Stray dogs

Over a year ago, I wrote rather tongue in cheek, about the issue of stray dogs in Ukraine.

This subject raised its head again prior to the Euro 2012 football tournament commencing when authorities made attempts to remove the stray dog issue prior to fans and tourists descending in the hundreds of thousands to be met by packs of strays running around.

If of an Eastern European heritage, tourists and fans alike would not give the matter a second thought.  It is not only an issue for Ukraine but all the former communist nations both east and west of Ukraine.

There is a neutering programme in some cities, Odessa for instance, but it simply cannot keep up with the reproductive numbers of the strays.  Not only is the neutering programme expensive, it also faces the task of thousands of dogs to neuter, and once neutered, the dogs are released back onto the streets, (identidfied by a red collar as being neutered in Odessa), thus not providing any form of immediate remedy to the issue of today.

In fact given the scale of the issue when the neutering programme started and multiply that by the reproduction of so many dogs not yet neutered, it is easy to see a somewhat King Canute scenario of trying to turn back the tide, in so much as the time it takes to neuter a dog, a lot more have been born somewhere in the region.

Recognising that, Odessa then started a Stalin-esque deportation programme of strays.  They are rounded up in ad hoc purges and taken out into the middle of nowhere and released.  Naturally that is not necessarily the answer either.  If there is no food where they are released they will roam until they find it.  The food trail and good-willed people who feed the strays scraps on a daily basis, naturally leads back to the cities.

Other cities, and this did get media and civil society attention in the prelude to the EURO 2012 tournament, went on a culling spree.  At least until the animal rights and more humane minded citizens found out and caused this solution to stop.

Needless to say, Ukrainian authorities were vilified by such people despite the fact they too have no answers to the immediate problem.  Aside from culling these animals, of course, there is no immediate solution, all other options are long term or hit and miss.  As I say, very much an attempt to turn back the tide that is destined to fail due to the sheer scale of the ever reproducing problem.

In Sofia, Bulgaria, which has a very similar problem (and it is not alone in the former communist nations now within the EU), society has recognised the fact that the authorities simply cannot cope and have taken matters into their own hands.

Yes indeed, the citizens of Izgrev and Istok regions in Sofia have now taken to simply poisoning the dogs in the streets of Sofia, and one presumes, leaving the authorities with the easier task of simply disposing of the carcasses.

If the Ukrainian authorities or Ukrainian public did that, the European media would be writing graphic stories of how un-European Ukraine and Ukrainians are.

Prostitution and Euro2012

Elsewhere in cyberspace, in the Ukrainian and Russian forums to be exact, a debate is running relating to prostitution and the Euro2012 football tournament to be held here in about 3 months time.

The debate is along the lines of prostitution remaining illegal and thus those traveling foreign fans, some of whom hail from nations where prostitution is legal, regulated and taxed by the State,  falling foul of the local police when indulging in carnal pleasures, or whether it should be legalised for the duration of the tournament in the hosting cities (or at least not pursued by the police for the duration of the tournament) or whether it should be legalised (or decriminalised)  anyway.

Should Ukraine follow the German (and others) route with regulation and tax, or should it keep its own domestic laws as they are?

Should the authorities turn a discrete blind eye during the tournament, particularly in regard to foreign fans and avoid unnecessarily arresting foreigners and the diplomatic issues related to persons detained?

All very tricky when good arguments can be made for all 3 options.  As it happens this is more of a philosophical debate than a real policy debate as there is little noise coming from the RADA relating to the issue at all.  Thus the law is unlikely to change.  That does not mean, of course, the blind eye policy will not be quietly encouraged.

Fortunately I live in a city that is not hosting the tournament so these issues will not affect Odessa unless the law does change.  One suspects that it is only a matter of time before somebody in the EU thinks it is a good idea to recognise prostitution as a profession and regulate and tax it similar to Germany across the entire EU block, but that is something for the future one suspects.

For me, the core issue is not one of prostitution being legal or otherwise.  It will happen regardless.  It is the question of choice of those involved in such activities.  There are some involved, male and female, who do this through absolute free choice.  There are others forced and coerced into it.  The latter to me is completely and utterly unacceptable.  The former as far as I am concerned is fair enough.

There are of course social issues when it comes to known red light districts for those residents who live there and are not involved in such activities but that is a regulatory and enforcement issue which some nations cope with quite well and others fail miserably at.

Now I have to make a full disclosure and say I don’t know any prostitutes who work the streets of Odessa.  I do know a Madame and several escorts who work for her but on no account work the streets or the bars and clubs.  I suppose at $100 per hour to visit a local hotel by appointment, there is no requirement to work for less or to have to hunt out men in bars and clubs at lesser fees and with the overheads of club entry.

To be honest it is not a conversation I have ever had with any of the ladies involved and I should point out rather robustly that as a married man whose wife also knows the Madam and the same escorts I do, then I have never met them in their professional capacity.  In fact the only reason I know them is via my wife and she knows the Madam from her school days.

It is difficult to say the escorts involved are doing it against their will.  They work only 3 or 4 days a week and also work unaccompanied across Europe for several days at a time via the services offered by this business and earning a very respectable Euro 1500 – 2000 per day.

It seems to me to be very different from those poor men and women who are forced into such a profession against their will, which is where my objections I have to such a business lay.

An interesting and quite passionate debate nonetheless on the local forums, with debaters of both sexes on all sides of the discussion.

One wonders how the Ukrainian authorities will deal with this issue when it rears its head in a few months time.

English FA moaning about hotel prices for fans in Ukraine

Well here is an interesting dilemma.  The English FA and UEFA are moaning about hotel prices for English football fans in Kyiv and Donetsk and asking the Government of Ukraine to do something about it.

What does it have to do with the Government of Ukraine?  Does it have the ability to tell an international hotel chain like Ibis what it can and cannot charge, unless we are advocating it overtly and directly interfere with an international investor and that FDI in Ukraine.

Is it not the argument that FDI is scared away from Ukraine by governmental interference?

The same can be said for the private entrepreneurs being interfered with, whether it is their spare rooms, privately owned hotels or hostels.

Should the Ukrainian government interfere in the free market very publicly for an international tournament or shouldn’t it?

When prices rocket in London for the Olympics, will the UK Government step in regarding private businesses?  Definitely not.

If the Ukrainian government does step in, all those who say FDI is a bad idea in Ukraine because the government interferes will be wandering around saying “told you so” as will all those who claims it stifles free market economy.

What power does the Government of Ukraine have to tell Ibis or any other hotel, B&B, hostel etc (that it doesn’t own) what to charge without making a very public faux pas via interference in the free market when the free market is once again going to have its attention briefly focused on Ukraine?

The tournament is still 3 months away. Prices may come down or demand may yet go up, or both, simply through the natural forces of the market.

If the English FA wanted more English fans to come to Ukraine, maybe they should have based the English team in Ukraine rather than Poland?

Are the English FA not forgetting there is a major tournament being held in the UK at the same time and many England fans may well prefer to go to the Olympics rather than spend thousands watching England get dumped out of the tournament before even qualifying for the knockout stages?

Let the markets do what markets do and allow supply and demand to attempt to come to a balance – but do not ask the Government of Ukraine to interfere, for if they do, somewhere in the “Business Section” of the Telegraph, the Ukrainian government will be lambasted for doing exactly what the FA are asking for.

Leave it alone.  Not every issue in society requires a government to do something.  Governments already interfere in far too much because they feel they need to be seen to do something!

Euro2012 Countdown – Will Ukraine be ready?

Well dear readers in exactly 1 year from today, this will be the eve of the biggest multinational event in Ukraine’s history since independence.

The first games will take place on 8th June 2012, albeit Ukraine has an additional day of preparation as the first games here do not take place until 9th June.

I have to admit, when it was awarded I was pleased for Ukraine to have won the bid with Poland but had serious misgivings about tis ability to host the tournament. Anyone following the media will not it was not only me. FIFA also had major concerns.

Corruption abound of course. The new Lviv stadium was a major source of financial pilfering under the Tymoshenko government, not to mention marred by delays to the point that FIFA threatened to move the tournament.

Lviv now though, after several changes in contractor and no doubt a seriously interested government, is on track and looking fairly good.

A change of government and announcement that the Kyiv stadium had been seriously under estimated when it came to financial costs by the previous one, of course brought allegations from the now opposition parties that the new government was also with its hand in the till and somewhere in the mix would be stealing the additional funds.

None of this is pretty, but Ukrainian politics runs on half-truths, false and genuine allegations and personal conflicts over and above policy and common sense. During all of this, the FIFA clock is ticking and a new president and government stand to be very red faced if the tournament is withdrawn because Ukraine is not ready. Not to mention the ammunition for the opposition who successfully landed the joint bid with Poland but will not get any international plaudits or bouquets should the event be a success.

So, with exactly 367 days to go (at the date of this post) before the first whistle blows in Ukraine, how are things now?

Well, there will be some logistical problems as there are with every tournament. I have experienced some myself in nations that started with a far better infrastructure that Ukraine. That said, the stadiums will be ready on time without doubt. The internal logistics and infrastructure within the four hosting cities will cope and the planning looks good.

Accommodation for hundreds of thousands of traveling fans is more of a concern, although even that looks like it will be sufficient before kick-off.

40,000 police will apparently learn English. That is much harder to believe. I suspect that amongst that number will be any officer in Ukraine with average English being temporarily assigned to to hosting cities for the tournament in addition to any that manage to grasp the basics between now and this time next year.

What about the stewards and hospitals? I have no idea. Whilst English is not rare, it is not exactly common either.

The official and unofficial gathering of translators has begun in order to take the strain it seems.

So will it be a success? Generally I think it will. I expect Ukraine to surprise the critics and I am not alone in these beliefs. Almost all of the diplomatic corps I have spoken to in Ukraine also seem to think that not only will Ukraine be ready but that it will be a success as well.

Undoubtedly there will be incidents. There are at every major tournament be it the Olympics or the World Cup. The issue with such incidents is not that they occur but how they are dealt with. It seems the diplomatic corps, Europol and every man and his dog is prepared to bend over backwards to help Ukraine host a major success.

All of a sudden, it is starting to look rather promising!