WEEKLY ROUNDUP 

Last week's Ukrainian miner unions' nationwide action of protest once again brought Western Donbas workers to the doors of the Dnipropetrovsk oblast state administration. Once again they started knocking their hard-hats against the well-kept tarmac (the gesture being symbolic, reminding one of banging one's head against a brick wall), declaring their unwavering faith in getting their back pay. The beloved national government owes them a total of Hr 37 million. A rally at the front entrance made it clear that arrears on payments to the populace in the oblast amounted to Hr 665 mil. Then why bang and break hard-hats? All those others are waiting patiently.

Or take the President of Ukraine. He signed an edict ordering an experiment (aimed at the good of the nation, not his own benefit, to be sure!) to curtail barter deals "in the business turnover of Ukraine." The document deals primarily with the steel, machine-building, and chemical industries and enterprises, all of these and barter deals making Dnipropetrovsk oblast stand out among Ukraine's other administrative regions. The other day this author visited the former Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy of Ukraine located in Dnipropetrovsk's downtown section. I had hardly opened the forbidding front door when I found my legs slipping on oil. The lobby featured rows of huge iron barrels filled with vegetable oil. It was crowded with people lined up carrying glass jugs, cans, and bottles, waiting their turn to have them filled. I was told that the oil was being distributed in lieu of back pay. Another form of barter. It was then I remembered Bulgakov's Annushka pouring oil on streetcar tracks. Was this oil meant for the tracks of Ukrainian economy?

And then there was Ukrainian Procurator General Mykhailo Potebenko's explosive commentary addressed to the honorable People's Deputies Mykola Ahafonov and Pavlo Lazarenko. The oblast Socialist Party committee made public a statement, obviously resolved to clarify its stand regarding Hromada. Striving to combine efforts "in order to resist the destructive course being pursued by the presidential authorities," the local Socialists admitted that they were not only "closely following law enforcement reports suggesting the presence in the Hromada ranks of certain criminal characters," but also stressed that they were not Hromada allies at this political stage, just fellow travelers.

The fact remains, however, that the man in the street in Dnipropetrovsk is mostly concerned about local authorities warning that all arrears on municipal payments (e.g., central heating and hot water) will have to be notarized, accompanied by writs of execution. Bad news made even worse by word being spread about compulsory property inventories.