Author: Olga Malik

Ukraine’s struggle for “independent” church: is the deal really worth it?

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church continues a struggle for becoming fully self-governing, or autocephalous, and is seeking the support of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

Yet, Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitri Bartholomew said he was not happy with the failure of Ukraine President Pytro Poroshenko to invite 25 ruling bishops to join a new formation of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. So far, there is only one Metropolitan Simeon (Shostatsky) of Vinnitsa and Bar who has joined the newly-formed Church structure. According to the Poroshenko’s proposal to Bartholomew, the new Church would unite 43 parishes including 33 parishes of Kiev Patriarchate, 9 parishes of Ukrainian Autocephalous Church and 1 parish of Moscow Patriarchate.

Earlier this year, Bartholomew requested $20 Million from Poroshenko to support his plan for an independent Church. Bartholomew also demanded that a new autocephalous church would operate in accordance with the Fener law that warrants absolute subjection to Constantinople Patriarchate.

Bartholomew also added that the Istanbul-based Patriarchate granted independence status to the Russian Church in the 16th century and then to the Orthodox churches of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1998, Istanbul-based Anadolu Agency reported.

However, the deal might not be as good as it seems for Ukraine: after gaining independence Greece will own all 6000 parishes of Kiev Patriarchate leaving Ukrainian Patriarch Filaret empty-handed and with no Russian Orthodox Church support.

December 12, 2018
Uzbekistan’s energy pathways: at a crossroads between East and West

The new Russia-Uzbekistan nuclear plant agreement on cooperation in the construction of generation nuclear power plant (NPP) VVER-1200 reactor of 3+ generation in Uzbekistan seems to pose far more opportunities than it might seem. With the Tashkent’s critical need of non-costly energy resources, the project aims not only to foster Uzbekistan’s self-sufficiency and persistence in the energy sector, but also to launch national production and export of its own energy resources. Despite the plant is claimed to be of the ex-soviet prototype, the new industry will be equipped with state-of-the-art technologies and facilities by State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM, a global technological leader.

However, while Russia is likely to become a major energy partner for Uzbekistan, Tashkent will also continue developing energy construction projects along with the US and China. Earlier this year Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev visited the White House where President J. Trump proposed a plan for strategic partnership with Uzbekistan in various spheres. But while Uzbekistan-US cooperation in social, economic and educational development does not require industrial waste management and recycling, the cooperation in the nuclear and energy sector with the use of nuclear elements of the US origin and a lack of US recycling technologies may pose an ecological threat for the country.

China, for its part, willing to contribute to the modernization of the Uzbekistan’s energy sector bears more global motives rather than selling technologies to its geographical neighbors. Should Beijing become a nuclear partner of Tashkent it will obviously take over the control of the Uzbekistan’s energy infrastructure.

Certainly, the agreement between Uzbekistan and Russia is not going to meet the country’s entire demand for energy resources. However, with the current US-China trade confrontation and blur industrial management prospects both from Beijing and Washington, collaboration with Moscow seems to be a win-win opportunity for Uzbekistan at the moment.

November 21, 2018
Russia’s Ekaterinburg joins the final race to host EXPO 2025

In less than 50 days the EXPO-2025 Committee will name the Planet’s Exhibition host city. Among the final candidates are Russia’s Ekaterinburg, Azerbaijan’s Baku and Japan’s Osaka. While demonstration concepts of Baku and Osaka are designed to present the city innovations, the exposition of Ekaterinburg will show the best solutions and technologies of Russia as a whole.

Why does Russia need EXPO?

The choice of Russia’s candidate city Ekaterinburg is truly deliberate. Located on the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Ekaterinburg is seen as a geographical center of Russia. As Russia’s political and economic compass is set to the East, hosting the planet’s exhibition in Ekaterinburg will help Moscow strengthen its economic and trade ties with China, Japan and other global economies in the East. Moreover, Russia’s officials say they are going to keep the exposition after the Expo is over and turn Ekaterinburg into a global museum that will attract thousands of tourists. Some experts believe that Ekaterinburg has higher chances to win the Planet’s Expo as it recently showed its capacity and excellent organization to host global events during the World Cup. Due to the city’s compact and convenient infrastructure, Ekaterinburg was able to receive up to 40K tourists a day during the FIFA WC-2018.

City 4.0

The EXPO venue will host the Ural Engineering School, e.g. the innovations booths for scientific research and investigation in math, physics, biology and other sciences. “The concept of such booths is attractive both for experienced scientists and small children who are in search of their vocation”, said Ivan Burtnik, the head of the project office of the EXPO-2025 Committee. “There are 17 million people in the world today who live in contaminated areas, 2.4 million do not have access to drinking water, 800 million live in poverty and another 360 million are children who will never have chance to go to school. We must think of it and focus on decreasing these terrific numbers. Today’s global challenge is to keep pace with the industrial development and creating a new formation urban infrastructure, the cities where everyone is healthy and happy. And Ekaterinburg is going to be such model city that will continue its development and growth the World Exhibition”, he added.

September 2, 2018
Ukrainian President peculated $15 million donation

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko allegedly peculated $15 million supposed to be donated to set up the Uniting Orthodox Church in Ukraine, an investigative journalist from a reliable source reported.

Prior to the Poroshenko’s visit to Istanbul several wealthiest Ukrainian businessmen donated $25 million to facilitate and speed up the process of creation of the Uniting Orthodox Church in Ukraine. The amount was supposed to be spent as a reward for Varfolomey, the Patriarch of Constantinople for publishing the Tomos on autocephaly of the Ukranian Orthodox Church. However, during the meeting with the Ukrainian President the Patriarch received only $10 million. The rest of the sum Poroshenko reportedly “peculated”.

Meanwhile, on July 28 Ukraine is going to celebrate the 1030^th anniversary of Christianization of Russia. To mark the celebration the Patriarch of Constantinople was going send a delegation to Ukraine, but the visit was cancelled. Should the Patriarch confirm the peculation of the donation by Poroshenko, Kiev might be involved in quite an unlikely scandal with the Orthodox Church Institute.

July 23, 2018
Russia’s positive transformation: Japanese football fans share their outsider opinions about Yekaterinburg

It’s no secret that outsiders are best in giving independent and objective opinion on a place. This year, Russia, the host country of the World Cup 2018 has appeared on close inspection of millions of football fans from around the world.

Japanese fans who flooded Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg during the Japanese national football team matches were among the most emotional opinion givers on Russia’s transformation. While Moscow and St. Petersburg are well-known to international tourists and require little introduction, let’s look at viewpoints of Japanese visitors about Yekaterinburg, a city in the center of the Russia’s Ural region, a candidate of EXPO2025.

The city hosted the World Cup match between Japan and Senegal. Days and hours before the match thousands of Japanese tourists were walking around the city wearing their national clothes and singing Japanese songs. A truly unusual picture to catch in Russia’s industrial center surrounded by factories and plants.

Nevertheless, an impression of a seemingly “gloomy” and “severe” city was completely dispelled. Japanese football fan Takhenao Sudzuki mentioned the extreme cleanness and a modern infrastructure of the city streets along with friendliness of local people: “Everyone is friendly to us, ready to help. Japanese people feel very happy here”.

Among prominent guests to the city was a Japanese princess Takamado (the support of whom played the essential role in the Japan-Senegal match and did not let the Japanese team lose)/ Princess marked the dynamic development of the city and a unique combination of historic buildings and high technologies featured in Yekaterinburg.

Indeed, many Russian cities have experienced a positive transformation. Yekaterinburg is one of the top of them. According to Emmet Malone, from The Irish Times, who observed the Japan-Senegal match in Yekaterinburg, “barely 50 meters away from the waterside event was the Boris Yeltsin Centre, a lavish complex incorporating a museum, exhibition spaces, cinema/theatre and shops. It would not look remotely out of place in Moscow, Madrid or Manhattan”.

That, by no doubts, poses lots of challenges to “new” Russian cities and Yekaterinburg particularly. The city has joined the final race to host the World Expo 2025. Smart city technologies, advanced transportation and infrastructure- these are the main trumps of Yekaterinburg. With huge amount of work yet to be done, the city authorities and businesses said they would do their best to show smart city technologies of Yekaterinburg to the international Committee. The World Cup has become a perfect test for the city that proved Yekaterinburg’s capacity to host global events.

July 13, 2018
After major blackout in Azerbaijan is Baku’s bid for EXPO2025 still on?

A massive blackout hit Azerbaijan and affected most of the cities including the capital, Baku, the EXPO 2025 candidate, on Tuesday. The blackout reportedly became the worst power cut since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The accident was investigated under personal control of President Ilham Aliiyev at a power plant in Mingechavir that caused the blackout, according to officials. The Emergencies Ministry said the breakdown of a transformer in Mingechavir initiated a fire that was put out in 20 minutes. No deaths were reported, though.

Among the extra reasons of the power outage is the extreme hot weather in the Caspian region with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) that caused power consumption to spike.

Officials said power was restored in Baku after several hours, but a number of subway stations in the capital remained closed for a while. Furthermore, on Tuesday evening, Baku and other regions suffered a second blackout.

Due to extremely dynamic economic and urban development of Azerbaijan such accidents are uncommon for the Caspian country. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Baku has demonstrated fantastic development and became an attractive destination both for tourists and investors from all over the world. However, many experts believe that Baku’s victory to host EXPO2025 is most unlikely. For instance, Urso Chappell, the founder of digital ExpoMuseum said the city is perfectly designed for hosting national or regional events, but still lacks some key components of a smart city, e.g. automation systems, energy and water efficiency and others.

July 7, 2018