Everyday decency is rare among today’s Ukrainians
Ukrane’s Association of Humanists and the newspaper Robitnycha hazeta [Workers’ Gazette] staged an interesting experiment in Kyiv recently. It was meant to check just how decent the residents were. The association’s volunteers “lost” twenty wallets in various spots of the city, each containing some 20 hryvnias and a note reading, “Granny, remember my new telephone number.” The number was actually that of the editorial office and the organizers were prepared to wait for two days to hear from whomever had found the wallet, reports UNIAN. The phone started ringing almost as soon as the experiment began, but the calls came not from decent citizens but from volunteers reporting having dropped their wallets in various places on the right and left bank of the Dnipro. The result was the loss of some 380 hryvnias, as there was only one call from a boy who had found a wallet. He called half a minute after spotting it, but refused to identify himself. Still, we do believe in decency.” When evaluating the experiment, the activists expect the following criteria to be taken into account: (a) some of the residents, on spotting wallets, were afraid to pick them up, suspecting it might be just another scam; (b) people at the association believe that those finding wallets could not find the time to call or simply did not want to bother, as the sum in the wallet was less than impressive; and (c) whoever found a wallet might have parted with most of the money, giving it to beggars or spending it in some other benevolent manner. The organizers’ expectations rely on the turnout of a poll carried out by UNIAN’s sociological service, whereby 6.9% of the respondents insisted that they would do precisely that.
Interestingly, Kyiv residents think rather highly of their virtues; in addition to the 6.9%, 10.7% of more 1,500 respondents said they would immediately take the wallet to the nearest militia precinct, 20.5% would leave it alone, 19.9% would try to locate the owner, and only one-fifth admitted they would keep the wallet. Also, 16.2% respondents did not think much of their fellow citizens, saying no one else would bother to return the wallet; 39.5% said there were less than 10% decent individuals; 15.7% stated decent people formed less than half the population; 1.8% believed that most people (up to 90%) were decent, and 1.6% said that everybody was decent. These figures leave little room for comment, except that the margin of error when answering the question “What would you do if you found a wallet?” was assessed at 3.5-4%, rather than the usual 1.5%, as the organizers allowed for the fact that most people tend subconsciously to overestimate themselves. They further reminded us that the wallet-finding experiment has a precedent; a similar one was staged in Zhytomyr, and two-thirds of the wallets were returned.
Olena Donchenko, a psychologist, is not surprised by the results of such decency field tests. The reason, she says, is trivial enough: a markedly lower moral standard being cultivated at quite a high level in this country. There is actually nothing unusual about only 2% of the respondents in another poll saying that there should be a system of ethical norms in this society, considering that appropriating something belonging to somebody else is a demonstrative trait of the current Ukrainian elite, muses Ms. Donchenko. Thus, because of lack of trust in the existing political system, simple moral encouragement is ineffective. Whatever they say about the Soviet period, such an incentive did work.
Workers at lost-and-found offices in Kyiv say that people have become more pragmatic; moreover, they are increasingly enterprising. In addition to the fact that few if any submit lost property (except for the most part drivers of public transport or militiamen on patrol duty at railway and bus stations — in a word, people acting in their official capacity), people increasingly often visit such offices, claiming to have lost property, thus trying to get hold of somebody else’s. This author learned at the lost-and-found of the Kyiv Metro that appropriating lost property, especially mobile phones and other household appliances, is easier said than done. One has to answer a number of exacting questions, concerning the time and place of loss, special marks, etc.
Returning to morality, the lost-and-found at the Kyiv Streetcar Yard has long ceased to operate. They explain that, in contrast to Soviet times, lost property was submitted on such rare occasions that keeping a stolen-property worker on payroll became too expensive, considering the streetcar yard’s meager budget. Andriy Polevnytsky, manager of 059 Taxi Service, says that if someone leaves something in a taxicab [with the driver knowing nothing about it], which then picks other passengers, there is practically no chance to find that property; they do not remember a single case of returning lost property in the past two years. The only possibility is when the driver finds it, in which case it will be returned free of charge, although the owner can express his gratitude in whatever way, the law does not prohibit but allows this. Paying a little premium seems in order, considering that a cab driver can easily keep such stolen property, thus becoming one of Kyiv’s biggest collectors of, say, mobile phones, umbrellas, attachО cases, and billfolds (such things are found by cabbies 3-5 times a week, mostly in the evening when delivering tipsy customers to their abodes).
The situation with the railroad station’s lost-and-found is far more disheartening. Practically no lost property is submitted. In several years only one passenger left behind by a commuter train had his property returned by his chance travel companion. Quite often people turn to the office to look for stolen, not lost, property, on the off-chance of finding valuable documents dumped by the thief. Lost-and-found worker Nadia Matiushenko says the situation is disastrous. Malefactors know only too well that militia patrols cannot protect every luggage- laden passenger and make the most of it, robbing people in broad daylight. Not so long ago a gentleman visited the office, complaining that he was blinded by a tear gas spray can when about to board his train and that his bag containing all his papers, including his resort accommodation card, was stolen.
Such things also happen at provincial stations. At one time there were several bicycles among the lost property and they were claimed by the owners after signing out of the hospital (they had been relieved of the bicycles by force, sustaining bodily injuries). Documents and identity papers dumped by thieves are collected by the militia everywhere, in railroad garbage cans and public lavatories. Militiamen also keep the lost-and-found supplied with bags left behind by harried passengers. Interestingly, lost-and-found workers note that, over the years the contents of such bags thus found and delivered (subject to inventory on delivery) have undergone certain changes. During Soviet times some luggage lost would never be claimed, in which case it was transferred to a warehouse to be dealt with by a special commission that decided what to do with it (this is still done), often sending unclaimed property to a second-hand store. At present such bags reveal such meager contents as to be fit for the incinerator only. Yet even here one finds smart operators. On one occasion a self-described owner turned up, pointed to a bag looking better than the rest, said it was his and tried to make off with it. In a word, the female lost-and-found workers earn their pay the hard way. In addition to sorting through someone else’s linen and clothes, often smelly and dirty, having to repeat the unpleasant procedure since two or three such bags turn up every week, and being thankful not to discover packages with rotten food, they have to cope with situations such as the one just described. Those prone to leave their luggage behind ought to remember that, if found, the lost- property bureau will keep it for only a month at four hryvnias per 24 hours.
Nadia Matiushenko recalls that during Soviet times people quite often brought lost wallets with money.
While the situation and mode of operation of every lost-and-found is the same, that at the Kyiv Metro is the indisputable leader in terms of original finds. Incredibly, someone managed to leave a television set in a subway car. Even more incredibly, rather than being quietly picked up and taken away by one of the passengers, it was discovered by Metro officials. Another time they found a wheelchair. There are romantic losses as well. A musician left behind his score which was found by subway personnel.
Mykola Kravchuk of Cherkasy once tried to generalize data on lost-property inquires and cases when decent citizens returned lost property, generating a web site (such sites are found in every country, there is even an international one for lost driver’s licenses, pictures missing from museums, etc., and Russia has a rather good site of its own). He did, and the site proved very effective, for as long as the local branch of a central Ukrainian newspaper kept the readers informed about it. Then it stopped giving such information and, people gradually forgot that they could try to find their lost property using a Ukrainian web site. Too bad, but we obviously cannot complain we do not have a www.lost&found search facility. What we should complain about is that people prepared to find the owners of lost property are so rare nowadays.
