March 5 through 25

The Day’s Photo Exhibition left the oblast of Volyn to move on to other Ukrainian cities. On March 5 it will be presented in Donetsk. Within the framework of The Day’s Days in the region its residents will get a chance to view the best photographs from The Day’s Photo Contest 2012 as well as the winning photos from the previous years. There has also been planned a meeting of The Day’s editor-in-chief with the students of the Donetsk Management University. The Day will notify about all the planned activities in the near future. Watch for announcements in the newspaper, on our website, and social networks!

For now, let’s find out what the fans of our project in Volyn think of the latest exhibition. Among the photographs of The Day’s Photo Contest 2012 most votes went to work by Yurii Kalyniak from Lviv Hutsul Haiku, second place went to Red Beauty by Stepan Lupuliak, who took part in the photo competition in the nomination “The World through Children’s Eyes,” the third place went to the shot He Will Become a Football Player by Den/The Day’s photo editor Ruslan Kaniuka. Many visitors have also voted by Oleksandr Kharvat’s Silent Witness of History, Mykola Tymchenko’s Care and Tenderness, and Olena Zen’s Wings. As we can see, humaneness and deep implication have found response among the Lutsk residents.

Many Volyn residents got a chance to vote since the time of the exhibition was extended for another week at the request of the Lesia Ukrainka Eastern European National University, The Day’s old partner, whose library traditionally hosts such events, due to the large number of those, who wanted to attend it. Ten years ago the university hosted the presentation of the first book from the future The Day’s Library series – Ukraine Incognita and since that time the peculiarity of The Day’s Days in Lutsk remained the great demand of the audience that read The Day and learn to think. This time among the visitors at The Day’s Photo Exhibition there were exceptionally many high school students from different schools all over the city, college students, and students of the Volyn universities. “We are very thankful to Larysa Ivshyna for the positive emotions The Day gives its readers, the consumers of information. We are also thankful for the photo exhibition that features high quality photographs which reflect real life, for the newspaper that gives hope for a better future of Ukrainian nation,” wrote students of the Lutsk Institute of Human Development University “Ukraine.”

Just recently Volyn writers had a meeting where they discussed the state of Ukrainian book printing and work of printed media in Ukraine. One of the conclusions they arrived at directly applies to the projects and actions of The Day newspaper. Dmytro HOLOVENKO, head of the publishing office “Kliuchi” of Volyn Eparchy, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate:

“Today, we rather have an issue of people reading books than the issue of publishing them. We sell books from The Day’s Library in our bookstore. We have good contacts with the publishing house. As a bookseller I know that it’s not easy to take your books and photo exhibition on tour around Ukraine the way Larysa Ivshyna and her team do it. But this is exactly the way to win readers these days.”

At the opening of the Photo Exhibition Holovenko, who has all the books from The Day’s series in his bookstore, also purchased the “Armor-Piercing Political Writing” series, books Wars and Peace and Two Rus’es (in Russian). He shared his experience:

“We introduced an interesting innovation, in my opinion: we sell books with autographs. We sell them to our regular customers or, I would even say, regular readers. We also have another interesting approach: apart from selling books we also let our customers take them home to read and for that they have to pay us ten percent of the book’s cost. And we even do not put any limits on how long a person can work with a book since a well-educated person, in my opinion, should read at least 150 books a year. Not everyone can afford to purchase so many books not only due to the prices on books, but also because some don’t have enough storage room already, or maybe have some other reasons. Many books that we have are, unfortunately, not presented in libraries, or, if they are presented, the number of copies is very limited. And people want to read wise books, the ones that make them think. This is the kind of books The Day publishes. We primarily purchase historical and ethnographic books, especially those about Volyn region, since there is need for that.”

The fact that there is a demand in society for the topics raised in The Day’s publications was confirmed by the high activity of school and college directors in Lutsk, who attended the opening of The Day’s Photo Exhibition and the presentation of the books from its library series. Lutsk already has many of these books, many of them are available at school libraries and it is significant that they were purchased at the expense of the City Department of Education (like a book by James Mace Your Dead Chose Me…) or on the funds provided by Ihor Palytsia Charity Foundation ‘New Lutsk.’ Last year the foundation purchased the book The Power of the Soft Sign for all schools and universities in Lutsk. This year, at the opening of the photo exhibition, MP Ihor Palytsia said that, as a historian by profession, he understands the importance of the “Armor-Piercing Political Writing” series, that is why it was presented to all schools in Lutsk. Ihor Palytsia is the head of the supervisory board of the Lesia Ukrainka East European National University (and The Day’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna has been an active member of the board for many years already). Later I met mother of Ihor Palytsia. It turned out that she is a reader of our newspaper and it was nice to hear her kind words about it.

Tetiana PALYTSIA, advisor on finance of the chairman of board of directors at JSC “ENKO”:

“My husband and I read many publications and work a lot on the Internet. But somehow The Day has become one of the central in our family. I am a financial expert and an economist, I have worked in positions of responsibility in this sphere for many years. For 12 years I have been the head of the State Treasury in Lutsk. I say this in order to explain why my husband and I are so interested in the Economy section of The Day. In fact, there are many things discussed there that make you think, analyze, and arrive at conclusions. The newspaper also has great reviews of cultural events in Ukraine and abroad, articles of such level are rarely found in press nowadays. Since our son Ihor became an MP, we got more interested in politics too and The Day is a newspaper that gives the most accurate picture of political life of the state. We like the prudent debate on many political issues presented here. With great interest we read and discuss materials on the topic of the health of the nation. I would also like to note that The Day is a newspaper that writes about real life.”

Serhii HODLEVSKY, head of the Cultural Heritage Department at Lutsk City Council:

“I am familiar with The Day’s books. I got a few things from the Internet. But I also decided to buy the book Wars and Peace since I have two young sons and can also use the information in what I do. It is about the relations between Ukrainians and Polish people and this topic has been especially actively discussed in negative sense for us since the 70th anniversary of the so-called Volyn Tragedy is approaching. This topic will never be fully covered, but The Day’s publications let us look at the confrontation between the two neighboring nations from different angles, to understand that we must be able to forgive and ask for forgiveness. I am always fascinated with the editor-in-chief of the newspaper. This woman does some great things! Even the fact that she guides the daily publication of the newspaper and for years and decades has not drawn from the chosen path is worth great respect.”