Well, you can take Ukraine out of Russia (well at least out of the Soviet Union) but it's very apparent that you can't take Russia out of Ukraine!

Russia really began life in present day Ukraine with the establishment of "Kyivan Rus" in the 9th century, a Scandinavian settlement in what is now Kiev - centuries before either Moscow or St Petersburg appeared on the map. By the late 18th century, what is now Ukraine had been invaded, chopped up and divided many times by Mongols, Ottomans, Tartars, Cossacks, Poles, Lithuanians....and the list goes on. Finally, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia in the late 18th century looking to expand her territory to the south, gain access to the Black Sea and confront the Ottoman Empire exerted control over a large portion of Ukraine (calling it "New Russia") and gained most of the rest a short time later from one of the many "partitions of Poland". From that time on until the final break up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine was an integral and important part of either the Russian or Soviet empires, the only exception being 1941-43 when the country was occupied by German and Romanian Nazis. During Soviet times particularly, Ukraine was known as the "bread basket of Europe", but at the very least it was the bread basket of the Soviet Union. Stalin took advantage of this when trying to force collectivization on Ukrainian wheat farmers. In the resulting famine and what many now describe as genocide, historians believe that between 1932-33 as many as five million Ukrainians were deliberately starved.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and Ukraine's resulting independence, hasn't stopped Russia from trying to re-exert some control over the country. In 2014 Russia annexed Crimea which had been part of Ukraine since the early 1950's (a thoughtful and generous "gift" from Nikita Khrushchev!) and then fomented an uprising in the predominantly Russian-speaking Luhansk/Donetsk/Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine, a conflict in which thousands have been killed or injured and continues to this day as yet another Russian-inspired "frozen conflict". None of this has been helped by inept governance and rampant, oligarch-fueled corruption which have been a feature of Ukrainian political life since independence.

While Ukrainian may be the country's official language, Ukraine is essentially bi-lingual as it seems that everybody also speaks Russian particularly in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Indeed in Odessa, it's Russian that's predominantly spoken and our local guide admitted that she could barely even speak Ukrainian!

Language aside, in the cities, towns and villages we visited or passed through there's ample sign of Ukraine's Russian and Soviet past. While there are some newer buildings and some construction, most buildings and dwellings (apartments or houses) are Soviet-era, poorly constructed, crumbling or just plain derelict. There's either no money or no desire to either renovate (with the exception of a few pre-Soviet buildings in Odessa) or demolish - buildings are just left to fall apart and fall down by themselves. We also see many buildings that have been partially built and then just left unfinished to rot.

Undoubtedly a major part of the problem is that rampant corruption that permeates every aspect of life in Ukraine. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ukraine's third largest city, business and commercial hub, Dnipro. The city, which has undergone numerous name changes in its recent history (it was Dnipropetrovsk until quite recently) was "closed" during Soviet times as it was the centre of the aerospace industry and the site of manufacture of nuclear missiles. Our local guide refers to Dnipro as "Ukraine's Manhattan" (that's the banking and financial bit) but also the "Ukrainian Mafia capital". Many of Ukraine's richest oligarchs "live" in Dnipro in so far as they actually "live" in Ukraine as opposed to some off-shore financial haven (Cyprus and London seem to be the favourites). From our brief time there, Dnipro appeared pretty run-down and shabby (our previous stop, Zaporizhzhya seemed somewhat less so - at least its grand main boulevard), the exception being the very imposing Menorah Center.

The Menorah Center opened in 2012 is an enormous 7-towered complex built in the shape of a menorah adjacent to Dnipro's Golden Rose Synagogue. It's claimed to be the largest Jewish cultural and community centre in the world incorporating two hotels, a shopping arcade, kosher restaurants and the Museum of Jewish Heritage and Holocaust in Ukraine. The Center was financed by two Jewish oligarchs - Gennadiy Bogolyubov (a citizen of the UK, Israel & Cyprus as well as Ukraine who gives his residence as Belgravia, London) and Ihor Kolomoyskyi (a citizen of Israel & Cyprus as well as Ukraine), the two considered to be among the wealthiest "Ukrainian" oligarchs. Apparently (and I'm relying on Wikipedia for this interesting tidbit) dual citizenship is now illegal in Ukraine, but Kolomoyskyi circumvents this by saying "The constitution prohibits double citizenship but triple citizenship is not forbidden."

Its dubious associations notwithstanding, the Menorah Center is very imposing and its Museum one of the very best of its type we've visited anywhere in the world. It was actually closed for “technical reasons” the day of our visit, but luckily we bumped into the museum’s director and his deputy who were waiting around at the entrance for an Israeli group. After some back and forth, the Deputy Director, a young historian with a PhD agreed to give us a private tour. (The Israeli group of ultra-orthodox Jews did appear briefly and swept through the museum at breakneck speed, with most talking on their mobile phones...). The extensive and well-laid out Museum spreads over two floors, one devoted to Jewish life in Ukraine before WWII and the other to the Holocaust including the very sensitive subject of Ukrainian involvement and collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. It seems that many Ukrainians welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Soviet oppression....

Despite various restrictions and discrimination, by the early 20th century and in the years leading up to the outbreak of WWII, Ukraine was one of the major centers of Jewish life in Europe. The country’s largest cities including Kiev, Dnipro, Odessa and Lviv (in the western part of the country and unfortunately no opportunity to visit on this trip) as well as many smaller towns and villages, had big Jewish communities taking a prominent role in all aspects of local life. An estimated one third of Ukraine’s urban population was Jewish. Antisemitism was not uncommon - the pogroms in early 20th century Odessa which prompted many Jews to turn to Zionism and emigrate to Palestine are a good example - but at the start of WWII there were an estimated 2.7 million Jews living in Ukraine.

Estimates vary, but in the Menorah Center’s Museum, our excellent guide the Deputy Director, tells us that during WWII around 1.5 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazi occupiers - German & Romanian - deported to extermination camps or murdered by their Ukrainian neighbours. Around 800,000 Jews remained in Ukraine after the war, but under the Soviets and particularly during the Stalin era, antisemitism and discrimination continued. Many emigrated, mostly to Israel and the US and today there are thought to be fewer than 70,000 Jews in Ukraine. Overt discrimination at least is now a thing of the past and Jewish life in Ukraine is undergoing somewhat of a revival as we saw for instance in Odessa. But perhaps the most prominent example in the change of attitudes is the recently elected President of Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian and actor was elected president in May 2019, the first Jewish head of state in a western country other than Israel.