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The State Maritime and Fluvial Transport Service reports that in 2011 1.02 billion hryvnias will be allocated to the modernization of transshipment equipment in sea ports. Additionally, 60 million hryvnias will be allocated for the development of railway infrastructure in the ports. Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Borys Kolesnikov was quoted by the ministry’s press service as saying: “We need to create deep-water solutions for the ports, increase the number of roads, i.e., prepare the entire infrastructure of our country [for the Euro-2012]; from the shippers to the consignee, it should all be modernized.” To achieve these goals, this year the port of Izmail will allocate 6 million hryvnias for the transshipment equipment modernization program, the Mariupol port — 31.9 million hryvnias, the Pivdenny port — 75.1 million hryvnias, the Illichivsk port — 214.8 million hryvnias, and the Odesa port — 591.8 million hryvnias. According to specialists, the modernization will spur on an increase of cargo volumes. “The port infrastructure modernization is a must if we want to increase cargo flow and restore cargo processing volumes lost due to the global financial crisis,” emphasized the service’s head Serhii Kryzhanovsky. The ministry reminded that in 2010, 174 million hryvnias were allocated for transshipment equipment modernization, while railway infrastructure development received almost 30 million hryvnias.

Most Ukrainians condemn drug use, prostitution, abortion and suicide. Such are the results of a telephone survey on morality in Ukraine, conducted by the Horshenin Institute, reports UNIAN. To be precise, 98.5 percent of the survey’s participants displayed a negative attitude towards drug use, while only one percent of the respondents had a positive attitude to this phenomenon. The vast majority of Ukrainians (85.1 percent) condemned prostitution. Positive attitude towards prostitution was displayed by 7.9 percent of the respondents. Most respondents (74.9 percent) expressed negative attitudes towards abortion. Of these, 59.7 percent chose the answer “completely negative.” A positive attitude to abortion was displayed by 11.7 percent of Ukrainians. Also, the majority of Ukrainian citizens (92.9 percent) condemned suicide. A positive attitude to this phenomenon was expressed by barely 1.2 percent of the respondents. Nearly six percent of respondents deemed the question too hard to answer. The random sample of the telephone survey consisted of 1,000 respondents over the age of 18 and representing all regional capitals of Ukraine.

Lviv offers the guests of the Euro-2012 football championship the biggest number of tourist routes. Experts underscore Lviv’s advantage in this area and criticize other host cities for poor routes, reports Deutsche Welle. The four Ukrainian host cities have clarified their tourist routes for the Euro-2012. The biggest number of them was offered by Lviv — thirty excursions with different thematic, historic and cultural-spiritual directions. The city proposes visiting castles in western Ukraine, viewing old churches, trips to the healing springs of Carpathians and Lviv’s most beautiful coffee houses. Lviv emphasizes its multiculturalism in appealing to tourists, as in “Jewish Lviv” or “Armenian Lviv.” Other cities do not have such diverse offers: Kharkiv – has thirteen, Donetsk has eighteen. In developing the routes Kharkiv emphasized famous persons: “The ways of Ilya Repin,” Mykola Hohol, Hryhorii Skovoroda and others. Donetsk follows the same strategy, proposing the tourists a rout called “The road of Sergei Prokofiev” or places of Cossack glory. The executive director of All-Ukrainian Federation of Tourism Employers, the representative of the Committee of Public Management for the Euro-2012 Tetiana Tymoshenko noted that there should be more routes, and they should be of higher quality, taking into account the flow of tourists in the future. However, in her opinion, separate routes, proposed by Donetsk or Kharkiv, are not thought-out at all. “It’s difficult to imagine a fan-tourist, who would like to travel the places of the life of Repin or Ivan Mazepa, with all due respect to these persons,” said Tymoshenko. She added that such a tourist concept is clearly not directed at making profits or developing a long-term tourism infrastructure. There is no marketing plan or research, analyzing the tourist segment within the framework of organizing the Euro-2012, noted the expert.