Hromadske Radio
Hello and welcome to this week’s Ukraine Calling programme. I’m Oksana Smerechuk for Hromadske Radio in Kyiv. We’ll have a roundup of the weekly news for you, some culture, and some music. We’re bringing you a feature interview with Roman Shwed, veteran radio host from Philadelphia and Kyiv. But first, as always, the news.
Feature Interview: Roman Shwed talks to Bohdan Nahaylo about Music, Radio, Displacement, Return, and Listening
NEWS
CULTURE and MUSIC
LOOKING FORWARD
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Nahaylo: My guest on this week’s Ukraine Calling in-depth interview is quite a celebrity here in Kyiv – Roman Shwed, a veteran broadcaster, very well known to those interested in music, culture and generally in the socio-cultural scene in Kyiv. Roman just finished many years of broadcasting. He had his own program each Monday. He will tell us about this later. Welcome to the program.
Shwed: Hello to everybody.
Nahaylo: Romane, tell us where are you from originally. Judging from the accent, you are somewhere from the West.
Shwed: I was born in Lviv in 1940 – I am one of these older guys – and I left in 1944. I came back to Ukraine, not to Lviv, but to Kyiv in 1994, 50 years later. So I was outside of Ukraine for all that time, and for the last 23 years I have lived in Ukraine, in Kyiv.
Nahaylo: You were one of the first diaspora people, from the post-war generation that ended up in the US, Britain, Australia, etc., who actually came back once independence was declared.
Shwed: I do not think anybody, certainly not me, expected Ukraine to ever be free and the Soviet Union to crumble during my life time. For me it is like a bonus.
Nahaylo: But you grew up like all of us [from the diaspora] – I am a bit younger – we all grew up in diaspora communities: you in Philadelphia, as I understand, and I am British.
Shwed: I was very busy there. Just to be clear about that. I went through the displaced person camps. I was a DP [Displaced Person]
Nahaylo: In Germany?
Shwed: Yes. I was first in Austria in Saltzburg. Actually before that I was in Vienna, which was Russian occupied. The big worry was that they would repatriate me as a little kid with my mom because I was born during the Soviet perod in Lviv, which was “liberated” in 1941 by the Soviet troops.
Nahaylo: 1939 to 1941.
Shwed: Anyway, I came back to Ukraine only because I think there was a need, more than anything else. I just had to do this. So I came back.
Nahaylo: The spiritual-cultural thing?
Shwed: Yes, very much so. I always worked in the Ukrainian community. Anybody in Philadelphia and even in Florida they all know me as Roman Shwed. There was a joke because my middle initial is Joseph – Osyp in Ukrainian – and I would sign Roman O. Shwed and people would ask me “ What’s an O for?” It’s very simple. Every time they would say “What’s your name?”, I would say Roman Shwed. And they would say “Oh!” So, I put an O in the middle, it makes more sense.
Nahaylo: There is a large presence of Ukrainians in the community in Philadelphia? Some famous people ended up there and emerged from there.
Shwed: Absolutely. There were artists there. In the first place, the whole community was very strong. In Philadelphia, at the time just before I was leaving, there were 11 parishes, which is a lot of people when you think about 200-300 people per parish. That is only the city itself, and then you have the environs which we call the Delaware Valley. There were about 700,000 people there at one time.
Nahaylo: 700,000? In the city?
Shwed: No. The city had three million people. In Philadelphia we had maybe 70-80,000 Ukrainians.
Nahaylo: Now tell us about your interest in music. As I recall we discussed that in Philadelphia you had young poets and musicians like the now-forgotten Ihor Shankowsky, whom you knew.
Shwed: Well I knew him. Of course he was much older… well, much older when you’re 20 and someone is 28-30. That’s much younger, you kind of accept that. But yes he was a good singer and he was very popular. I remember the tragic thing that happened to him when he had a big car crash and his girlfriend, who he loved very much, passed away unfortunately. A lot of things were going on that were really, really interesting. One of the things that was going on was a fellow named Volodymyr Shesharovsky, who was an artist from the Lviv Theatre. He had a group and of course he made me join — well he didn’t make me join but I sort of wound up in it. I even remember being an MC at the age 15 on the stage in Philadelphia where we were collecting money for the people who suffered a big earthquake in Serbia in Banja Luka. And so I’ve always worked for the community I’ve never seen myself outside of it. I was a plastun [Ukrainian scout]. I was always in scouts.
Nahaylo: Orest Subtelny, the historian, was from Philadelphia, wasn’t he?
Shwed: He was. There was a joke that he went with me to Mystetska Studia and we always used to do all kinds of pranks…we were just kids aged 12 -11. They made a verse about us: “О що це за галас пекельний? Це тільки Швед і Субтельний.” So there was even a joke about it.
Nahaylo: “What a noise, what a fuss, its only Shwed and Subtenly.”
Shwed: Well that’s the funny part of it. I even got to work with Shesherovsky as a co-producer in a way, of course he was running the whole show. I had to translate a lot to the youth because we had Teatral’na Studia dlia molodi.
Nahaylo: A theatrical studio for the youth.
Shwed: Yes, and because of that we did a lot of work together. I’ve always had a vent for doing that, a bent I should say.
Nahaylo: But your own professional background? You were what? An architect?
Shwed: I’m an architect! I believe in logically building things from the bottom up; I don’t start with the roof I start with the basement.
Nahaylo: So you were rebuilding cultural memory.
Shwed: Yes. So when I came here I thought there would be some use for me. Apparently it took a very long time. I finally met a fellow through Ihor Stratiy who was a radio guy and who passed away unfortunately, a very talented boy. Ihor introduced me to a fellow who was running Tretiy Kanal –the Third Channel, Kultura—and his name was Leontiy Datsenko. And we were just chatting and I said to him, “You know one of the things that’s really missing is Ukrainians don’t understand the diaspora and the diaspora doesn’t understand Ukrainians because nothing is ever said about them.” All they know is that some aunt came to the village, she took pictures at the cemetery, at the church, a little bit of the family. She leave their suitcases and leaves after two weeks.
Nahaylo: But the Soviet policy was really to enforce that idea of we/they. We here are the true Ukrainians and they, the bourgeois nationalists.
Shwed: Absolutely. So I said to him, “You really should have a radio program that talks about these things.” We do a lot of things in the diaspora and nobody knows that we do these. So he said to me, “Fine, you’ve got a program!” I said, ‘What are you talking about?!’ and he said I have a program.
Nahaylo: Which year was this?
Shwed: This was 2004. He said to me, “You have an hour once a week. What day would you like to have a program?” I realized he was not kidding. I’m thinking to myself: how am I going to do this?! I only had what they called plativky- the big, long albums, LPs. So I went and I got them transferred and I started my program with [a song by] Kvitka Cisyk. And I could do that because Kvitka’s older sister was a bridesmaid at my first wedding, and Kvitka Cisyk was, I think, 15 or 17 at the time of the wedding, which was in 1968, and she actually was at the wedding.
Nahaylo: Wow! I’m sure most of our listeners know by now Kvitka Cisyk is a singer from New York, yes?
Shwed: New York, yes.
Nahaylo: Who became famous professionally as a signer for Ford.
Shwed: She was the voice of Ford, she was amazing!
Nahaylo: But spent a lot of her own private money to record two albums of Ukrainian songs in her own very original style.
Shwed: Extremely beautiful. The arrangements were great. Her sister played on the piano. Her first husband was the sound engineer. He second husband—the latest husband—I forget what he was, a producer or something.
Nahaylo: And her dad was a famous violinist in the 1930s.
Shwed: I knew him and his wife! I’ve always touched shoulders with people who are famous. I’m the only guy who is just Roman Shwed.
Nahaylo: But you’re famous here Roman, that’s why we’re talking!
Shwed: I’m not really famous.
Nahaylo: So tell us, because we have a lot to cover still: what was your aim? You wanted to build a bridge between the diaspora and Ukrainians in Ukraine, but what was the message that you really wanted to convey?
Shwed: Well, I made a decision right from the start. I said to myself that one of the things when you have talk-radio—and I was going to have live air and I had people calling in — is that you don’t want to get into religion. And the second is politics, unless you want your listeners to argue amongst themselves, and that’s stupid as it really would serve no purpose. So my idea was: let me do a nice, positive show… something to show them that we in the diaspora are proud of you, we are happy you are free now. I came here with the attitude, which is not really and attitude but an idea, that I didn’t come here to teach anything to anybody, I came here to share and learn from others. And so basically it worked out for me because people very quickly understood that I’m not going to be calling any names of any minorities, religious or otherwise. I’m not going to get into politics, I don’t want to hear about it, and I don’t want to get into it. Forget it! I’m going to talk positive. And tell them [the listeners]: Did you know there’s a group called The Romantics in Detroit and their lead singer’s name is Wally Palmer and let me play a song for you. It’s a real rock-and-roll, raunchy, punk rock song. And I said do you realize that Wally Palmer’s real name is Volodymyr Palamarchuk and he went to Ukrainian school and everything else. And so this is what I was doing with them. The bass player and second voice—actually the founder of the band—is a Ukrainian named Rick Danko from Canada. So I tried to give them a pride in us being the diaspora because I felt that they needed to feel that, ‘Hey, we are known! Our Ukrainian boys and girls are doing something out there!’ And so then when I found a Ukrainian girl playing a bandura and singing in Japanese from Tokyo, I really floored them! She was even a guest on my program.
Nahaylo: You had a feature I think on Melanie, Melania Savka. A very famous singer in the 1960s.
Shwed: Yes.I knew her husband and her sister in law Kateryna went to school with me. They were Hutsuls. And it was really kind of interesting because Petro wanted to be a rock and roll singer.
Nahaylo: The husband?
Shwed: Yes, Petro Schekeryk. He had those booths – an we are talking about 1950s- that they could record in. Like a telephone booth except it was a recording booth. He went to work at it and apparently he became a very good producer.
Nahaylo: Yes I heard that! Now your program ran…
Shwed: 13 years! 13 years and 3 months.
Nahaylo: Tell us some of the highlights and most memorable moments.
Shwed: Well there’s a group in America, in San Francisco, called Titka. It’s a Slavic word which means nose gay, like a bunch of flowers you can sniff and not smell other people’s bad odors. I had them all in the studio here [in central Kyiv] and you can imagine all these perfumes and they actually sang live for me and there wasn’t one Ukrainian among them except the girl who brought them over who was their translator. So that was very interesting!
Nahaylo: Let me quickly remind our listeners I’m talking to Roman Shwed: a veteran broadcaster who came to Ukraine in the 1990s from Philadelphia—having been born originally in Ukraine—and ran a radio program for 13 years and is telling us about his experiences. So also what I noticed about your programs — and thank you for having me on your show when I first arrived here a few years ago — is that you manage to build a very strong bridge with the young generation of musicians in this country. You’re very popular among the most progressive and popular amongst the youth. Which for somebody of your “young” age is no easy achievement.
Shwed: No it’s not easy, I realize that.
Nahaylo: What’s the secret?
Shwed: Well the secret is that you’ve got to listen to their product. You have to really understand where they are coming from. I liked VV and I liked Mandry. I liked all of them actually, not everything they do obviously. I pick songs that I like, but I would play their songs. And then I got to meet Serhiy Fomenko – Foma- and I said, “How would you like to be on my show?” He was a young kid then and so he had his woolen cap on his head, it was cold and it was winter. I bought him soup at Kupidon, the restaurant that’s around here. And so I had him on the air and I had a great time with him! And he enjoyed it and anytime I asked him he would come in and find time to come and see me. Another fellow, and I really floored him because he could never imagine what songs I would pick to play of his, was Oleh Skrypka. He laughing during the program because it was not anything that he was used to! I said to him, well this is just a regular program. And lets face it, the name of the program is Roman Has a Kind of Nice Party. And it’s Roman, not Joe-Schmo, it’s Roman. It’s radio and I’m a radio personality and I pick people and I talk to them about things that I like. But that was my downfall that’s why I’m not on the radio anymore.
Nahaylo: Too personalized?
Shwed: I guess. No, I don’t think it was because too personalized. I don’t think that the leadership really understands what personality radio is. They know about…
Nahaylo: Leadership of which radio? Who was the program for?
Shwed: The original National Radio Company of Ukraine was who I worked for. When they sold the whole thing, I think in 1915, there was voting by the Verkhovna Rada that came up with this new thing—
Nahaylo: Not 1915 then?
Shwed: I’m sorry, 2015. I’m in 1915 right now.
Nahaylo: So in 2015–
Shwed: Yeah, when started this Suspil’ne movlennia, which suggested it was going to be—
Nahaylo: Public radio.
Shwed: Public radio, but it’s not public radio because the government still pays for it, so really there is no public radio. And so the thing is, these people had a different format and they decided that personality radio was not what they wanted everybody to be talking to people about what people want to know. They didn’t know what people want to know, people liked my program. I gave them what they wanted to know from me. They wanted me to change and I don’t know how to change, I don’t want to change, I like to talk to people—
Nahaylo: Anyway, you became an institution here and I can vouch for the fact that you have many fans and we do miss your program. But after your program on Mondays, it was your tradition to go to the nearby restaurant, Kupidon, and you would have your corner there and—
Shwed: I had my table.
Nahaylo: You had your table and you would, in a sense, ‘hold court’ and some of your fans would come up to you and—
Shwed: They would come up and some weren’t even fans of the radio, they would maybe listen on a computer later on in the archives, but really, it was just, I think I became kind of a – Ukrainians say – mascotka.
Nahaylo: A mascot.
Swed: Yeah, basically.
Nahaylo: As we said at the beginning, somebody of your generation who came from the diaspora and managed to integrate themselves so fully and to be a voice of not only the past, but of the present – it is quite an achievement.
Swed: I thank you for the kind words. It wasn’t easy, I try to say that it’s easy, but it’s not easy. It took me all week to think about how I was going to do my program. I never wrote anything down, there was never a script. The program was always in my head, basically. But I tried to bring to their attention, like when Canadians were celebrating their 125th anniversary and their 150th anniversary, I made a special program about it hoping that some Canadians would call me. One time I did get a long-distance call. I found out later on that it is very difficult to call in at that hour, my program was on at, what they call, 18:00 hours which is 6 p.m.
Nahaylo: Kyiv time.
Shwed: Kyiv time, and a lot of business was being done, the truck lines were terribly overloaded. And this was kind of a poor operation, whatever money they made, I guess they just put in their pockets, they didn’t really invest in anything.
Nahaylo: One of the things I notice, and I’m a fellow radio broadcaster because I was working for Radio Liberty in Munich where we had fairly sophisticated equipment, is that the technical side here seems barely to have changed in the past 20-25 years.
Shwed: It has.
Nahaylo: I was here the first time in the Soviet period in 1990 in this building of the radio headquarters and it looks very much the same. I don’t see the investments in technology and you know, cutting edge stuff or whatever.
Shwed: They bought computers that don’t have enough memory – a lot of people complained — those who had pre-recorded programs, it was a problem because you would record your thing, put it on a computer, and somebody else would do their thing, and try to put it on the computer and poof that one is left out.
Nahaylo: Okay, Roman, we have to start concluding now – let’s put your thinking cap on – and the changes you have seen in the past twenty five years: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let’s start with the good, the positive things.
Shwed: Well, the good is that there are changes going on. Sometimes it’s very difficult to see because if you’re here on a daily basis and don’t leave and come back, it’s hard to tell. Now that I had a chance to do that because, as you know I had a stroke, and I was in the States for a while recuperating and etcetera. So, when I came back, you can really see some changes, some good changes are that many more people can buy a car, the bad things are that nobody is doing anything about how people should drive or should park, etc., etc. Let’s put it this way, it’s not enough to have a constitution, you have to have the laws that support the constitution and kind of give it a basis. You can’t have a police force and…
Nahaylo: An independent judiciary as well.
Shwed: You can’t have a police force and not have laws that they can enforce and have protection – people laugh at them, not all people, but some people – and it’s a shame, it’s not fair because maybe they’re young people and they’re trying to do a good job and nobody is giving them a break. And of course, there’s immediate filming of things with your telephone is a boom but it also is a crutch and some people use it to kind of belittle other people and it’s not right either. What I found positive, at least on my program anyway, the people that called in kind of supported my idea of being positive about Ukraine, because Ukraine has gone through terrible times, just in the last 72 years of communism were enough to make everybody sick. So we’re doing fine. I was hoping that more good things would happen in the past 26 years, but they haven’t.
Nahaylo: Basically, change has been disappointingly slow?
Shwed: Someone said, it’s the corruption. Well, you know, in all countries that go through a total change from hunger to three inches of butter on bread, people change and greed kicks in. A very famous country which everybody uses as a famous example now. For the first 35 years of its independence they were the most corrupt country at that time. Everybody was giving them money because of the terrible things the Nazis did to these people. When that happened, it was tempting, and it was easy to line your pockets, not for everybody, but for some. Only 26 years. We’re teenagers as a country. Not even teenagers, maybe in the 6-7th Grade. It’s going to take a while. I feel positive about Ukraine and I do not know why. If I had a radio program right now, I would say “stop looking – my grandma used to say – don’t look for holes in the sky”. Не шукай дірку в небі. We have a big problem. We’re being attacked from the East. We lost Crimea. And you think how to get somebody else out of the office and come in and start stealing on your own. You have to be kind of judicious in what you do. Maybe he [President Poroshenko] did not sell his chocolate factory, but look at all things he did. There has to be a balance. You can’t cut your nose, despite your face. And that is what they are doing. I find it a shame. They should not do that. But they are doing it a little less.
Nahaylo: You are encouraged, it seems, by the younger generation.
Shwed: I am. I will give you a good example, there is a restaurant chain, I won’t say which one. When I went to them two years ago, they did not have a Ukrainian menu. They are a big chain and they are doing all this fancy stuff like fancy burgers. I did not go to them for a year and then I was gone with my stroke. Then I came back. Since I go walking at this particular mall, I go there for lunch all the time. I don’t speak Russian. They assume that every Ukrainian knows how to speak Ukrainian and Russian, because this was the USSR language policy. I speak to everyone in Ukrainian and I find these young Ukrainian people smile. I explain to them that if you speak to me in Russian, you have to speak very slowly because I do not really understand it that well. But if you speak in Ukrainian, then I would understand without a problem and they would talk to me in Ukrainian. Not only that. When I walked in the restaurant, they would say “dobryj den’” and no more “zdraste”. It’s interesting how you approach this thing. It’s very important to support young people, to encourage them, to explain to them that is not enough to say we had swords and horses and we beat the Turks and Tatars. That’s all very nice, but it’s today and we have to make it work.
Nahaylo: Right. Romane, thank you very much. I’ve been speaking to Roman Schwed, a man originally from L’viv, who spent his youth in Philadelphia, and came back to Ukraine at —
Schwed: At 54 years old.
Nahaylo: Yes, I was going to say, at a mature age. He ran, among other things, a radio program here for 13 years, but also was a great figure in fundraising and charity. We did not even mention the Rotary Club. Romane, thanks so much, and thank you for your contribution over the years.
Shwed: Thank you for having me. Goodbye, y’all. I hope you enjoyed the program.
NEWS
Meeting of Special Representatives
It’s been an active week for negotiations on the war situation in Eastern Ukraine. On November the 13th, the two special envoys, Special US Representative Kurt Volker and Russian Envoy Vladislav Surkov met in Belgrade to discuss efforts to end the war in the Donbas region. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the conclusion was that both countries have different concepts on how to make peace. Both sides agreed to “reflect on the discussions and to think about further ways to address this challenge”.
One issue raised was potentially deploying international peacekeeping forces in the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that are occupied by Russia-backed separatists. After the meeting, Envoy Surkov said that the US side had presented 29 paragraphs commenting on the Russian proposals for peacekeepers. The Russian side had found only 3 of them acceptable. The Russian proposal, presented in September, had been to deploy Russian peacekeepers along the front line separating Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatist forces. Ukraine and Western countries criticized this plan because it would cement Russian control over separatist-held territory.
Release of POWs
Discussions have once again been opened on the possible exchange of hostages and POWs with Russia. Russian President Putin called the leaders of the self-proclaimed DNR and LNR groups in the Donbas to talk about the exchange of prisoners between the separatist territories and Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Humanitarian Envoy to the peace talks in Minsk, Iryna Gerashchenko, commented that Ukraine is ready to take part in a prisoner swap, as long as the Russian side does not demand prisoners who are outside of the framework of Minsk, for example Berkut, special forces officers who were charged with crimes during the Maidan. Heraschenko had noted that 157 Ukrainian citizens remain prisoners of the Russian backed militants in occupied Donbas. She also commented that it was time to unblock prisoner release within the Minsk process, as it was quite a while, 14 months, since the last exchange of prisoners.
Bomb threats in airports
The past week saw a wave of bomb hoaxes that disrupted public transport and forced the temporary evacuation of numbers of people. On Friday the 10th November, police received bomb hoax calls that led to the closing of nine airports across Ukraine. Two very busy Metro stations in central Kyiv had to temporarily close as well due to bomb hoaxes. After thorough searches of the airports and the metro stations by police, no explosive devices were found.
Officials from the Security Services of Ukraine have established, that many of these hoax calls, seemingly from Ukrainian numbers, were actually originating from Russia or from the occupied territories in Donbas or from Crimea. In these cases sophisticated technologies were used to disguise long-distance calls as local. The SBU in their statement, said that 28 hoax calls of this type had been recorded in the past week. They noted that this was yet another part of hybrid warfare with the goal of increasing social tensions in Ukraine.
The War
Despite the number of artillery attacks on the frontline being reduced over the last week, Ukrainian military officials say that the situation remains tense. Pro-Russian forces have reportedly been trying to engage in prolonged confrontations with Ukrainian military units. As a result, 6 Ukrainian servicemen were wounded.
In addition, some civilian casualties in the anti-terrorist operation zone have been reported. In particular, on November 12, a resident of Donetsk was found dead, in Mariinka, Donetsk region. According to investigators, the victim was killed by a trip wire. And on the 13th of November, the ATO press service reported that a woman was wounded by a land mine explosion. OSCE monitors say that the civilian casualty rate has exceeded 400 persons since the beginning of the year.
December 25th now a Statutory holiday
This week the Verkhovna Rada voted to make December 25th a Statutory holiday. Ukraine will still keep its two days off on January 7th and 8th to celebrate Christmas according to the Orthodox Christian calendar, but a holiday on the 25th of December is seen as being in deference to those celebrating according to the Western Christian calendar. It is seen as bringing Ukraine more in sync with holidays and working days in Europe and other Western countries. Ukrainians will still have the same number of statutory days off, since the Labour Day holiday on the 1st and 2nd of May, which used to be an important holiday in the Soviet calendar, has now been shortened from two days to one.
Chess champion for the rights of Women
A Ukrainian chess master is boycotting a world championship in Saudi Arabia because of restrictions on women’s rights there. Anna Muzychuk, who is Ukraine’s double reigning world class champion, will not travel to compete in the rapid and blitz chess championship, despite a record amount of prize money being offered. Muzychuk is currently ranked second in the world in rapid chess and third in blitz. She is protesting the state of human rights and women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.
CULTURE
The Telnyuk sisters have iconic status on Ukraine’s music scene. Lesya and Halya, who actually are sisters, began writing music at age 13, and performing together in 1986. They won awards at the first independent Ukrainian music festival Chervona Ruta in 1989, and many more after that. Now have a new show. It’s called, ‘Шлях до Свободи,’ which means ‘The Path to Freedom.’ It’s a combination of their music, and a book ‘Chronicles of Eyewitnesses: Nine Months of Ukraine’s Resistance.’ These are eyewitness accounts of events in Ukraine from November 2013 through the summer of 2014. That’s from the beginning of the Euromaidan protests through the early months of the war Russia began against Ukraine. The show is touring Ukraine. Last Wednesday they performed in in Kyiv, and on Saturday the 18th, at Kharkiv’s Regional Philharmonic Organ Hall. Watch for other stops on the tour.
And for those of you who like to explore new restaurants, you might want to check out Shade Burger in Poltava, in central Ukraine. It won the 2017 Restaurant and Design Award! We’ll post a link to an article about this which just appeared in Business Ukraine on our website, where you can see photos:
MUSIC
Yura Samovilov was born in a suburb of Donets’k. In the summer of 2014, when war came to his home town he left, and now lives in Kyiv. He speaks Russian but creates music in Ukrainian. Recently Yura released a new mini-album, ‘Mаленька Квітка,’ A Little Flower. My favourite track is called ‘Чому Пінгвіни Живуть Зимою Без Своїх Фантазій,’ which means ‘Why Do Penguins Live without Their Imaginations in Winter?’ Yura wrote the lyrics and music, performs the vocals and guitar. The trumpet part is played by Oleksandr Shymans’kyi. Enjoy!
LOOKING FORWARD
Next week Marta Dyczok bring you an interview with Serhiy Kvit, and we’ll be back with even more news, culture and music, so tune in again for a new edition of Ukraine Calling. We would be happy to receive any feedback from you. You can write to us at: ukrainecalling@hromadskeradio.org. This is Oksana Smerechuk in Kyiv. Thanks so much for listening.
Interview transcribed by, Caroline Gawlik, Larysa Iarovernko and Nykole King. News by Oksana Smerechuk. War by Max Sviezhentsev. Culture and Music by Marta Dyczok. Music by Sound engineer Andriy Izdryk. Web support Kyrylo Loukerenko. E-mail distribution by Ilona Sviezhentseva.