The director has said that he wants to show that “there is no separate Ukraine… When two drops of mercury are near each other, they will unite. You’ve seen this. Exactly in the same way, our two peoples are united.” Fighting words directed at the heart of the Orange Revolution.
I have not seen this. I went into a panic when we broke a mercury thermometer. There was one droplet and we cleaned it up incredibly swiftly before any of it evaporated.
Putin, on the other hand, would probably play with it and use it as props on military maps to represent armies. Then, lick his fingers. Like Wolfowitz licked his hand in Fahrenheit 911. This is one reason why no one wants the Russians in NATO.
7 comments:
So Russians are all really Ukrainian then? Interesting.
Russians seem to have co-opted a Ukrainian, but is that really the way it is?
Reminds me of how many Soviet premiers were non-Russian...
My Russian teacher is constantly telling me my pronunciation of the letter 'R' makes me sound Ukrainian.
The way she says it, though, I can't quite work out if she sees the Ukraine as a separate country. Almost like an American telling you your accent makes you sound Virginian.
Makes we wonder if Ukrainians are to Russians as New Zealanders are to Australians. We see each other as cousins, rather than neighbours - and there's an extent to which, deep down inside, we suspect we might be more closely related.
Ukraine, not "the Ukraine"! Sharon, I'm shocked! :)
I am not an expert on these languages, and you can't quantify it very well anyway, but I thought Ukrainian is different from Russian as Polish is.
Virginia is actually a good analogy. It once (back when it was set up as a company) extended all the way into the Midwest.
The average Ukrainian man lives to be 62; his Polish counterpart lives 11 years longer. I think Ukraine's geopolitical reorientation might have more to do with that than just national identity.
Some Ukrainian men are using mercury! I knew it.
My humble apologies. For some reason I can't remember ever hearing the word "Ukraine" without the "the" in front of it. I assumed it was part of the name (like a number of newspapers).
I suppose coming from Australia predisposed me to accept it without questioning too deeply. We have "the Australian Capital Territory" and "the Northern Territory" - both of which are always accompanied by the "the".
Still, it's a poor excuse. I should have been paying more attention.
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