Nationalism

There is sort of a global counterculture were people are against anything popular, whether wrong or right. In most European countries these people are strongly against nationalism but interestingly in Ukraine these same people usually seem very nationalist. If you go to Churchill's or meet Kyryl and his friends you will see people using Ukrainian words and occasionally wearing traditional Ukrainian clothing.



This is Kharkov's House of Ukrainian Culture. There was a concert where this young guy was singing and playing his 'bandura' very nicely. It is a quite geeky place and besides lectures on Ukrainian culture they have courses where you can learn how to use Linux, which will really teach those Microsoft bastards.




This guy we met at the Ukrainian house. He grew up in Kharkov speaking only Russian, but one day he decided to only speak Ukrainian. So when he goes around Kharkov he uses Ukrainian and actually it is not problem because everybody learn it in school and it is also quite similar to Russian.




In Kiev they have this place which looks and works pretty much exactly like a McDonald's but they only sell traditional Ukrainian food, Borsch, Variniki, etc. I think this may be the one place in Ukraine where they do not sell Coca Cola.