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The parliamentary events of the past few days showed that our politics desperately lacks precisely this kind of judicious understanding: while Russians think about Russia, we also think about Russia - some with an incomprehensible longing and others with equally incomprehensible hatred.

The editorial board suggests to readers a sober view of Ukrainian-Russian relations by that rational Russia which first of all pursues its own interests and wishes us to do the same.

It is now, that the passions over ratification or non-ratification of the Russo - Ukrainian treaty have calmed a bit, the right time to indulge in idle speculation about what did or did not happen. As recently as the summer of 1991 it seemed incredible that Ukraine might leave the USSR. However, the December referendum in this republic put an end to the Soviet Union. And the earth did not move as a result.

Now it seems totally unacceptable that Ukraine should join NATO, that it will take too long, and NATO does not want us so far, either. But even should it happen, would it have such terrible consequences? This is rhetorical, of course. But there is also history which reminds us that Ukraine was together with Russia for only 300 odd years and that the time was full of conflicts, wars, contradictions, ethnic and religious discord. By the end of the twentieth century, humanity has painstakingly developed civilized principles to solve such problems but rarely keeps to them. Genocide is a phenomenon of not only African but also European political life. And, compared to Yugoslav nightmares, events in the CIS unfold far more humanely.

Take the ethnic question. We can by no means assert that the marriage was long, happy, and without a cloud in the sky. But the past three hundred years, however, were not only years of quarrels and ruin. And this refers not to industrialization and collectivization that brought famine to Ukraine but, above all, the years when, despite the sometimes foolish ethnic policy of some Russian officials and, alas, tsars, the empire still performed the function of uniting its peoples and enriching their cultures.

For we know very little about Ukraine, Ukrainians, and Ukrainian history. For example, Metropolitan Eulogius (Georgievsky) who, while still a bishop and, hence, representative of the reactionary imperial clergy, defended in the State Duma the Ukrainian Orthodox peasants of the Kholm (Chelmno) region from national and religious discrimination by Polish landlords. And he achieved his goal: the region was withdrawn from the Polish Kingdom (incidentally, the partitions and enslavement of Poland were preceded by some episodes in Russian history connected with Pseudo-Dmitries and sack of Moscow). The Reverend Eulogius, by the way, also warded off Jewish pogroms in the region.

There were other things too, e.g., Taras Shevchenko's diary in Russian, a cosmopolitan (hence, also imperial) Odesa, New Russia, and in general everything we now call the culture of Southwest Russia, etc. However, all travels over the political map of Ukraine and Russia will inevitably bring you to the Crimea and the Crimean problem.

For the point is not only Sevastopol. There is the Crimea of Admirals Ushakov and Nakhimov, but there is also, no less important for Russia, the Tavriya of Pushkin, Voloshin, and Nabokov who here said farewell to Russia. But the admirals' names sometimes return to history as the names of writers, which reminded us that, e.g., Serbs, such as Vojnovic, also served the Russian crown. And what cannot be solved in legal terms can be solved in moral ones. For example, a reciprocal recognition of rights to a cultural condominium, i.e., joint authority over historic and cultural treasures, not only fleets and bases. But everything is not that simple even from the legal angle. The powers of people who signed the 1922 Union Treaty were far more dubious than the powers of those who signed the Belaya Vezha accords. The legality of Soviet power was illusory even in Russia, much less the other republics. This resulted in a rather cautious attitude toward the legality of territorial changes that took place in the Soviet Union.

But the purpose of the Commonwealth is precisely to overcome what accumulated in those years of the "friendship of peoples" propped up by deportations, ethnic cleansing, and revision of borders. However, to start from square one, it would be a good idea to clean the ground, i.e., display good will toward cooperation.

In these notes, I do not want, as a matter of principle, to reiterate facts we have heard so many times. Enumeration of the national offenses caused by extremists and idiots (Russian and Ukrainian) to Russian and Ukrainian culture and history nowadays only plays into the hands of extremists and fools. However, existence not only within the CIS but also in history obliges us to remember everything, without stressing what seems easy and simple but is not in fact such. Why on earth do politicians think that tension with Ukraine or the struggle for Sevastopol and the Crimea, will delight the electorate? For so far even the active and morally justifiable struggle for the rights of the Russian-speaking population in the Baltic states has not yielded any significant political dividends. People are far more interested in what is going on at home. The paradox is that the attempt to have it out with Ukraine is rather useful from the viewpoint of overcoming an old and meaningless stereotype - the legend of Slavic unity so much touted by Belarusian President Lukashenka. Russia and Russians have their own national interests which should not fit such ill-conceived patterns as Slavic fraternity. Speculations about a Slavic union and unity means remembering the racist experiments of Stalin who mimicked his rival (but not enemy) Hitler. "Linden were being planted on Gorky Street," thus writer Tendriakov expressed the sensation of Soviet power's succession to the Nazi regime after World War II whose results Stalin called a victory of the Slavs in their historical confrontations with the Germanic world. Slavs or Aryans, what's the difference? The only result is national degradation.

The Slavic nations are only an ethno-linguistic community, as are the Germanic and Romance nations. And it is senseless to explain that there was, but is no longer such a thing as Slavic unity, which needs no proof after the disintegration of Yugoslavia.  Racism, unlike healthy bourgeois nationalism, is irrational.

But a new pattern is being proposed, actively exploiting the old fears, e.g., NATO-phobia. Or speculations about discriminations of the Russians. With all my respect for Yuri Luzhkov, I do have to note that the Russians in Ukraine are an ethnic minority. For 25%, a figure from his speech, is really less than half. And Russians are foreigners in Ukraine if they are citizens of Russia. And citizens of Ukraine, irrespective of ethnicity, are foreigners in Russia.

The bare facts are as follows: you cannot be good neighbors and raise territorial claims against each other. It only frays your nerves and empties your wallets, for there will be no good without normalizing not only the relationship but even the atmosphere of mutual existence. The treaty has been ratified, but on certain conditions. From the viewpoint of international law, this is an aberration, but members of the Council of Federation do not seem to understand that all the same Ukraine is abroad. And they will have to.

And while I was reflecting on all this, Ukrainian legislators were reported to have fulfilled, as if in jest, the demand of the Russian governors. It is for you to judge which of the Slav brothers remained wiser and which made a whip for his own back.

By Dmytro SHUSHARIN,
www.gazeta.ru