About Ukraine
From UkrainianBible
Ukraine (Україна) is the second-largest and sixth-most populous country in Europe. It is approximately 1½ times the size and population of California; although Ukraine's population of 46.3 million is in decline due to emigration and a high rate of abortion. Ukraine is east of Poland, south and west of Russia, and north of Turkey and the Black Sea. Most of Ukraine has a climate similar to the Midwestern United States; the southern areas of Ukraine along the Black Sea enjoy weather much like southern California.
Three languages are used in Ukraine: Ukrainian, Russian, and a Ukrainian-Russian mix used in the geographic middle. The Ukrainian and Russian speaking groups are roughly equal in size. 72% of the population lives in cities; there is great poverty in the agricultural sector and some of its "Rust Belt" cities. The population is generally well-educated, hard-working and resourceful, but it suffers from having far too large a public sector which leads directly to waste, corruption and inefficiency.
Ukraine is a strategic and natural ally of the United States because our international interests so often coincide. We both have reasons to fear Russian adventurism and its return to Communism.
One refreshing difference with the United States is that Christianity is welcome in the public square. It tries to be non-sectarian but public institutions such as schools have no hesitation about teaching Christian ethics or celebrating religious holidays in a Christian manner. This is much more true in west Ukraine than in the east, where many ethnic Russians and others desire a return to Russia and even to Communism.
[edit] A brief history of Ukraine
The defining moment in Ukrainian history was in the year 988 when Prince/Saint Volodimir ordered the nation "Y'all come on down t' the river tomorrer, cuz I'm gonna baptize the whole lot of yez!" Or words to that effect. Similar attempts to change central European nations from paganism to Christianity often resulted in bloodbaths, but Ukraine had been well-prepared for the changeover by various forms of mission work. It has been a Christian nation ever since.
The greatest tragedy in Ukrainian history was the winter of 1932-33 when Joseph Stalin ordered the genocide of the Ukrainian people. One third of Ukrainians were intentionally starved to death in that terrible winter; adding in those who starved after the war, perhaps also by intention, the Communist Stalin murdered about twelve million Ukrainians, twice the size of the Jewish Holocaust, in a smaller area and in a shorter period. Try to imagine Auschwitz becoming an entire country.
Ukraine is the only nation ever founded by a poet, Taras Shevchenko. Before he wrote his nationalistic poetry and did his paintings–and incidentally tried to retranslate the Bible before Russia sent him into internal exile–Ukraine just meant the borderland, with its collection of various Balkanized tribes such as Transcarpathia, Halychyna, Volynia, Polovetsia, the Zaporizhyan Stich and so forth. But all Ukrainians claim membership in the Cossack race; it's even in the national anthem, which starts out with the less than overconfident words Ukraine is not yet dying! Nor is its glory nor freedom!
