The genesis of the Kyyiv Bureau (10/10/93)

The genesis of the Kyyiv Bureau

by Marta Kolomayets

PART I

KYYIV - Sometimes it still is difficult for me to believe that I run around Kyyiv and write about historic events as they unfold, interview top political, economic and cultural figures, talk to babusias (grandmothers) at the fruit and vegetable market on a daily basis, wait in bread lines and lose my temper with hardline Communists who want all Yankees to go home.

But four years ago, having a press office in Kyyiv was as much a reality as the Statue of Liberty sitting down. The project, I think, began when the editorial staff of The Weekly, three, idealistic then-still young women, dreamed of witnessing the transformation of the Soviet Union, with the hope that in the distant future, it might lead to an independent Ukraine.

All three of us (Roma Hadzewycz, Chrystyna Lapychak and I) had traveled to Ukraine in the mid-1980s in the early days of Mikhail Gorbachev and glasnost. These were "get-acquainted trips" and resulted in a few interviews, reports on a few conferences and some feature stories.

Those experiences were enough for us to "catch the bug," as we referred to stories about Ukraine, its dissidents and new political and cultural leaders emerging before our very eyes.

As early as 1989, through our office doors came Ukraine's "neophyte democrats," a new breed of leader we thought could change the world. By 1990, we were interviewing Ukraine's cherished dissidents, who finally, after years of prison and internal exile, were traveling to the West. With amazement we witnessed their undaunted spirits and their invigorating energy.

We decided the time was ripe for us, The Weekly, to venture into Ukraine on a more permanent basis. It so happened that this was 1990, a convention year for the Ukrainian National Association, our publisher.

And it just so happened that the convention began on the same day that I returned from Ukraine from a trip sponsored by the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund, to deliver medical supplies to the needy in Kyyiv and Lviv. Still under the influence of all I had seen and heard, I arrived in Baltimore as a delegate to the convention.

There was a certain excitement in the air, as delegates talked about not only the Ukrainian diaspora community, which the UNA has served for almost a century, but also about recent events in Ukraine and the world of opportunities now available. This was the first time in more than 50 years that the Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian communities could have direct contact with citizens of Ukraine.

Perhaps most inspiring at the convention was a young filmmaker from Kyyiv who was intent on making a film for Ukrainians about the 1933 man-made famine in Ukraine that killed more than 7 million people. He wanted to base his film on Vasyl Barka's "Yellow Prince," and he wanted to show it in Ukraine.

If the filmmaker, Oles Yanchuk, was brave enough to tell Ukrainians about their "blank pages" in history, was the UNA ready to make a commitment to a news bureau in Ukraine and tell its members and the readers of its publications about the true situation in the "batkivshchyna" (homeland)?

UNA delegates seemed to be ready, as they unanimously passed a resolution which stated: "The convention urges the UNA Executive Committee to look into establishing a bureau in Kyyiv and/or Lviv which would provide direct news service on a regular basis to our UNA publications."

But this is just the beginning of a very long and complicated story. The Ukrainian National Association, with a little nudge from The Weekly staff of three, headed by Editor-in-Chief Hadzewycz, began pursuing the issue looking into real possibilities. The efforts began in October of 1990, when a UNA delegation consisting of Supreme President Ulana Diachuk and Supreme Secretary Walter Sochan, as well as Eugene Iwanciw, supreme advisor and director of the UNA Washington Office, and Ms. Hadzewycz, who is also a supreme advisor, paid a visit to officials at the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

The UNA delegation was in Kyyiv for the second congress of Rukh, the Popular Movement of Ukraine. At the Foreign Ministry they met with Yaleriy Ingulsky, first secretary, and Volodymyr Chorny, head of the ministry's Information Department, which had recently opened a press center to cater to journalists.

At that time, a letter was submitted from The Weekly editor in regard to the opening of the press bureau and accreditation of The Weekly's correspondent in Ukraine.

Three months and buckets of tears later, I arrived in Ukraine to begin the pioneering six-month stint of reporting from the nation's capital. I say "buckets of tears," because, although all of our papers had been submitted to the Ukrainian SSR's Foreign Ministry, Moscow still issued visas, and it was holding back my entrance to Ukraine.

On January 13, 1991, I arrived in Ukraine during the week of the Persian Gulf crisis and the Soviet Army's attack on government buildings in Vilnius, Lithuania, where more than a dozen people perished.

I began working out of an $80/night room in the Hotel Dnipro, centrally located at the foot of the Khreshchatyk. And I reported out of this box of a single room, which doubled as my home and my office until late April, when I finally found an apartment, which to this day serves as the home for The Weekly's Kyyiv correspondents and the UNA Press Bureau.

Although this was all less than three years ago, it seems light years away. When I arrived in Kyyiv, there was a handful of foreigners, let alone Americans in Kyyiv. I arrived the same month Consul-General Jon Gundersen arrived in Ukraine. This is when the U.S. base here was only a consulate and the consulate consisted of Mr. Gundersen and John Stepanchuk, who was a real pioneer here, working in Ukraine since the fall of 1990, but at the time commuting from Moscow to Kyyiv. Today, the U.S. Embassy in Kyyiv awaits the arrival of its second ambassador and has a staff of more than 130 people.

When I arrived in Kyyiv, I was registered as the second foreign journalist accredited in Ukraine, and the UNA was a pioneer once again, because The Ukrainian Weekly was the first foreign newspaper to establish a bureau in Ukraine.

And when I arrived in Ukraine, there were no hard currency stores, except for the Intourist-run Kashtan, a staple of the glory days of the Soviet empire. That was the year I ate so much "Chicken Kiev" at the Dnipro Restaurant that one day I actually checked to see if I had grown wings as well. I also had a goal in life: to make my KGB doorman at the Dnipro Hotel smile and say "Good morning" (in Ukrainian) when he opened the door.

An American speaking Ukrainian was an anomaly. For that matter, anyone speaking Ukrainian was viewed with suspicion. And often "foreigners" were viewed as a "curiosity piece" to be observed, but not touched, and definitely not interacted with. Many of my colleagues, local journalists, thought I had gone crackers, leaving New York City to work in a place like Kyyiv. They just couldn't figure out what a nice girl like me...

The Weekly had arranged a rotation system so that every member of its team, who wanted to and who could leave responsibilities and family obligations in the United States, could have the opportunity to work in Ukraine for six months. My six months up. I left Ukraine and was replaced by Chrystyna Lapychak, who now works as a stringer for the Christian Science Monitor in Kyyiv. I returned in January of 1992 for eight months in Ukraine, and Khristina Lew did a three-month rotation in Kyyiv. When I return to the United States by the end of this year, our co-worker Roman Woronowycz will have his turn and so on...

The Weekly's alumna Natalia Feduschak is in Kyyiv working for the Wall Street Journal and my work allows me to be a stringer for the Associated Press in Kyyiv. Other Weekly contributors such as Mary Mycio, who writes for the Los Angeles Times and Newsday, Marta Dyczok of Radio Canada, Danylo Yanevsky of Radio Liberty and Borys Klymenko of Efe, the Spanish news agency, are all friends of The Weekly, who form the foundation of the foreign press corps in Ukraine.

The UNA, and The Weekly in particular, have given me the opportunity to report from Ukraine for 24 of the last 34 months, a most wonderful opportunity that I would not trade for anything in the world.

NEXT WEEK: The opening of the Kyyiv Press Bureau and its political ramifications.

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