Svitlana Ostash, Press Secretary of the UWCC * * * At the end of the last year we observed the 120th anniversary of the resettlement of Ukrainians to the Far East. This and our desire to get closer acquainted with the Ukrainian diaspora made an occasion for one more travel of the Ukrainian World Coordination Council (UWCC). We went via the island of Sakhalin, Khabarovsk and Primorsk Krai to Kamchatka Peninsula. The delegation was headed by UWCC chairman Mykhailo Horyn. This anniversary, certainly, is a relative event (the Ukrainian diaspora began forming here in the mid-19th century); it is connected with a concrete event-seeing out two steamships with over 1,500 of resettlers in Odesa in March, 1883. During following years-mainly at public expense-dozens of thousands of Ukrainians attracted by free allotments went to the Far East via Constantinople, Singapore and Nagasaki. 275 acres were allotted per family; any body could buy more for a song. The first resettlers using the privileges of the tsarist government for the new land developers came from the Left-Bank Ukraine (Chernihiv Province, Poltava Province); in due course they were joined by people from Yekaterinoslav and Kherson Provinces etc. The Ukrainians founded settlements with the habitual стр. 87 names of Pereyaslavka, Higher Monomakh, Chernihivka, Rokytne etc. which exist up to now. On the eve of the WWI Ukrainians there were more Ukrainians, than Russians. According to the last official census, there are more than 500,000 settlers from Ukraine in the Far East now. Informal figure is much higher. According to the Ostrova News Agency, Ukrainians and Chinese, occupying the fourth and the third place on the minorities list, migrate to the RF in quantities of 100,000 annually. The majority is granted civic rights there. "Are we different?" Such was the official answer at many meetings when we asked about the possibility to open Ukrainian classes or the right of national minority to receive the inform ... Читать далее