“Let the world know who we are!”

Some Ukrainian tourists, who had recently come back from Greece, said that Ukrainians accounted for a third of the occupants of the hotel they stayed in. So, our compatriots were surprised why there was no Ukrainian flag among the others that flew on flagstaffs next to the building. One more thing: why could they not find at least one Ukrainian channel on the hotel room’s satellite television, although it was very easy to tune in to the odious channel Russia 24? The proprietors failed to give an adequate answer to our tourists. Nor were they exactly rushing to hang out the Ukrainian flag – they just said it was not available.

This (not so infrequent) story prompted us to launch a public campaign named after a line in a poem of the outstanding Ukrainian initiative Pavlo Tychyna: “Let the world know who we are!”

Indeed, the Ukrainians are now in the making as a political nation. No wonder, citizens of our state are showing a highly increased self-identity and a desire to feel that they are part of a successful and important entity.

This desire transforms in the aspiration of self-identification, above all, outside Ukraine, where we are sometimes mistaken for Russians. This has been happening more seldom in the last while, but it still occurs: in some places they refuse to raise the Ukrainian national flag next to the other foreign banners when a Ukrainian group is checking in at the hotel, in other places they stubbornly refuse to include Ukrainian channels into the satellite TV menu, sometimes holders of blue-cover passports with a golden trident are entered in the guest book as Russians by nationality, and it is also a problem to find a Ukrainian-speaking guide. But what could be explained away with various excuses just a few years ago looks inadmissible today.

Incidentally, the Ukrainian national newspaper Den, which comes out in Ukrainian, Russia, and English, is perhaps the only piece of national print media that has been constantly publishing articles on the history and self-identification of Ukrainians for many years on end.

The public campaign launched by the magazine Ukrainsky turyzm and the Charitable Foundation in Support of the Newspaper Den’s Initiatives envisages a series of various informational, debate-related, and image-building events, such as holding press conferences and roundtables, manufacturing and awarding Ukrainian memorabilia for travel companies and hotels, holding online conferences and skype-bridges, etc.

One of these events – a roundtable for MPs and representatives of tourist companies, hotel chains, public organizations and movements – took place in Kyiv the other day. Our initiative has already aroused the interest of travel companies which have offered to spread Ukrainian symbols – Ukraine flags of various sizes, stickups, badges, informational products in the Ukrainian language, etc. – among their foreign partners abroad and tourists. Our campaign has already been supported by such tourist companies as News Travel, IdrisKa, Suputnyk Ukraina, Adria Hit, TPG, Feieria, and Aquavita Tour.

And this is only the beginning.

We invite all energetic people to join this noble patriotic initiative so that the world can really see a peaceful harmony of Ukrainian colors.

Yurii Samoilov is editor-in-chief of the magazine Ukrainsky turyzm