“I Know About your Country! Why don’t you Know Anything about Mine?

Europeans about Ukraine. Behind the Scenes

Recently at the International Language School in Britain I had an opportunity to communicate with the foreign students of different nationalities and beliefs: it was interesting enough. For example, the fact that they consider Ukraine as a part of Russia is only a half of the problem, and it could be expected. However, the thought of Bulgarian students that there is a direct border between Poland and Russia is awful. One of them asked me where Ukraine is. A bit shocked, I began to explain that Ukraine has an outlet to the Black sea too and is the neighbour of Bulgaria. Then (thanks God, I had a notebook with the map of Ukraine on the cover) I showed him that Ukraine is twice bigger than Poland and is located not far from Bulgaria. His facial expression spoke for itself: “How did this Ukraine appear?” And then he decided to ask who its president is. I answered: “Viktor Yushchenko”. He: “Oh! Viktor Yushchenko! So these were you who stole gas from Russia, refused to pay for it and we were without fuel the whole winter!” It was difficult enough to explain that we did not have gas in winter and we were forced to settle the conflict with Russia as in a counter to my arguments he asserted that we had underground storages full of natural gas. Fortunately, there was a person who clarified: French girl Julie interfered and also began to prove that Ukraine has only the gas-transport system, and the supply of gas to Europe and to Ukraine is conducted by Russia.

Yuliya TSYRFA