According to Razumkov Center’s sociological study, 55% of grown up Ukrainians have never been abroad, 16.3% go abroad less often than once in 10 years, 11.6% of the population visit other countries once in 6-9 years, 8.6% travel once in 2-5 years, and only 8.7% go abroad once a year or more often. Today, when the doors of the European Union are finaly open, Ukrainians do not need visas to enter the countries of the so-called Shengen zone.

In a few days now, 40 million Ukrainians with biometric passports will be permitted to enter 30 states in the Schengen zone for 90 days for tourism or business. After many months of ongoing discussions and negotiations, the decision has eventually been made and will come into force on June 11, 2017.  The map below shows Ukraine in red, and the visa free territories in bright green, as well as the light-green territories where visa is issued upon arrival, and the grey territories are the countries which require a visa to be issued prior to the arrival into the country. Well, the good news is:

 THE WORLD IS BECOMING GREENER FOR UKRAINIANS!

Our local press is full of articles about what to expect on a visit to Europe and how one should prepare for the trip. This fuss causes me mixed emotions, though. I am happy for the Ukrainians, of course. At the same time, this decision was preceeded with such a long period of procrastinating that it no longer excites anyone.

Still, I believe that every Ukrainian citizen – especially the young ones – MUST visit as many countries as it is possible, because-

THE ONES WHO TRAVEL A LOT CAN UNDERSTAND THEIR OWN COUNTRY BETTER 

The more Ukrainians travel, the sooner they can make their life better. Today, thousands of people still scold their country and always grumble: “Everything is bad, it just can not be worse!” I am sure these are the voices of those who have never traveled abroad.

If more people travel and finally see the world with their own eyes, this will open their eyes, I a, sure. There are so many things one can do in this country, and there are really many things which are really very good here. One simply needs to have a wider look on things to be able to see this. Today, Ukraine is becoming the country of opportunity for many. I hope that Ukrainians will soon show this to the rest of the world.

last weekend, I happened to encounter a very unusual experience: I lost the sense of time for a while. I remember going to Facebook to check whether my recent post had caused any attention of my subscribers. It had, so I dropped a couple of replies to their comments and decided to scroll down the timeline a little to see what my reareds had posted since I visited the site (which was just a few hours before). So I started brushing through one post after another and… when I raised my eyes from the page, the clock in the corner of my laptop screen was showing a  time three hours later than I could expect! Previously, I only had such moments a few times, if I was lucky to find an exciting novel, a real page turner, so I would plunge into it and read it till the very last page.

The problem with Facebook, however, is the fact that you can’t come to an end of it, unless you logout by decision of your willpower or delete your account at all. Then I thought, What if my addiction becomes so strong that I won’t have the power of character to step away from the account? I have been wondering, how many people out there are spending a working-day worth of time with Facebook daily? And I gasped in realization: really many, and I even know such people, because every time I log in to my account (which I do a few times a day), I can always see a little sign under their profile photo: “10 new posts” or “8 new posts”.

Well, I need to do something about it, and I know: shifting to Twitter is not an option! 😉 I decided to start monitoring my own Facebook activity, and I have been doing it since the last weekend. Here is my “statistics”: I have three FB accounts and I visit each of them at least 3-4 times a day. I think that I am doing this for my self-marketing, but the truth is: they are not helping me a lot, the efficiency is quite low. Every time I log in to an account, I first of all take a look at my new likes, comments and messages and take care of them. Then, I scroll down the timeline for new information, and If I happen to find something interesting, I grow excited and keep scrolling for more posts and articles.

Interestingly, brushing through Facebook posts is not like doing the same thing on Wikipedia, for example. In Wikipedia, I always search for information, trying to satisfy my informational humger. On Facebook, I scroll down to satisfy my emotional hunger: I look for pictures and cute videos in the first place; I want to see nice stuff; I prefer short texts and excessive illustrations; my eyes desire pleasurable excitement.

I think I will continue making notes about my addiction. Thankfully, so far, I can fight it (at least, I believe that I can!) Let us see what other conclusions this little experiment is going to bring, and for now, here are a few notes I have made about the signs of FB-addiction. You are welcome to check, whether you have them. So far, I have caught myself on the following-

• Using Facebook during hours every day, an ongoing desire to return and check what’s new with my friends;
• Growing excited every time when I see that someone liked my post or sent me a message;
• Tendency to keep scrolling down FB posts to exhaustion, with little to no recollection of what I saw, learned, “liked,” read, or even how much time I spent;
• Pulling up the app during every spare moment, any time I am not required to be in direct contact with other people);
• A frequently reoccuring feeling of emotional tiredness, almost exhaustion;
• A sense of having no “free time”, when I tend to complain to myself about being too busy all the time;
• Decreasing interest for other creative activities and hobbies, which I used to love in the recent past;
• A feeling that my posts may be important to somebody, so they have to be interesting
• Tendency to treat my Facebook friends as seriously as I do with my real life friends, a growing feeling of “responsibility” for being there with them.

Today, in the world of Internet, television and incredible variety of communication tools and technologies, we may easily deal with hundreds – even thousands – of people daily. Some people talk to us in the office, others meet us at home and in the streets, some share the news with us, and many – really many – look at us from screens set up everywhere, to share information, advertisement or advice. Still, with all this enormously intense daily communication, many of us still have difficulties identifying whether we are being told the truth or not. Let us look at the signs which surely give out a liar.

Liars are the people who often say one thing and mean another. If you suspect someone of lying to you, keep a close eye on what they are doing with their body language.

More often than not, a lying person will look troubled about something. Liars look as if they are in hurry, and when you start asking questions, they may start getting defensive. If you catch a liar on the fact that some things about their story simply don’t add up, they will grow irritated and change the subject abruptly. At some point during the dialog, they may start rambling – even an experienced liar does this once in a while. Here is one more quite noticeable sign: while telling you lies, such people prefer to keep physical distance from you.

There are a few interesting observations about the liars’ typical body language. The most glaring are these:

• Liars change their head position when you ask them a direct question (this will happen right before they respond to your question);

• Their breathing changes and their shoulders may raise a little bit as they speak; the voice may also raise a little;
• Quite often, a lying person begins to fidget nervously, but according to some scientists, you should also watch out for people who are not moving at all. If you observe a rigid stance devoid of movement, it is often a huge warning sign that something is not right.
• When liars lie, they tend to repeat words or phrases.
• Trying to sound plausible, a liar will often tend to share too much information with lots of excess details.
• As a self-protection instinct, liars may touch or cover their mouths while speaking; they may also instinctively cover vulnerable body parts – the throat, chest, head, or abdomen. You may also catch them on shuffling their feet while speaking.

• There may be long moments when a liar will stare at you without blinking. Commonly, when we are not experts at lying, we tend to break eye contact, but an “expert” liar could choose to maintain eye contact in attempt to control and manipulate you.

• Also, it is a known fact that while lying, people tend to point a lot. A liar, who has become hostile or defensive, will certainly attempt to turn the tables on you, because they are angry that you’ve discovered their lies, and then they will try to be very convincing, which may result in a lot of pointing.

I hope these little tips will help you avoid unpleasant situations in the future and you will quickly identify a liar at the very beginning of the conversation.

This year Good Friday falls on April 14 and Easter Monday is on April 17. Since very old times, the Easter week is a holy time for every Slavic nation. Numerous traditions, customs, rules, omens, signs and superstitions have developed through centuries in connection with Easter festivities. As this is the time of very changeable, early-spring weather, lots of beliefs and popular superstitions are connected with observations of weather on the Easter week. Here are some of them, which have been observed through centuries by the Slavic peoples.

In order to make really good and tasty Easter cakes (called “пасхи” [pAshi]), it was advised that all family behaved quietly. No one was allowed to speak loudly in the house while the women were busy baking.

When the pashi and easter effs were cooked and decorated, they were taken to the church and “holified” there. After the ritual, the master of every house had to quickly carry the easter cake(s) to his home. The tradition was based on the belief that the family that reaches their home first after the church service, will get a better harvest that year and will be the first to finish their work on the fields.

A few other traditions were also strictly observed and followed-

1. To keep the family life peaceful and happy, the whole family had to begin their holiday Easter meal together. All members of the family were expected to take their places around the table and everyone has to eat a piece of the “holified” Easter cake in the first place.
2. Young women believed that, if they hit their elbow against a wall or a door that day, they would soon meet their fiancé and get married.
3. If the Easter day was rainly, it was expected that the whole spring and the early summer would be rainly, too.
4. If the day was sunny, it meant that the harvest would be good that year.
5. The one who was the first to see the sunrise on the Easter morning was supposed to be happy all the year round.
6. The elderly people brushed their hair on this day and counted the hairs that remained on the comb: that was supposed to be the number of grand-children which they would have.
7. Young couples would kiss under a strong tree on the Easter day to make sure their relationship would be happy.