Independence Day

August 24 is one of the greatest holidays in Ukraine. It is Independence Day. My country is very old. Human settlements on its territory are considered to have existed about 20 thousand years ago. As a country it appeared somewhen in the 5th century B.C. If you look at the world map, you will see that Ukraine lies on the main ancient routs among North, West and East. Besides, its soils are very fertile. They are so good that we have a saying: ”If you plant a stick, it will grow”. For about 15 centuries, so many different countries had wanted to conquer us! Needless to say about wild nomadic tribes during ancient times but later on there were Mongol Kings, Swedes, Poles and many others. So, one of the great leaders of Ukraine, Bogdan Khmelnitsky (who was a Polish hetman (governor) here but loved Ukrainian people and was against such violence) decided to get it joined to Russia that was more powerful that time. He wanted Russia to defend our people from Poles who were very aggressive, ruined our cities, raped our women, tortured our people. Now it is hard to say if his decision was right because 4.5 next centuries Russia considered our country as a rural province and never took care of our people. It only took everything from here and ruined our land. It was Russia that brought slavery and later communism here. Ukraine had never known that before. It was communists who destroyed relicts of the past that were more than 10 centuries old and were part of our culture. During Soviets it was Russia that organized artificial hunger in my country because it didn’t obey Soviet leaders. You can’t imagine how many people died of hunger here when Russians were full! During WWII, it was Ukraine that suffered more than other republics of the Federation. It was our punishment for our spirit of freedom. It is world known fact now.I believe it is quite clear that what I’ve told is history. I can’t say that we still feel hatred to any nation that tried to conquer us in the past. As to me, I like Swedes, respect Germans, worked with Poles.But, to make a long story short, when we got an opportunity to become independent, we used it first of all former Soviet Republics. . There was not any shot or any blood drop here contrary to many other republics. Ukrainians are smart, sly and peaceful. We do have economic problems now but we are happy to be independent! I believe that now we are more respected by the world community than some other former Soviet republics and not only because of our potential but mostly due to our positive intentions and national turn of mind.

We like this holiday and our current president, Victor Yuschekko, is always with us.On this day we usually have military parade but it is just a tradition. We like our military forces and like parades. It is not demonstration of our aggressivenes, it is just to show that "Ukraine is still alive" (first line of our Natiobal Anthem).

Wish us happy holidays!

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Independence Day

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