This Week >> 5/15/2008
This week on Let's Travel! meet Johnny Jet, who travels over 150,000 miles and visits over 20 countries each year. He'll be sharing his travel tips with listeners as a regular contributor to the show. Then it's on to Ukraine, the second largest country in Eastern Europe and one of the world's main centers of sugar production. We'll learn about Ukrainian culture, art, food, "hot spots" and take a virtual tour of the Ukrainian Museum in New York City.
To view the official travel website and guide for Ukraine, click here.
Where we'll be exploring
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the east, Belarus to the north, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev (Kyiv) is Ukraine's capital.
The nation's history began with that of the East Slavs. From at least the 9th century, the territory of Ukraine was a center of the medieval East Slavic civilization forming the state of Kievan Rus', which disintegrated in the 12th century. From the 14th century on, the territory of Ukraine was divided among a number of regional powers and by the 19th century the largest part of Ukraine was integrated into the Russian Empire with the rest under Austro-Hungarian control. After a chaotic period of incessant warfare and several attempts at independence (1917–1921) following the Russian Revolution and the Great War, Ukraine emerged in 1922 as one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's territory was enlarged westward shortly before and after the Second World War, and again in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the co-founding members of the United Nations. Ukraine became independent again after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This began a transition period to a market economy, in which Ukraine was stricken with eight straight years of economic decline. But since about the turn of the century, the economy has been experiencing a stable increase, with real GDP growth averaging about seven percent annually.
Ukraine is a unitary state composed of 24 oblasts (provinces), one autonomous republic (Crimea), and two cities with special status: Kiev, its capital, and Sevastopol, which houses the Russian Black Sea Fleet under a leasing agreement. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. At the end of 2004, the country underwent an extensive constitutional reform that has changed the balance of power among the parliament, the prime minister, and the cabinet, as well as their relationship with the president.
Guests
John E. DiScala (a.k.a. Johnny Jet) travels over 150,000 miles and visits over 20 countries each year. He and his website JohnnyJet.com have been featured over 1,000 times in major publications, including USA Today, Time, Fortune and The New York Times, and he has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, FOX News Channel and PBS. JohnnyJet.com has been named "one of the top best money-saving web sites for travel" by Budget Travel Magazine, while the L.A. Times calls it "one of the top 10 essential travel resources on the internet."
In the May 2007 issue of Outside Magazine, Johnny Jet was touted for having one of the world's best "dream jobs". Every week, Johnny hosts a "travel website of the week" for several radio stations around the country, he writes weekly for Frommers.com and he has written for USAToday, The Boston Herald and Coast Magazine. Sign up today for Johnny Jet's free weekly travel newsletter at www.JohnnyJet.com.
Embassy of Ukraine
Born 20 August 1971
Professional career:
February 2006 – Present
Minister-Counselor for Economic and Cultural Affairs, Embassy of Ukraine to the USA
Functions:
- Overviewing trade and economic collaboration between Ukraine and the United States
- Preparing bilateral visits to both capitals on economic, healthcare, humanitarian and regional issues
- Monitoring Ukraine's co-operation with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, OPIC, economic units of the State Department, Department of Commerce, USTR
- Supervising technical assistance projects, including in education
- Hosting cultural events at the Embassy for universities faculties and alumni
- Interacting with the American Ukrainian community
2005-2006
MFA, Chief of Staff of the Minister for Foreign Affairs
Functions:
- Managing the Private Office of the Minister
- Submitting recommendations to the Minister about strategic management of the Ministry, including administrative and financial issues, human resources
- Exercising a coordinating role for foreign policy activities to ensure continuity, integrity and institutional memory
- Providing communication support to the Minister on major international developments
- Preparing specific documents for the Minister as Member of the Government for the sessions of the Cabinet of Ministers
2004-2005
MFA, Senior Advisor, Policy Analysis and Planning Department
Functions:
- Analyzing global and regional patterns and situations where Ukraine's interests are at stake
- Providing policy recommendations to the Minister for respective action plans, including cross-sectoral deployment of resources
- Preparing early warning reports and preventive strategies
- Construing Ukraine's official responses to various global events and developments
- Planning information and promotion strategies
2001-2004
Posted in Strasbourg, at the Ukraine's Permanent Mission to the Council of Europe (CoE), Deputy Chief of Mission
Functions:
- Focusing on democracy, human rights, rule of law and environmental issues
- Employing multilateral diplomacy, fostering compromise decisions in the Committee of Ministers
- Strengthening inter-parliamentary ties between Ukraine and other CoE member states
- Promoting local self-governance through the Congress of Regional and Local Authorities of Europe
- Sharing legal expertise through the activity of the European Court of Human Rights
2000-2001
MFA, Policy Analysis and Planning Department
Functions: See above for the years 2004-2005
1998-2000
MFA, Private Office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
Functions:
- Specializing in visits preparation and analytical writing
- Participating in high level meetings with intensive decision making process
- Traveling with the Minister to over 30 different countries, learning their respective government systems and cultures
1996-1998
Posted in Brussels, at the Embassy of Ukraine to Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, NATO, EU and WEU
Functions:
- Assistant to Ambassador covering six mentioned avenues of cooperation
- Preparing talking points for Ambassador's meetings
- Writing speeches, articles, analytical reports and forecast
- Studying internal structures and procedures of the above international organizations, political and economic systems of the three countries
- Engaging in multilateral diplomacy and networking
- Traveling around BeNeLux to participate in political, economic and cultural forecasting
1995-1996
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Department of Europe an Americas
Functions:
- desk officer for developing Ukraine's relations with the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland (political, military, economic, cultural)
- preparing high level bilateral visits
- hosting joint bilateral events in Kyiv
- networking with the British Embassy and other diplomatic missions in Kyiv
January 1995
Entered the diplomatic service of Ukraine
Education
- 1994 Graduated from Kyiv State University: B.A., MA in Linguistics and World Literature, Interpreter from English, German and Dutch
- 1992-1993 Course of Dutch language, literature and history at the Royal University of Utrecht
Involvement in High Profile Projects
- 2005 Proposing visa-free travel to Ukraine for US and EU citizens as part of Ukraine's new foreign policy package after the Orange revolution
- 2005 Initiating President Yuschenko Plan for the resolution of the Transdnistrian conflict
- 2004 Writing and presenting official Ukraine's proposals to the Third Summit of the Council of Europe reflected in the Final Declaration of the Summit
- 1999 Lobbying Ukraine's non-permanent membership in the UN Security Council
- 1997 Drafting a Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Languages
Native Ukrainian and Russian, fluent in English and Dutch, basic German and French
Art and Culture
222 East 6th Street
New York, NY 10003
Tel: (212) 228-0110
www.ukrainianmuseum.org
The establishment of The Ukrainian Museum is considered by many to be one of the finest achievements of the Ukrainian immigrants in the United States. The Museum was founded in 1976 by the Ukrainian National Women's League of America, Inc. (UNWLA), and its purpose is to preserve, interpret and present the rich cultural heritage of the Ukrainian people. Through exhibitions, scholarly study and documentation, educational programs publications and community related events, the Museum shares the remarkable scope and diversity of the Ukrainian culture with its public.
The Museum functions as an independent entity, governed by a Board of Trustees, members of which are elected from the membership ranks and the UNWLA. A permanent charter from the Education Department of the State University of New York was granted to the Museum in 1993.
The Ukrainian Museum maintains the following collections: folk art, fine arts, and photographic/documentary. Its permanent, changing and traveling exhibitions are developed from these collections and from loans from other museums or private collections. Major exhibitions are accompanied by a bilingual informative, illustrated catalogue. The institution's educational program offers courses and workshops in traditional Ukrainian folk crafts, designed both for adults and children, and includes lectures as well as various cultural events as part of a community outreach program.
Below are some examples of art from the museum itself. Click on any of them to enlarge:
