What is the President Asked for in His Public Reception Offices?

Crowds of people asking for help is a usual sight at the front entrances of the powers that be. These people have various problems, but they mostly need one thing: arrangements for an audience with the right kind of bureaucrats, maybe several lines written on a sheet of paper. In a word, they need help. Their requests are graphic evidence that the government machine is malfunctioning. Mostly these people ask the head of state to allow them to “work in our land” and to stop arbitrary judicial practices. Presidential public reception office statistics show that the head of state has received 31,000 complaints in six months this year, demanding that certain judges be fired forthwith, and only 14,000 social protection requests. Several dozen people waiting their turn in such reception offices for weeks on end can best describe what the Ukrainian in the street expects from the head of state.

“We’re here because of the plot we have. We were allocated 1.5 hectares, without any equipment, so we have no revenues, yet they want us to pay the [land] tax,” says Stepan Tryndiuk, resident of Kherson oblast, father of eight children. His family is with him in front of the president’s public reception office. His youngest daughter Sofiyka is 2 years old. All this family wants is a tax deferral and some material aid. “If only they could help us plant wheat this fall. My relatives call saying the cucumbers are growing in our kitchen garden, but what can I do? They’ll probably whither away.” complains Mr. Tryndiuk.

The Tryndiuks’ visit to the president’s public reception office isn’t the first one. Last winter they spent a month and a half here, from February 10 till March 31. At the time Viktor Yushchenko publicly addressed his State Secretary Oleksandr Zinchenko: “Sashko, these people need help.” The president’s instruction to help such people was also received by the governor of Kherson oblast. “We visited Kherson five times, every time having to travel 150 kilometers,” says Stepan Tryndiuk, “and the head of the regional state administration promised to help us with planting and with free fertilizer.” The family started working and then found ourselves abandoned half of the way.

Worse still, they received a tax return notice to the tune of some 14,000 hryvnias. A mind-boggling sum for a farmer up to his ears in debts. In other words, the president’s help didn’t make this family happy and only worsened the situation. And so Stepan Tryndiuk and his family are in the president’s public reception office again. They’ve been here for a month.

They spend the nights at monasteries or with friendly families. “People treat us with understanding and don’t expect us to pay,” says Stepan, “the more so that we’ve no money left. I ask for a loaf of bread to cut it up and give it to the kids.” Despite all these hardships, the Tryndiuks are determined to fight to the last man, meaning another letter of instructions from the president. They keep writing applications and requests and they know practically everyone on the public reception office staff. “All we want is an opportunity to work our land, and so do all my children,” Stepan feels sure, “we want to rebuild our farmstead. I’ve worked on a number of collective farms and I’ve always proved one of the best. I know carpentry, welding, combine harvesting, I can fix any kind of farming equipment. Why don’t they let us work? We’d benefit the state if we could get back on our feet.” Incidentally, 14 other families from the Tryndiuks’ native town face similar problems.

Victims of unjust court decisions are sitting on mattresses, leaning against the office wall. “The Supreme Court has overruled a court decision granting my complaint. Now I’m faced with problems affecting all people. How can such unlawful decisions be made?” asks Valentyna Savchenko, chief artist of the tent city — which numbers only two tents — by the president’s public reception office. She has painted several dozen posters with wrathful demands and humble requests. She paints a poster for every visitor. One of the posters reads, “My son and I were unlawfully evicted from our only home!” Hanna Dmytrivna says that each should state his problem the way it is: “My son, who is under age, and I have been homeless for three years.” Tamara Yarychenko feels sure that her son didn’t commit the murder for which he was first sentenced to death and then to life imprisonment. She insists that the investigating officer managed to conceal her son’s alibi from the court, because her son was in a hospital, with a brain injury, at the time of the crime. No charges were pressed immediately in the aftermath of the murder, but he was arrested a year later and the investigating officer shelved all evidence indicating the young man’s innocence.

A new event has taken place this week in the lives of those struggling against judicial arbitrariness. On the night of July 12 a man called the central militia switchboard, saying that he had spotted several silver balls when taking a stroll down Shovkovychna St. and found them suspicious. Magnolia-TV.com reads that a Berkut [SWAT] unit was dispatched to the scene and found spots of mercury in front of the president’s public reception office. A bomb squad arrived and the territory was decontaminated. Tent city residents claim that a similar incident took place several days ago when all protesters showed poisoning symptoms, and when the mercury was also removed by an emergency squad.

Despite this persecution, no one is going to vacate the public reception premises. Some of the petitioners are Kyivans who can spend the night at home, others can’t because they are from outside the capital. They wash in one of the rooms at the cabinet of ministers (they can also wash some of the clothes there) and there is a toilet in the reception office. When asked why they prefer to stay here and not in front of the Supreme Court or other agencies, the picketers proudly reply: “Our president is the guarantor of our constitution, meaning that he must protect our constitutional rights.”