troubles with the section of the track called 50-50, why didn't they seriously complain about it. Because athletes who compete in such a sport know their sport is dangerous and really don't overburden themselves with thinking of such matters. Besides, just because the track was in Canada, it had to be sanctioned by the International Luge Federation and other bodies. So cut out with the first cheap shot at my country. Athletes expected to compete on that track were not Mr. Bean types, they are elite athletes, accidents do happen in such sports and this is not the first time someone has died. It just happened at an international event.

Yvonne Cernota died in a bobsled training accident on March 12, 2004 and was the 42nd to die in that sport since 1924 according to an article in Stern. Our droog Timothy the babbles about some Lobby, and Russian commentators. But who those commentators are and what qualifications they have the world will never know. Regarding Koresteleva's request for a urine sample, big deal. Read what I said above about doping.


Regarding the far north. We know your government with its continued imperialistic ambitions has its eye on our north and the treasures that lie below the ice. Yes, Canada does have its problems but that is our business and we are dealing with it and our people will hold our government to task on them. Don't you wish that your people could actually gather in front of the Kremlin and protest wrong doing of your so called 'elected' officials, who send out their agents to muzzle people who have a legitimate cause to be pissed off a their government.

Regarding your disparaging remarks about our so called inferiority complex, who to hell are you with such a name commenting on Canada and who we are. You must be a Labour Party member who now lives in Moscow. Do you not know who burnt down the White House? Who won the Battle of Vimy Ridge? They were Canadians... who had more balls than the stinking little pinkos who overthrew a Tsar and became despots. Stalin was equally as bad as Hitler... He had his own plans for Europe, and continued incarcerating people and killing them, millions of them. Are you are proud of that?

Figure skating does not belong in the Olympics! Nor do other sports which are judged by people and therefore subjective. Your little poor loser Plushenko should maybe be thankful that he has sponsors to support him. Your government is too busy keeping its Generals happy! What better way to ensure more money the military. Blame things on the Chechens! Russia received what it got from so called 'terrorists' because of its actions in the past.

Regarding the one unfortunate incident which you cite does not in any way prove that conditions were dangerous. I don't think that your athletes had any problems with our law enforcement officials, which almost everyone visiting your does. Yes it was unfortunate that a young Georgian athlete lost his life, but life, freedom and democracy are things that Canadians and its Government values. It is also unfortunate that Russia, is no longer the powerhouse in sports that the Soviet Union was, but I am sure Nodar and his compatriots would rather compete under their own flag, just like the Armenians, Azerbaijani, Belorussians, Estonians, Kazakhs, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and all others that were imprisoned by Moscow.

Please do tell me why there are people in your wonderful country still applying to emigrate to Canada? I don't think that your claims of danger in Canada will cause the citizen of the Russian Federation who has submitted immigration papers to Canada to withdraw their applications. Some of them have tasted true freedom, and they know it is not where they live now.

Oh besides all that, couldn't your people compose a more original national anthem? And regarding your analogy of mutton and sheep. There is no logic to it at all! If you are a native speaker of English with a name like yours, you really must learn how to write! If not good on you mate for making up such a pseudonym. I hope they pay you a lot of money, so that if and when you ever set foot on Canadian soil, our border control people will refuse you entry, and then you have to spend all of your money in no-mans-land in one of our ports of entry and spend all your hard earned money. Who am I kidding, you wouldn't have the balls to visit Canada after the vitriolic crap you spewed out about my country in your article.

Accidental Allies - Time to call a spade a spade

While the idea of what just the role of the USSR was during what we call the Second World War has been kicking around in my head for some time now, and I did allude to it in my last blog entry. A news release from the Minister of Veteran's Affairs found its way into my Inbox. It was entiteld Harper Government Supports Allied Veterans and Their Families. While I have no problem with governments assisting those in need, it is time that we all begin to understand history as it was, as opposed to the simplified sugar coated pill we were given to swallow while studying history in school. While I agree that there are times when changes to legislation are necessary, there is one point of reality which I disagree with in the said Act and its lists of Canada's Allies during times of conflict.

It is unfortunate that most in the Western world have been duped into thinking that the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was an allied force during what came to be known one of the darkest moments of world history during the twentieth century. In the West this historical period is known as the Second World War, while in the former Soviet Union it is called the Great Patriotic War. Did you know this? If so have, you ever questioned why this is the case?

While we were all taught that they were our Allies, this is not only a misnomer but a simplistic manner in order to deal with the situation in post WWI Europe which was a lot more complex than our basic history books tell us. In short it seemed to be the politically correct thing to do by calling the USSR is our ally.

One of the West's most brilliant statesmen and scholar's of Lenin and Stalin and the evil empire which they ran, George F. Kennan has written much on this period. Though somehow his extremely astute observations regarding Stalin and the Soviet Union have never been incorporated into our understanding of this period of history. Nations which made great sacrifices during the conflicts this world has seen, somehow, along with most of Europe forgot about the pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR by about 1942-43, they forget that Stalin too wanted to dominate the globe, but he was in fact much more adept at doing it than Hitler was, if not as evil or more evil. The Soviets worked both overtly and covertly in brainwashing the world into their way of thinking.

Without a doubt in my mind and being a scholar of that part of the world, Stalin, didn't give a rat's ass about Hitler's design for the Jews of Europe, he himself was a maniacal devil who had tried to destroy the Ukrainian people some ten years earlier through starvation. To him, the fact that his evil mustached cousin was killing the Jews of Europe en masse was of little consequence. He had his own plans of dominating Europe and had outlined this to Western leaders at the time quite well, but this detail is seldom taught in schools. Nor is the fact that Russia, never wanted to be our Ally.

Kennan writes of the failed Nazi-Soviet Pact, “The deal had turned out badly; the assumption on which it was founded had failed to be substantiated; the aggressor had turned on his would be accomplices; Russia had herself become the victim of attack. If, then, in 1941 she found herself unexpectedly fighting on the same side as the Western Allies, this was certainly no doing of her political leader[emphasis mine]. They had not wanted it this way. It was a situation they had done their best to avoid. They had not selected the Western powers as allies; and indeed, in the months before their own involuntary involvement, they had shown not only a complete lack of concern but in some instances outright hostility for the interests of the Western governments and peoples.” [Kennan, George F. Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1960, p. 350] This attitude, if you recall, continued throughout the period of the Cold War, and even until the eve of the the evil empire's demise.

While it was not that long ago many, I am sure, have forgotten what theboundaries of Europe looked like at the time of President Ronald Reagan's Brandenburg Speech of June 16, 1986. It seems to me that so many have forgotten that those people who tried to flee from behind what we knew as the “Iron Curtain” were looking for freedom? One of the principles the Western world has fought for is freedom. What, is it not that same freedom that those in occupied lands sought? Those who were veterans of the Great Patriot War were not fighting for the same thing, and those who died fighting should be remembered, just like our veterans, but today they still are not remembered as the fallen as we do at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Countries of the Former Soviet Union like to only consider those who fell for the Soviet cause the victors over the Fascist occupiers, but not those who fought for freedom and peace. They are remembered not as liberators from the evils and the deeds of the Nazi killing machine, but as liberators of the home land. Those who fell in the defense of Kyiv, Leningrad, Stalingrad were brave soldiers and heroes, but those who pushed towards Berlin with the goal being to expand the ideals of the Great Proletarian Revolution at the order of their power hungry leader are a different kettle of fish and we have to start telling telling the world exactly what it was.

For foreign government to consider doling out pensions to Veterans of the Great Patriotic War is ludicrous, especially if they our citizens of countries out side of the former USSR. Let the countries of the Former USSR take care of their veterans including those veterans who were fighting for freedom, the freedom of Ukraine. Foreign countries that somehow fell for Stalin's ruse during that terrible time in history have to now right history. Somehow, the Communists managed to expunge themselves of doing any wrong in the pages of history which we were taught, just like they tried to deny the genocide in Ukraine of the 1930s, the mass graves of Polish prisoners in the Katyn Forest and then hush they put on Chornobyl.

The provision of pension benefits to these so called Allies by other governments would be wrong based on the principle that their reason for fighting in what the Western world calls the Second World War were totally different. They don't even call that war the same thing. Does this not raise some questions?

It is time that that we all recognize the truth of the past and not oversimplify things for lack of will of calling a spade a spade. Stalin has long been dead and nearly twenty years after the collapse of the evil empire which he ruled despotically, and that for many years was so anti-freedom and anti-freedom loving, it is perfectly politically correct to call both him and the USSR the enemy. They may have been accidental Allies, but in the spirit of the word they were enemies right from the start and this is what they should be considered by all governments. The heroic deeds of soldiers should not be forgotten, but one must better understand what it was they were fighting for.