Interview for www.punkinternational.com
(July 2004)
I have read a little bit about the history of punk music in the USSR, bands from Russia, and Siberia, Estonia, and other Eastern countries in the 1980s. Does Ukraine also have a long heritage of punk music?
I dont know what has been written there about
Ukraine, but to my mind everything started in Ukraine at the end of 80s (1988-)
with such groups as VV (Vopli Vidoplyasova) and Gadyukiny Brothers (Braty
Gadyukiny),etc. It was the end of communist regime and actually the energy of
destruction of the old traditions and laws was everywhere in our society,so
these groups soon became very popular and every person throughout Ukraine knew
their hymns.VV depicted the average Ukrainian man with his apathy, stupidity
and fear, caused by the communistic way of life, musically it was a pure
folk-punk - Ukrainian dialects, Ukrainian folk melodies-but all of these made
very satirical effect. Gadyukiny Brothers played reggae,mixed with folk music
and also had very satirical texts. It is my favourite Ukrainian punk group. In
their songs they painted all the history of communism in Ukraine as something
abnormal, ugly and inhuman. It was very funny group with its own original
music,texts and show, which were very actual and funny. Also these groups tried
to resist Russian chauvinistic politics against Ukrainian language and culture
and sang in Ukrainian. At that time the communistic government prohibited
singing or writing our own language, and it was something shocking in 80s, to
sing in your own Ukrainian language; you could be imprisoned for the
nationalistic propaganda. So these groups appeared to be the voice of that
time of changes-time of breaking the old communistic world and the time of
waiting for the new-democratic and happy life
Tell me your thoughts about the current state of the Ukrainian music scene. Do you think there are a lot of good bands emerging in the country that can compete with great European bands in other country? Is there a bright future for Ukrainian independent music?
If you talk about the official music scene, this music
is a copy of Hollywood MTV music, and there is nothing special in it, except
our folk-divas: Ruslana and Verka Serdyuchka,who use Ukrainian melodies and are
very popular in Ukraine, Especially Verka Serdyuchka-she is very funny and
extremely popular here.
Talking about independent scene I would like to mention that we don't have such
a phenomena: we dont have independent labels, fanzines, clubs, shops, systems
of distribution and so on. So it's impossible to talk about Ukrainian
independent scene. BUT in the 2000s appeared the idea of DIY and now we have 2
punk zines here (in Sumy (Anarch Akbar- anarch_akbar@inbox.ru
) and in Kharkiv
(Neformator- neformator@km.ru )) also one anti-nazi info-bulletin in Lviv
(Psychiatry- fucknazis@al-islam.com
, dimacynik@mail.ru ), anarchist
organisation Tigra Nigra (www.zaraz.org ) and zine Kapec (zaraz.org) in
Kyiv. Regular punk festivals (Punk Invasion - neformator@km.ru
) in Kharkiv.
Punk club Estrada (anarch_akbar@inbox.ru
) in Sumy, and independent punk
bands, such as Triffidov's Day (through neformator@km.ru
), Truemen's Show
(www.truemens.narod.ru), Toster (www.rock.lviv.ua), Dr. Bormental (drbormental@km.ru)
etc. and several distros: Truemen Distro
(truemen@mail.ru), Neformator Distro (neformator@km.ru
), Anarch Akbar Distro(anarch_akbar@inbox.ru
) zaraz.org distro (distro@zaraz.org ). Also you
can contact and get to know much more info about Ukrainian punk through
Neformator zine.
Talking about their records or concerts I dont think that Ukrainian punk bands
could compete with European or American bands. We can't afford good studios,
tours, records with good sound, good musical instruments, at the same time
being independent and not using mass-media, showbusiness and so on. I think
that the reason is our economic and geographic conditions, undeveloped
underground music scene and apathy, which was passed to us from older
generations. We have a blood of slaves, our people can't imagine our life
without masters, It's in our hearts to be slaves, even in punk hearts. We
were slaves for ages, this is not America; this is a full-of-fear country of
the third world. Our people can't imagine, that it's possible to have our own
truthful and independent culture without masters, sponsors, competitions, lie,
hyping, and shit like that. We can*t earn any money on our music here, so we
should work on our normal works to survive physically. Our dole is too small
to live on it. But I think that everything develops in a right direction and if
we would try hard we would have our own culture, not false, not sitars usual I
think that we have good, passionate people in our underground and, maybe a
bright future, as you said. Only we have to forget about our ambitions and be
more friendly and truthful- and everything would be O.K. Finally we have one
band, which can successfully compete with European or American bands-this is
Triffidov's Day. Check them. They are worth of it!!!
It is pretty well known in Western countries now that it has been difficult for ex-USSR countries like Ukraine to adjust to democracy and a market economy. What is it like living in the country now? Do people feel much confidence or optimism with the conditions now?
I dont consider our conditions to be human, but now
we live much better than at the beginning of the 90s after the rebuilding. We
had constant inflations, the money of our parents flew away with all our
bankrupt banks, Western civilisation came to us with its drugs, sex,
prostitution, capitalism, and it was like fire water and coloured glasses
for Indians. Lots of families were broken cause of drugs, alcoholism, and
poverty. Western philosophy and dirt, was taken by our people as a great
bless.Our people learned how to live from your Hollywood films, and this mix of
Western philosophy and our Eastern souls, made such a monster as modern average
Ukrainian mutant. My family was starving at the early 90s and now we have
established economical situation, people have got something, like minimal
stability, we have enough products in our shops no deficit, no shortage, only
you must work all day long to be able to buy them, you have a right to eat, but
not to think, to speak. The scheme of the normal day of the average Ukrainian
citizen looks like this: eat something, work hard from 8 AM to 5 PM, eat
something, then go to drink alcohol with other workers, then go home to see TV,
then eat supper, then sleep - as you see - there hadn't left any time to think.
Its very good to our government to provide and to promote such a way of life.
It stands like a law or tradition, and if you dont live in such a scheme -
people say that this is abnormal, nasty and so on. Brainwashing. Talking about
Ukrainian economics I want to add that it develops successfully and it seems to
me that we could have rather prosperous country if we didn't have such a shitty
people in the government, who steal millions of dollars from the budget and and
every person in Ukraine knows it. And its like a norm in our society, that our
bureaucrats steal our money. People are too scared to protest about that. They
dont believe in possibility of changes. Most of the people are rather happy to
live in such conditions, when they have only three rights-to eat, to buy and to
work. Ohalso they have a right to live quietly and to die not knowing much.
But most of our people agree with such a way of life and feel normal.
For many hundreds of years, Ukraine was ruled by Russia. Even recently I read in the news about a border dispute between Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea. Are Ukrainians and Russians struggling to get over these years of hard feelings?
Russia, in fact, is a very chauvinistic country, and
our people were a long time the slaves of the Russian aristocrats. We were a
Russian colony, so the image of the Russians is rather negative. But our people
are very mild and we dont wanna to quarrel with our Russian brothers.
Its they, who always begin such a stupid quarrelling about the borders. They
are mad about war, they have such a big territory and they want more, they want
to fight They always tried to made us believe that we are subhumans, slaves,
nations of the fools - adding to a big and glorious Russian empire. Now they
try to fire the national confrontation in the Crimea. We would have big
problems in Crimea cause some of the native citizens of Crimea want to separate
from our country. It could be something like Chechnya in Russia, but I believe
that this is only my supposition.
Officially, Ukraine is a democratic European country, but it also has a reputation as one of the last dictatorships of Europe. What is the political situation like nowadays?
Ukraine was never a democratic country, it's a lie.
Though we dont have such a dictatorship as in Belarus, and though we have the
opposition, still the mafia clans, businessmen circles, people who have money
can delete you in a moment and you couldn't do something, if you dont have
money and friends in the official establishment. Everything sells in our
country, even our government. We are still rather barbaric in that sense.
Do punk bands in Ukraine ever have to deal with harassment from the government or authorities like that?
Yes, but you see in our country punk was understood as
something stupid, idiotic, not political struggle, not independent minds and so
on, but as drink alcohol, live in the garbage can, smell like shit - and you
would be punk. In our country punk still means for many people - a stupid child
of the sick society, not as people, who try to change the life, but as clowns.
So people dont see big threat from such a punks, they only laugh from them.
But, to be honest, one of the Truemens Show concerts was cut cause we sang a
funny rock n roll about our president and his friends, whose hobby is to kill
independent journalists and other Ukrainian people, and a punky and satirical
version of the hymn of our bandits Vladimirsky Central song. Also I've heard,
that DLK from Khartsyzk was banned in their native city, but in most cases our
government dont try to ban punk music, cause they know that punk is not so
popular and powerful in Ukraine to be afraid of it. Who is afraid of
alcoholics, whose interests are only food and alcohol? And such are most of our
punks.
Like a lot of ex-communist European countries, Ukraine is in a difficult position. There is pressure to join the West and the European Union, and pressure to resist it and stay with the traditional Slavic/Russian course. How do you feel about that?
Yes, there exist such a problem. The Western part of
our country and our opposition wants to join the West, and the Eastern part and
especially old people, who are still communists ,want to stay with the
Slavic/Russian course. To my mind neither Western course, nor Russian is good,
cause everyone of them wants only to use us in their stupid plans.
I think one thing that everybody knows about Ukraine is the Chernobyl nuclear accident. I have seen documentaries about what the effects of it have been now that twenty years passed. But can you give a native person's on what it's like at Chernobyl right now, and how important it still is to the country's recovery?
Oh, this question is right for me, because I live in
Zhytomyr, and our region is right near Chernobyl. Firstly I want to explain the
system of the government treatment of the territory, which suffer from the
Chernobyl effect. So there are three Chernobyl zones: first - the 30 km.
zone-it is the most dangerous zone around the reactors. It is very dangerous
and strongly prohibited, and almost impossible to come there. The trees became
red and yellow, there are wolves with 6 legs, the limit of radiation can cause
serious mutations and ontological diseases. It takes three hours by car to get
there from my place of living. The second is the zone of the obligatory
resettlement; it is prohibited to live there, and the people, who lived there
before had to go away from their homes, but some of them refused to do it, and
now we have villages there with two or three citizens in them, in most
cases-old people. Also in those places live prisoners ,who had escaped from the
jail, and live there cause there is no police or something. And nobody comes
there. Also the water, potatoes, mushrooms, and everything, that grows there
has a great amount of radiation, so it is very dangerous to live there, And the
people in those places have serious mutations of the thyroid gland, which
affect the whole body and causes great problems.
Our businessmen made a great money going to the third zone and selling
building materials from the lost houses, and these materials were full of
radiation. People who have bought them didn't KNOW about that and now they live
in the houses full of radiation, and dont know why they feel bad in these
houses. So you see, our mutants wont stop at anything to get money. And this
is the most ugly feature of our people. Hollywood films taught us the new ideals
- FOOD, SEX and MONEY. And did it successfully. The third zone is the zone,
where people can live but they also suffer from radiation. They have a
free-of-paid medicine, they have Chernobyl money every month and also they
have some more rights: For example: very good chance to enter the University,
even if they are not very clever - its like a compensation for their sorrow.
In Zhytomyr geographic area these are Ovruch region, Olevsk, Luginy, Narodychy,
Korosten region and others, but not Zhytomyr. Radiation affected us greatly and
in most cases a great amount of people have serious ontological diseases and
mutations of the thyroid gland. Our government cares a little bit about that,
but not much, not as its needed.
Not many people here are aware of it, but Ukraine is one of the biggest countries after the United States in the war against Iraq (approximately 1700 troops). How do Ukrainians feel about their country's involvement in this war?
This problem was raised in the opposition press and it
was shown there as a very negative action, they accused our government in
playing with a fire, playing with terrorism. They said-it can cause a wave
of terrorism in our country and they demanded from our government to take our
soldiers back from Iraq From the other side our young guys consider it to be
good earnings - to go to Iraq, because our government gives a good sum of money
to the soldiers who go there to serve in Iraq in the "Coalition of the
Willing. So this is only a good way to earn money. Ha-Ha. But, actually, our
people don't care because they are used to working, not thinking. They dont
care, they want only to have their food; they dont want to understand
politics, because it can cause a great problems for them. We are full of
apathy, you can kill us, cheat on us, fuck us, we wont say anything. The
Ukrainians feel fear and apathy about that.
That's it for this interview. Is there anything else you would like to mention about what's going on Ukraine these days, or just say to the rest of the world?
I want to say that our country is a very friendly
country with a very kind people, and we are not subhumans; we are rather
developed people, normal people, who want to live in peace with every country
Only for unknown reasons we always live in shit, always have problems, though
we work as hard as bulls. Where is the answer I don't know, but I think that we
are going in the right direction. And if we would be more responsible,
fearless, and truthful we would be your friends and you wont be scared of our conditions
of life and stupidity and would treat us as a normal people, not as a dangerous
barbarians. Also I want to say that you shouldn't be scared to write us. We are
always very glad to get mails from foreign countries and foreign people. Dont
fear us, we are not Chernobyl wolves, we want to speak, we didn't have such a
possibility in the times of the Soviet Union. Thanks for the interview Tim and
BYE!
Questions Tim
Krysko
Answers Yarik
(Vasya Kuzya)
July 2004