Those planning a visit to Kiev in the near future should pack extra clothing as the temperature of their hotel room may possibly match that outside. On Tuesday Russian energy giant Gazprom said it will cut gas supplies to Ukraine if it fails to pay $1 billion it owes for supplies. Things could get a little chilly.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Economy has published a report revealing that 39 percent of the country’s economy is operating in the black market. In 2007 it is estimated that a staggering 227 billion dollars of economic activity will be declared and hence not subject to taxation. The report reveals that unrecorded payments of salaries in cash are widespread in businesses of all sizes.
The EU has relaxed visa regulations for Ukrainians, allowing students, children and senior citizens to obtain visas free of charge. The Ukraine dropped visa requirements for European Union citizens in 2005.
Kiev has been ranked the 28th most expensive city in the world for expatriate workers according to a survey released by Mercer, the consulting arm of Marsh & McLennan. Last year the Ukrainian capital was ranked 21st in its Worldwide Cost of Living Survey. Moscow retained its place as the most expensive city in the world.
Ukrainians will celebrate the end of World War II, ‘The Great Patriotic War’, on Wednesday May 9. As is traditional on this public holiday, veterans will march down Khreschatyk watched by thousands of onlookers. Ukraine saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war, with over 7 million Ukrainians losing their lives.
Kiev’s mayor Leonid Chernivitsky has banned the sale of alcohol in city centre shops for the rest of this month. The move comes as a result of drunken behaviour that is occurring in and around the current political demonstrations in the city.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that there are currently no plans on the horizon for the integration of Ukraine into the European Union. She made the statement at a press conference following a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in Berlin yesterday. Yanukovych acknowledged that Ukraine has a long way to go to meet the standards of the EU. Talks between the two focused on a new cooperation agreement between the Ukraine and the EU and the possibility of a free trade agreement.
The State Statistics Committee of Ukraine has announced that the population of Ukraine at the beginning of 2007 was 46,646,000. Of these 33,777,000 lived in urban areas and 14,869,000 in the countryside. The population of Kiev was 2,718,000.
European Union officials visited Kiev yesterday for talks on the possibility of Ukraine joining the bloc. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Portugal’s European Affairs Minister Manuel Lobo Antunes met with President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Yushchenko sees membership of the EU as vital for the country’s future while Yanukovych prefers closer ties with Moscow.
Mobile phone operator Kyivstar has launched a new service that allows its customers to see if any of their friends are nearby. The Friend Finder service informs users of their friend’s location by SMS and displays the results on a map. Friends must be within 500 metres and must have given permission, by a text message, to allow them to be traced. The service is initially available in Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Odessa, Kharkiv, Lviv and Zaporizhya.