If I Had a Million, I Would Buy a President!

This is the way an 11-year-old boy, who lives in a small village in northern Volyn, solved the problem that has been convulsing all of Ukraine for the last several months.

At this age, one usually wants ice-cream, candies, or a new computer. But our children, too, seem to be thinking in a big way. In any case, when the editors of the Volyn weekly Visnyk were launching a seemingly ordinary contest called “If I Had a Million...,” they never dreamed that not only would the editorial offices be snowed under by letters from various regions of Ukraine, but that both young people and adults would try to spend this imaginary million, forgetting the old proverb “Self likes itself best.”

Editor Yevhen Khotymchuk says letters are still flowing in, even though the contest began in early June. If only in dreams, it is very tempting to dispose of an amount that most people simply cannot imagine. Interestingly enough, readers almost immediately added the world “...dollars” to the contest title. Only one reader, Volyn State University undergraduate Olesia Maksymets, pointed out that the “wily organizers” failed to clarify what they meant by a million.

“If I had, for example, a million kilos of sweets, I would bring them to an orphanage. If it were a million roses, I’d plant them all: let them grow, blossom, and bring joy; let people feast their eyes on them. If it were a million friends, I would be really glad to have friends in every part of our planet. And if, by a twist of fate, I had a million hryvnias, I would help children from poor families who can’t afford to pay university fees, as well as sick people and WWII veterans. And if: once again my imagination transports me to my favorite places. But I don’t know what the wily organizers of the contest meant by a “million.” Perhaps this is what constantly conjures up new pictures for me.”

Naturally, some of the contest participants would above all like to buy a pair of new boots. They must have suffered such great distress that they were simply unable to imagine a comparable price for the coveted object. A female reader wrote she would buy some fresh fish, because “it is so expensive: I sometimes stand next to a marketplace tub where carps are splashing, and my mouth waters.” One in two rural dwellers dreamed of visiting Lake Svytiaz at least once in their lifetime (this karst reservoir of dazzling beauty in northern Volyn is called the “Ukrainian Baikal” and is the only place in Ukraine where eels are found). Others want to “go on a tour of all famous Ukrainian churches,” “have a lot of cattle in the barn and a good little tractor, because I have a large plot of land,” “have a daily, not weekly, bus connection with the city,” “have a blue flame (cooking gas — Ed.) in the house,” etc. Schoolchildren worry about the shortage of textbooks; teenagers unanimously demand the construction of “a village club with a modern hi-fi and a DJ. Let the young dance rather than drink.” All rural readers would like to see Ukrainian people’s deputies sent to the “green sea,” i.e., to their fields and vegetable gardens.

Yet these future “millionaires” express very few personal dreams and wishes. Myroslava Kosmina, a Visnyk correspondent now in charge of contest-related correspondence, says that the jury has already drawn some conclusions. They chose three winners (too many competitors to have only one winner!), and each of them will receive a million of something: that’s still a secret. Most readers would spend their “million dollars” on orphans, a slightly smaller number would generously fund research on cures for cancer, and the third largest group would give money to churches. In other words, 99.99% would share money with their neighbor! The sender of only one (!) letter said she “wouldn’t give a kopeck to anybody but would run away from this blighted Ukraine in order not to see children’s tearful eyes, stray animals, fat-faced deputies, and ‘new’ Ukrainians, who have pocketed more than one million that we, ordinary Ukrainians, will never have in our hands.”

Anyway, most of our people are optimistic and hopeful about the world and are ready to do good deeds.

Lots and lots of gasoline and a school bus

“I am still young, but if I had a million dollars, I’d finish building the school in our village. The construction began some fifteen years ago, but it’s still standing unfinished. What we see on the site are tall birch trees, not walls. More than a hundred of us, pupils, go to school in a neighboring village four kilometers away. It is too cold to walk in winter, and sometimes we come home with wet feet. While the new school was being built, I would buy lots and lots of gasoline. We were once given a bus that took us to school for just one month. Then we had to walk because of the lack of gasoline.

“The presidential elections are coming on. I would buy a president who would care of all the children in Ukraine! If one hryvnia were left over, I’d buy myself an ice cream.”

I would burn that million down!

“If I had a million dollars, I would share it with my friend Mykhailo Romaniuk. We would begin modernizing our village and then Ukraine as a whole. I think I would do this: I’d gather a huge crowd of people on Kyiv’s Independence Square and make a bonfire of one-hryvnia notes (after changing the large denominations). Let people finally see after so many years that happiness does not lie in money but the truth, which regrettably does not exist now because every other Ukrainian is selling it out for a song. We must establish a market-economy state without radiation sullied by money.”

I would take all the kids off the cold sidewalks

“I wouldn’t buy posh cars and flashy clothes, nor would I fly to ritzy resorts. Instead, I would build a nice house with a spacious, sunlit lounge with endless doors leading to children’s rooms. I wish I could hear joyful laughter, chatter, songs, and the pattering of tiny feet. I wish the children could stretch their warm little arms and loudly cry out “Mummy!” I’d be the happiest woman in the world.

“If I had a million...

“I would take all the kids off the cold sidewalks, railway stations, and garbage dumps. All of them — I mean it! A child needs maternal warmth and care, not an orphanage. My Sashko catches my hand, nestles up like a little chick, looks me in the eyes, and says for the umpteenth time, ‘Mummy, I love you so much!’ He had a rough childhood. Now he no longer begs on the streets, goes to bed hungry, or hides a piece of stale bread ‘for a rainy day.’

“My little girl presses a doll to her breast and, rocking it, sings a song that her real mother never sang to her. She ditched her in the maternity ward, never having cuddled her. Now my little daughter is happy! She has a mum now.

“If I had a million...

“I would build a house. There would be a big table in a sunlit room, laid with a charmingly embroidered cloth. I would lay out wheat bread, sweet-scented apple pies, plums, cookies, chocolates, and fruit. It’s all for you, children! This is your dream come true, the dream of wretched children.

“If I had a million...”

I would buy love!

“I would just go crazy and buy love! I am sure it is also for sale. I’d just approach Him and... I don’t know exactly what I would say, but I believe nobody would turn down this much money. Unfortunately, the words ‘money’ and ‘happiness’ are synonymous for many people. I hold a bird of luck in my hands, so I think a million dollars would go a long way to keeping it in a golden cage.”

I would give up my land and donate my pigs and horses to the zoo [written in the form of a poem]

“Ladies and gentlemen, please stop tormenting people! Put that million into my hands! I will then stop moonlighting and making moonshine. I will give up all my plots of land and donate my pigs and horses to the zoo. Maybe I will do some studying at my not so young age and publish an alphabet book. I’ll buy a new television and watch game shows and quizzes. I’ll give a couple of millions to my relatives, buy myself a warm overcoat, knee-high boots, and a leather coat for the winter, as well as a pair of socks and pants for everyone. So give me that million!

“Now, seriously, if I had a million, I would publish a booklet of my poetry, enroll in a graduate course, and build a holiday center for adults and children in our village by the river Styr. That way I could create dozens of jobs for young people who have to live and work far from Ukraine today. I’d give money to build a new village club. I’d breathe new life into our ponds and set up a small fishing business. I would also love to visit Jerusalem.”

I would take people to the cemetery by bus, not tractor

“If I grabbed the prize, I would do as follows:

1. I’d first stake out a new cemetery because there is no more room in the old one.

2. I’d buy a bus, so that the deceased no longer have to be transported to the cemetery on a tractor or truck: how can you walk in a procession when the exhaust pipe is puffing away like a steam locomotive? Perhaps to poison those who are walking behind?

3. I’d lay asphalt on the street where my son is building a house — now the street is filled with puddles deep enough for ducks to swim in.

4. I’d have a covered suburban train stop built at the railway station.

5. I’d give some money to a village church belonging to the Kyiv Patriarchate, a rest home, and an orphanage, and donate money to the newspapers that my grandfather and I love and subscribe to.

6. Some money for the construction of a bathhouse for peasants who have to wash themselves after work in a trough.

7. I’d leave some money for myself and my husband for a rainy day (i.e., funeral expenses). “If some money were left over, there are a lot of fence holes that need mending.”

I would buy an apartment for the doctor

“If I had a million, I would buy an apartment for Ihor Dorodnykh because he doesn’t have his own housing or a car; he is often called to perform surgery at night. He heals sick children. Ihor Dorodnykh is a surgeon at the Lutsk Children’s Hospital. I’d buy a lot of toys for the hospital and an ocean of cut flowers, vases, and a big aquarium for the school. I’d give some of the money to my teacher Nelia Serhiyivna.

“A million is a lot of money! So I would transfer some of these funds to Rev. Serhiy. He is a very intelligent priest. He prays for all the people and teaches them to do good deeds. I also want to see goodness everywhere!”

How about collecting all the correspondence from “If I Had a Million” contest and publishing it as a book, so that statesmen can find out what the common people think and aspire to?