Normally Supreme Court, Constitution, President, and National Security wouldn’t make you think of an Eastern European country, especially one like Ukraine that has long associations with Russian Communism. But Ukraine’s new independent government is just that. Even though Russia and Ukraine have been in a relationship since the 18th century.

It was 1918 that Ukraine originally declared independence, becoming known as the Soviet Republic. This was a short-lived freedom. Ukraine found itself returned to Russian rule. Ukraine accomplished complete sovereignty on August 24, 1991 under the leadership of President Leonid Kravchuk. Most credit, however, goes to the collapse of the Soviet Union. This began the slow reformation to a Ukraine Republic.

Republic governments hardly ever come as a smooth transition. 1998 brought a financial crisis, and President Leonid Kuchma was forced to retire in 2004 due to violent protests against his government corruption and murder accusations. So naturally his place would have to be filed after holding an election. Ukraine gives you about fifteen political parties to choose from, such as: the Republican, Ukraine People’s Party, Social Democratic, The Communist Party of Ukraine, Progressive Socialist, and It’s Time! Party.

Dirty campaign tactics found a new meaning in Ukraine’s historic election. Viktor Yanukovich, candidate of Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defense Party, almost ended his political career permanently by being hospitalized for dioxin poisoning. Accusations circulated of fraudulent runoff election set protesters into the famous Orange Revolution. Yanukovichs opponent from the Party of Regions, Viktor Yushchenko and his supporters flooded cities like Kiev in Tushchenko’s campaign color, orange.

This protest sparked an election rerun and much needed reformation. Many campaign issues during this time lead to reformation of the countries election laws. Campaign survivor, President Viktor Yushchenko was elected in 2005 with Viktor Yanukovich as Prime Minister. Although accused of favoritism, Yushchenko has committed to eliminating corruption with the Ukraine government and business world.

Over one hundred years in the making, the country’s transitions both politically and historically greatly effect the citizens of Ukraine, who can shed quite a perspective of the effects this has had on their society. Katalin Kovachs,while a native to Ukraine’s western neighbor, Hungary, moved in 1997 to many different areas of Ukraine. Coming from outside the country and the situation, Kati brought a fresh view of the impact Ukraine’s changing world has had on the people.

When Kati lived in Kiev, she visited the historic site of the Orthodox Church, on the riverbank. A smaller version of Mother Russia stands there, a statue of a woman holding a sword in the air, which has been nicknamed by locals as The Found Mother or even Big Mama.Russia placed this here as a gift, and hoped it to have similar significance at America’s Statue of Liberty. Most people, however, do not see it that way. Kati said in her own words that the Ukrainians hate it because it was built by Communists, and it has desecrated their church there.

Ukraine is still saturated with Russian influence. Kati was surprised to find she speak mostly Russian in all of Ukraine. Only in the North Eastern Region do they speak Ukrainian. That splits the languages in Ukraine between their native Ukrainian and Russian.The Black Sea spans the southern shores. Amongst this scenic view, you can see the largest fleet of the Russian Navy floating in the midst. I wouldn’t recommend swimming to far out from the shore.

This political reformation has created with the Ukrainian people a distrust in all their government officials. Kati was able to interact with a lot of locals, and they all felt they had undoubtedly been mistreated. In Kati’s words, They felt tricked because of their belief in communism. Life after communism was promised to be better, but again they were tricked. Money was gone, jobs were gone, and all opportunity for a better life also seemed to be gone, so their hope was gone too.

The last thing this population ridden with despair needed was an economic crisis. Even if you had a job, times were hard. Unfortunately, Kati also experienced this first hand. She told us that many people worked hard every day without any payment until the very end of the year, and even then all they got was a sack of potatoes.

The people have turned to each other for support and salvation by growing their own gardens and even raising their own animals, like cows for trading amongst each other as a source of food. Kati spent much time in many different homes of these people and was overwhelmed by their attitude of hopelessness. All the people she saw and met were completely burnt out.

Ukraine’s future rests on building hope to a people in a country that has seen too many failed governments, flags, and unkept promises. Independence has always come at a costly price. Since they have only enjoyed their freedom for 16 years, maybe only time will heal this nation into a whole country with leaders of vision to seek for a better Ukraine.

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