By  Oleksiy Fesenko,  KYIV

9 APRIL 2019 

Standing on the roof of the uncompleted construction project of the Panorama City, Section Three I have heard a talk between two people: the Local and the Traveler. The Local purchased a 24 meters apartment on the floor 21, while the Guest was tapping an opportunity to put down roots in the section four. Both were spaced out as the project had been delayed for three years. I tried to figure out, what motivated them to live in Kyiv. 

Traveler: Great Panorama from the top of the building propping up the height; most of all, he likes the view of the Dnipro river resembling the blue ribbons as the part of the Ukrainian women’s national garments. 

Local: The Dnipro was a very rough river in the beginning of the last century but now it is calm and peaceful because of a cascade of six hydroelectric power stations probing its depth. 

Traveler: Still the American Traveler said that the Ukrainian life looks strange, so he felt like returning back to the Earth from the other side of the Mon. 

Local: Water gravitates to the Moon, but this traveller gravitates to the panorama of the large Ukrainian city on the banks of the great river. 

Traveler: The mosaic panes on the nearby building resembled to him a Pattern With the Blue Scarf. The Dnipro’s view is so powerful; the river is streaming across the city, if he were a bird, he would like to look at his own reflection flying over the entire leg of this river. The close look is disgusting because the f*cking city administration doesn't care about the cleanliness of the banks.

Local: Boxed in, the investors and he, hope to remedy the situation of the delay in the construction with the assistance of the Kyiv Administration. The situation is getting many of them down because of the dirty assh*les are earning dirty abstract and bureaucratic money. Perhaps he is an optimist and impatient to live in this building striking up his business through distant work abroad. Kiev has all the necessary resources, such as richness of infrastructure; depth - as access to the Internet and the width of communication with peers for sharing their ingenuity. 

Traveler: But also there are some cons. This predisposed to revolutions city is looking like running into trouble doing a destructive work of a wrecking crane on the border of the EU and Commonwealth of Independent States, making a lot of unpredictable moves, stuck in corruption and rooted in populism. By doing business this way, he can damage his reputation in the US. Are you stupid to live in this country of m*therf*ckers. They already are funding the presidential elections with your money. 

Local: The two processes are taking place simultaneously in his mind: of breaking down and piecing together, making him inspired, productive and creative. He will be able to live in Kiev up to and fit-in with the US economy distantly. And nobody might skirt him around any more. 

Traveler: At the forum of Payoneer in Kyiv, he heard that Ukraine takes only one seventh of the US population, providing half the number of the US programmers. The top of the building is like the tip of the pen, writing on the sky. He is still broadening his mind developing an idea about how to catch the Ukrainian talent pool for hire. Their opinions and skills can be vital in many areas: he is in need of the bright talents.

Local: Clouds of garbage are hovering in the air under the wind. Some pieces are catching the ascending air flow gaining height over the tallest buildings in Kyiv. Focusing is like catching the ascending flow. He narrowed his mind being aware of the opening up opportunities to penetrate new markets; his aspiration requires very specific skills. They are, those who are in power are taking us for garbage bustards. 

Traveler: He looked at the research nuclear facility in the vicinity with one of the tallest stacks in the city. The city has a great scientific potential, on the other hand it makes the city vulnerable to irresponsible actions. For example a foreign owner may have 100% shares of a Ukrainian company, can purchase such a facility or the strategic land in Kyiv, appoint a foreign director with a ‘purchased’ Ukrainian citizenships. How can it be possible in the country with the civil war and under the threat of an external intrusion. Traitors.

Local: He is thinking about a foldable furniture for his micro-apartment,  but at the back of his mind he was weirded out through the chain of hydroelectric power stations on the Dnieper. In a case of breakthrough, the dams can ‘fold up’ and release a blue scarf of waters: such a tsunami of Dnipro waters can flush off half of the city into the Dnieper. This scenario can devastate Kiev and a large territory of Ukraine around the Dnipro for decades. So, he was thinking about Ukraine as a Pattern With the Blue Scarf, with a threatening context. And then this corrupt ‘elite’, these traitors would flee to the safe places abroad and in Ukraine will start a mobilization mostly of the aged people to counteract the disaster. 

Ukraine as a Pattern With the Blue Scarf may have a best scenario is to climb down and skill up drilling down feedback of the citizens and spurring on the preventive actions. Striking out the policies towards the new opportunities can add up in forming the civilized patterns. 

Probing a depth of the citizen’s patience is not good, and the worst scenario is to stay locked in a battle of the command methods and skill down; sticking by populism; going round in circles of the dumbing down revolutionary manipulations; tolerating civil war is under the cloud in Ukraine. 

Facilitators:

Marie Snider, English Language Resident

     Marie Snider is the English Language Resident at America House, Kyiv. Before coming to Ukraine, Marie was an English language Fellow for two years at Botho University in Botswana and for two years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Myanmar. Before she began working as an English Language Fellow, Marie taught English as a Second Language in the Czech Republic, Costa Rica, South Carolina and California, USA, in addition to conduction teacher training workshops in California and Haiti. This was Marie's first time facilitating a program that focused on creative writing, and she is sure that without the amazing people who participated in this program, that it would not have been a success.

Cristina Monzer, American Council, FLEX Program

     Christina grew in Los Angeles, California where she moved with family from Ukraine and Lebanon. She graduated from UC Berkeley where she studied International Development and has since lived and worked in the Bay Area and abroad. She started working with American Council's FLEX (Future Leaders Exchange program) in 2014 in Ukraine and in 2016-17 recruited in Georgia, Ukraine and Poland. She began her position as a FLEX Program Officer in the Kyiv office in March 2017. She enjoys traveling and meeting prospective FLEX students and working closely with the alumni community in Ukraine. She loves trying different foods in different cities across the region, architecture, writing and taking photographs.  This fall she will be starting a Master of Urban and Regional at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs.