Roman Boiko's article in this issue, "Petrivka 1999," ought
to be read not merely as a human interest story but as a microcosm of how
Ukraine really works or, more precisely, fails to do so. Although I go
through Petrivka on my way to work almost every day, I know my local bazaar
much better, and can assure you that both work exactly the same way, police
and racketeers parasitizing on those standing there and often working hand
in glove. The main difference is that the racketeers will at least try
to watch out that nobody steals anything from their "clients" and keep
order if need be. Obviously, they are much more popular than the official
but largely ostensible guardians of law and order. In fact, once you get
to know the traders, they become quite open and will even introduce you
to their racketeer acquaintances, who then might just propose you a lift
to work and explain precisely how things work. In other words, what is
striking is not that such things happen but that they take place so openly,
in full view of anyone who cares to look.
The author ends his disturbing material with an invitation to readers
to continue the discussion of why things are this way. I plan to take part,
but even now I can give you the gist of what I plan to say. What Western
experts have begun calling the virtual economy is propping up an equally
virtual state which tries to do more than it can, thus doing virtually
nothing effectively except inconveniencing people in its unending attempt
to get whatever it can to support itself. This is the root of Ukraine's
poverty, its dysfunctionality, and finally of its nonviability as currently
structured. Places on the sociological food chain vacated by the state
were immediately occupied by its unofficial twin, the racket, which in
its own fashion carries out such traditional and indispensable state functions
as keeping order and collecting its own taxes.
Recently my wife ran into an old friend, one of the initial organizers
of Rukh, now a People's Deputy and prominent national democratic politician.
"You know," he said, "Jim did so much for Ukraine as a historian, but now
he's become so critical of everything. You can't just criticize everything.
After all, we do have Ukraine." I wish I could change his visage and take
him for a walk through the bazaar to show him what that Ukraine really
is. Things simply cannot go on this way. The denial of pain at the heart
of Christian Scientist doctrine does not work terribly well when one has
appendicitis, and, figuratively speaking, this country does.






