A war is raging in East Ukraine and perhaps the saddest paradox of this standoff is that commands for squads shelling Slavyansk are given in Russian, and the militia of Donbass are standing up for the right to teach their children in Russian. Ukraine's Russian world is a much wider geographic notion than just the southeast of Ukraine or Novorossiya. However strongly some may desire to make us forget about it, the Russian speaking population can be found in great numbers anywhere in Ukraine. There are quite a few mixed regions in the country where some people identify as Ukrainians while others think they are Russians. One of these is the Poltava Region, which managed to avoid open conflict. One of the centers of Ukrainian nationalism, this is also the home of Gogol and the land where the legendary Battle of Poltava occurred, where the cities speaking mainly Russian are surrounded by Ukrainian-speaking villages. Head of the Russian community of Poltava Region, Viktor Shestakov, in his interview for the Russkiy Mir portal spoke about the regional dynamics against the background of the civil war and how those who position themselves as part of the Russian world feel in this province.
— Poltava is the heart of Ukraine, the soul of Ukraine and so the world view of the indigenous population is built around their sense of Ukrainian identity. They perceive rather aggressively everything going on now between Russia and Ukraine. The region is unequivocally important for the current regime that pays much attention to it for this reason. A large number of the district heads and the governor represent the Svoboda Party. Udar and Batkivshchina also have a lot of their representative offices here.
Accordingly, all domestic politics will from now on be built around stepping up Ukrainization, stepping up the so-called cultural, education and patriotic work. I wouldn't call this Russophobia because it's hard to cite any vivid examples of aggressive rhetoric as compared with the past (during the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Poltava Battle, as one example). Nevertheless, it can be stated beyond any doubt that the 305th anniversary of this battle will not be celebrated, just as the 205th birthday of Gogol was not celebrated at all. This is already a trend.
— And what's the state of the Russian education in the region?
— This issue has already been settled, because only two Russian schools and four mixed schools are left in the province. Poltava already lacks Russian schools — there are just several Russian classes in a couple of schools. Ukrainian classes keep expanding and, accordingly, Russian classes are simply vanishing. Curiously enough, Russian classes hold on largely thanks to natives of the Caucasus, Central Asia and Arab-mixed families who choose Russian as their educational language. It comes out that the Russian population of the region — about 120,000 people judging by the last census — do not choose Russian at schools for their children. I believe the main problem of Russians in this region is one of national identity. Nevertheless the two biggest cities of the region — Poltava and Kremenchug — are basically Russian-speaking places. Kremenchug is unequivocally a Russian speaking city while Poltava has traditionally been bilingual, but in recent years as the rural population is flocking to the city, Russian is being eroded. And yet it's premature to say that Poltava has fully switched to Ukrainian.
— You are a leader of the Russian community in Poltava Region. How do you build relationship with the authorities, especially in recent years?
— No relationship is being built. Prior to that some relationship still existed, even if not constructive: at least we were invited to some roundtables as well as events related to representatives of national minorities or at the level of public councils, both regional and municipal. In the past four months we've had very few contacts with the current authorities. This primarily involves participation in celebrating May 9th.
On May 9 there were both celebrations and mourning in Poltava, some wearing St. George's ribbons while others trying to tear them off. There were also a few cases of aggressive behavior. While earlier we brought those ribbons and gave them away by the thousands — our lads distributed 3000-4000 of these at bustling crossroads and there were a lot of them on cars — that is no longer the case now.
— What's the reason for this?
— I think they are simply afraid, because other elements of the traditional holiday that cause less irritation and less fear were present — people came and brought flowers, cooked kasha...
— Is V-Day unequivocally perceived in the Poltava Region as a pro-Russian holiday?
— I don't think so. Society has not yet fully recovered from what happened Maidan and what happened afterwards. Also the state of the actual civil war affects the perception of and attitude to many events.
— Do people in Poltava region support Maidan?
— Most of them do. Pro-Russian attitudes are traditionally weak in Poltava Region, notwithstanding such strong brands as Poltava Battle and Gogol. As a matter of fact, the regional authorities do not emphasize them. Perhaps, with the exception of Sevastopol, Kiev and Lvov, no other region possesses such a good launching ground for tourism. Given that the region is mainly agrarian and 90% of its Russia-oriented manufactures have closed, the region might be facing social rather than political unrest.
— Do you expect any changes for your organization in lights of Poroshenko being elected as president?
— No-no, it's absolutely obvious that any authority that wants to stop the activity of some NGO may do this easily. However, our organization works in accordance with the law and our major purpose is popularization of historic events. The only unpleasant thing that may happen is the lack of understanding on the part of regional authorities. On the other hand, we'll be doing what we did in the past anyway.
Interviewed by Boris Serov
