Racing in Circles

A race under the optimistic motto, «Youth support the national producer! Buy Ukrainian,» which has just started in Kyiv, is slated to go through forty cities in all Ukraine's oblasts. Its participants plan to hold exhibitions of excellent domestic and bad, low-quality, foreign products, arrange meetings with Ukrainian manufacturers hardened under the existing tax pressure, shows of domestically-produced automobiles, and discotheques organized by Our Radio.

The function organizers, the Youth Government of Ukraine and the Ukrainian League of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, decided to use the car race to impact on the mentality of our unpatriotic buyers who prefer imported goods. Naturally, the organizing committee is aware that the industrial slump and the overall economic crisis were primarily caused by economic and political factors. But since it is next to impossible to change anything in that sphere, one can appeal only to the conscience of our fellow citizens. The organizing committee's statement says that many Ukrainian goods are superior to their foreign counterparts. By following an ours-is-best approach, you will get more for your money, which will in turn return to you as pensions, stipends, wages, salaries, and new jobs.

Convoy participants and media representatives, blessed by Kyiv Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko, began their crusade for things Ukrainian at the Lastivka Company and finished at the Kyiv Champagne Plant.

Running a several-thousand- kilometer circular race, the mobile propagandists will try to «show the Ukrainian people that the revival of domestic production is virtually the only way out for this country.» However, our people, who are long accustomed to cultivating their well- being in their own vegetable gardens, are quite used to this kind of verbal circularity.