Ukraine’s Society
Society
Ukraine is a beautiful country bordering the Black Sea, between Poland, Romania, and Moldova in the west and Russia in the east. Having a population of over 50 million people, Ukraine is the largest of the former Soviet Republics which gained its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and achieved statehood in 1991.
Nearly every city and town has its centuries-old cathedral, and many have open-air museums of folk architecture, caves stuffed with mummified monks, and exquisite mosaics wherever you look. The food sticks to your ribs and the bandura tunes lodge themselves in your brain for weeks.
Ukraine has its share of the thoroughly modern, but it’s also replete with Gothic, Byzantine and Baroque architecture and art – reminders of its many foreign overlords. There are also dozens of villages with picket fences, duck ponds and overloaded horse carts, where time seems to stand still.
Full country name: Ukraine
Area: 603,700 sq km
Population: 48.05 million
Capital City: Kiev (pop 2.6 million)
People: Ukrainian 73%, Russian 22%, Jewish 1%
Language: Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian
Religion: Ukrainian Orthodox, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox, Ukrainian Catholic, Protestant, Jewish
Government: republic
The 2009 US Human Rights Report on Ukraine states that:
Ukraine, with a population of 46 million, is a multiparty, democratic republic with a parliamentary-presidential system of government. Executive authority is shared by a directly elected president and a unicameral Verkhovna Rada (parliament), which selects a prime minister as head of government. Elections in 2007 for the 450-seat parliament were considered free and fair. A presidential election is scheduled for January 2010. Civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces.Human rights problems included reports of serious police abuse, beatings, and torture of detainees and prisoners; harsh conditions in prisons and detention facilities; arbitrary and lengthy pretrial detention; an inefficient and corrupt judicial system; and incidents of anti-Semitism. Corruption in the government and society was widespread. There was violence and discrimination against women, children, Roma, Crimean Tatars, and persons of non?Slavic appearance. Trafficking in persons continued to be a serious problem, and there were reports of police harassment of the gay community. Workers continued to face limitations to form and join unions, and to bargain collectively.During the year the government established the Office of the Governmental Commissioner for Anticorruption Policy, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General’s Office introduced a new system to improve the recording of hate-motivated crimes.