Dog people support Yulia

"Presidential election" is the main topic during dog walks for the last two weeks. All dog people I met and talked to while walking Igor seems to be Yulia’s supporters. Students, pensioners, teachers, psychologists, lawyers, PR managers – all prefer Yulia. Not even one dog lover in the park supports “Proffessor” (misspelling is on the purpose as Yanukovich himself misspelled his title on one of his applications).
Through "doggy walks" I found out how two days ago while in Crimea “the Proffessor” praised Chekhov as “famous Ukrainian poet". Whoever has a bit of knowledge of the Russian literature knows Chekhov is play and short-story writer. Pushkin was a famous poet. Among educated Ukrainians such a gaff is impermissible.
An elegant old lady, the retired professor of zoology and owner of Kubik,( 11 years old Fox Terrier) disgustingly told me how Yanukovich loves hunting – with a machine gun.
Disgust for Yanukovich does not mean “love” for Yulia, but dog lovers from the park consider her more Ukrainian (less Russian orientation), patriotic and not so poorly educated (even if she does not have a title of “professor”).
Two persons expressed a concern Yulia might destabilize a country if she narrowly loses a second round. An article published today in “Kyiv post” with Yulia’s statement http://rt.com/Politics/2010-01-31/ukraine-timoshenko-yanukovich-militant.html also points Yulia is likely to stir events in that direction if she does not win. She is not an easy push over target and she is not used not to get what she wants.

I found unflattering movie about Lazarenko (former PM and Yulia’s ally) and Tymoshenko on the web. The link to the movie is http://stealingpopcorn.com/?page_id=98#
There is a reference to Yulia as “Gas princess” in part Two, min 6. The part three describes the scheme of how Lazarenko and Yulia siphoned gas money.
In Davos a short movie "Mr. and Ms Y" was shown. This is a spoof on "Mr. and Mrs Smith" and the movie makes fun of Yanukovich and Yulia rivalry. Have not found this one on the web yet.
Irrespective of ugly truth about Yulia, she still appears as slightly better choice for future.
Last week Yulia officially offered Mr. Tygipko a post of prime minister - if she wins. Mr. Tygipko plays safe and reverted he remains neutral.

I was in Lviv last week. We landed on the lovely airport at -22 with a solid sheet of ice covering tarmac. I almost fell walking over ice rink (or tarmac) from the plane to the shuttle bus. I regretted not taking crampons with me.

No love for Yulia

Between Yanukovich and Tymoshenko - I am Yulia's supporter. She has long list of defficencies but she is not a rapist and a convict. She's good looking, charming. She is crafty politician.

However these days when Yanukovich's victory is foregone conclusion Yulia does not get much love. I am posting youtube cartoons which are not flattering for Yulia.
Even if one does not understand Ukrainian the animation is excellent and done with lot of humor which crosses language barriers. For those who do not know: Yulia's party "BoYT - block of Yulia Tymoshenko" has as a symbol a "red heart". That's why in all cartoons there are lot of red heart shaped baloons.
Have fun watching. And let's hope that during Yanukovich presidency simmilar cartoons making fun of him will be found on youtube.

-22

These days we are experiencing Siberia. Last few days it was around -20. For next few days the forecast is -25. Even dressed well one cannot spend much time outside. My fingers feel cold through fur lined gloves.
At least yesterday and today we had sunshine. As there is not much humidity the tiny air particles reflect the light and when walking toweards the sun I feel like I walk through shimmer. I tied to capture it on few photos.

Irrespective of extereme cold few people still come to feel water bottlesin the park. All pumps are frozen and they look nice covered with ice.

Doing photos yesterday I somehow lost my phone in the park. Fortunatly there were not many poeple around and the phone was found. It would be quite embassing if I would lost it as I just got it on Friday afternoon.

The forecast is -25 until Thusrday. Than it warms up to -11.

On the topic of elections - Yanukovich victory is foregone conclusion. Quite frustrating.

Igor is doing well after the surgery. He looks funny with plastic halo around his head. I hope by Tuesday "the plastic halo" will be gone.

Can Tigrulya do it?

The final result is 35.32% voted for Yanukovich and 25.05% for Tymoshenko.

The proposed vote split of other candidates in the 2nd round is:

Tigipko 56,7% for Yanukovich and 43,3% for Tymoshenko
Yatsenyuk 29.6% for Yanukovich and 70.4% for Tymoshenko
Yushenko 16.1% for Yanukovich and 83.9% for Tymoshenko
Simonenko 85.9% for Yanukovich and 16.1% for Tymoshenko
Lytvin 25% for Yanukovich and 75% for Tymoshenko
Tyagnibok 16.4% for Yanukovich and 83.6% for Tymoshenko
Gritsenko 15% for Yanukovich and 85% for Tymoshenko

After doing some math possible outcome is:

Total to be gained from split 14.41% for Yanukovich and 19.63% for Tymoshenko.
This implies that after adding votes from first round the possible outcome of 2nd round is 49.7% for Yanukovich and 44.7% for Tymoshenko.
Thus Yulia appears to be 5% votes short.
I now hope she will be able to close the gap. I consider her lesser evil. If the rumor that Yulia is already negotiating with Tygipko and that she offered him PM position is true - she might gain much needed support.

There were expectations of protests, unrest, some other ugly things. My view is that everything was calm and for most part well organized.
Following this first election round one thing is for sure: in Ukraine votes are counted better than in Florida.

Many of my colleagues voted for Tygipko.
Some of my colleagues experience: one colleague traveled to L'viv by train for ten hours to vote. Another young lady drove 200 km as her mother told her she will not babysit her granddaughter if her daughter does not vote.

Yanukovich 31.5% : Tymoshenko 27.2%

Just as expected - there will be a second round scheduled for Feb 7th. I will be surprised if Tymoshenko wins in three weeks.
Council of Europe observers deems presidential election in Ukraine transparent and in compliance with the international standards.

Interestingly the guy who made a mockery of elections calling himself "Proti vsih" ("Against all") got 2.7% of votes: http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/4b53427d2fdea/. He holds 7th place among 18 candidates. This shows how disillusioned is Ukrainian electorate.

News summary from: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-17/yanukovych-wins-1st-round-of-ukraine-election-exit-poll-shows.html

The weather forcast is another week of surviving at -11 celsius.

Happy New Year!

Happy New year! I hope 2010 will be marvelous to all of you!

In Kiev we welcomed the new year with Julia Tymoshenko concert on the Independence Square. Dressed in outfit of “The Icy Empress” Yulia gave her new year speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7WQWDM3knw
Even if one does not understand Ukrainian it’s worth watching people in Yulia’s background – fur, shiny dresses… In her speech Yulia mentioned 2009 country’s achievements: UA is the 3rd largest grain exporter – surpassing Russia, continuation of preparation for Euro 2012 (hmmm?) and record number of babies born in UA since independence.
The presidential elections are on Jan 17th and from almost every billboard candidates look at you. Yulia has a poster with a white tiger called “Tigrulya” congratulating “happy new year of a tiger”.

I really wonder if she will be elected in the first round.

These days however Kiev residents are more preoccupied with snow than with presidential elections. Since Dec 28th we had few snow storms. Totally unexpected by city administration. Hard to say how much snow fell but it is hard to drive in the city except on main roads. Even some main roads have not been properly clean. The latest snow came after old one melted and froze so one walk or drives over ice.
For the entire week the temperature is around -10 degrees. It occasionally warms up to -5.

I am flying to A’dam on Jan 6th. I keep fingers crossed there will be no snow storm on 6th. The airport was closed on Dec 29th. On Jan 2nd they cleaned only few parking spaces on the airport so planes were circling above Kiev queuing to land.

Since a week ago I have problems downloading photos on the blog. I tried cleaning cookies, removing plugins, etc - but nothing works. Anybody has an idea why I experiance difficulties with photos download?