Re: "Ukraine belongs with Russia, not the West" in the St. Albert Gazette, Wednesday, April 2 edition (page 26) and "St. Albert Gazette named 'Best in Canada'" (page 5).
I was again wondering why an outstanding community newspaper such as the St. Albert Gazette would pride itself for winning an award for community coverage on one page (page 5) and publish a letter of hatred against Ukrainians by the obvious Ukrainophobe Doris Wrench Eisler on another page (page 26) of the same issue. Why you continue to provide a platform for this lady who has completely bought into Moscow propaganda is totally beyond me.
One only has to access the "Open Letter of Ukrainian Jews to Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin" and see the list of Jewish community leaders, including several prominent rabbis, in Ukraine that authored it to completely discredit anything that Ms. Eisler has to say about Jews in Ukraine.
Ms. Eisler also feels "truly sorry for Ukrainians" and doesn't "know what is in store for them" under the current leadership yet ignores the examples of the Holodomor, where millions of Ukrainians were intentionally starved to death; or Chernobyl, which left the Ukrainian countryside irradiated for thousands of years; among other examples of what being with Russia has brought Ukraine during the last century. Ms. Eisler shows about as little respect for Ukrainians as she does for her dog Bailey, who she left in her car in the parking lot at Hole's Enjoy Centre for an hour and a half in July of 2012, then wrote to this same St. Albert Gazette to complain about how she was subsequently treated by the peace officer and Hole's staff that came to rescue him back then. (see "Letter - Dogs can be kept safe in hot cars" in St. Albert Gazette Wednesday, July 25, 2012 issue).
Doris Wrench Eisler warns about the IMF and "very conditional loan based on austerity, with infrastructure as collateral," yet these are the same conditions that the European Union has brought to neighbouring Poland which has prospered quite well under these same conditions. This more than anything else is the greatest motivating factor driving recent events in Ukraine, whose citizens can only stare across the border at what could be possible if they too join the European Union. Instead, they are stuck in the last century with Russia and what people like Ms. Eisler believe to be the best for them.
Does she really think that "the eastern provinces of Ukraine – everything east of the Dneiper – were given to Ukraine by Lenin in 1919," dismissing centuries of Ukrainian history in that area that preceded that? Does she really think that the traditional Ukrainian Cossack costumes, known as Poltavsky or Zaporozhsky styles, that Ukrainian dancers such as Shumka, Cheremosh and Virsky all traditionally wear didn't originate from these regions prior to 1919? I wouldn't be too disheartened if I were her about Lenin statues being "just recently torn down." The "reclining Lenins" movement in Ukraine has only managed to knock down about 150 of these so far in 2014. There are at least 1,500 of these that still remain intact on Ukrainian territory. Maybe Doris Wrench Eisler would like to have one for her front yard in St. Albert. Then maybe her poor dog Bailey could finally find some shade in July.
Zenon W. Wojnowskyj, Sturgeon County
