www.ukrweekly.com INSIDE: • U.S. and Ukraine sign joint action plan to spur trade — page 2. • Vancouver seminar touts Ukraine as new market — page 8. • Feature on tennis star Greg Rusedski — page 11. THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY Published by the Ukrainian National Association Inc., a fraternal non-profit association Vol. LXIII No. 32 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, AUGUST 6, 1995 75 cents/$2 in Ukraine FCC rejects three petitions brought Ukraine bans use of hard currency by Ukrainian Americans against CBS as prelude to introduction of hryvnia by Roman Woronowycz gathering of facts, but not allowed in FCC by Khristina Lew brushed aside suggestions that prices of proceedings until a petition is set for a Kyyiv Press Bureau goods formerly sold for hard currency JERSEY CITY, N.J. — The FCC has hearing. "Of course I am disappointed," will rise, explaining that banks charge a rejected all three of the petitions filed by she said, "because their decision states that KYYIV - The National Bank of Ukraine commission of only .5 to 1 percent for various Ukrainian Americans against CBS we did not provide extrinsic evidence. It banned the use of hard currency as a form each currency exchange transaction. for its airing of "The Ugly Face of was David fighting Goliath." of payment in retail shops and restaurants The National Bank of Ukraine had Freedom on its "60 Minutes program. The Mr. Belendiuk said that, without an throughout the country on August 1. attempted to ban the use of hard currency latest to hear the agency's unsympathetic open hearing, how the news show segment The NBU has instructed commercial earlier, in February of this year. Until July voice is Alexander Serafyn of Troy, Mich., was put together would never be known. banks and those businesses formerly licens­ 31, Ukraine and Georgia were the only for­ whose petition to block CBS a transfer of ed to trade in hard currency to turn over all "CBS has consistently refused to supply mer republics of the Soviet Union to accept license in the Detroit viewing area was available foreign currency to the central any evidence, any documents that would U.S. dollars as payment. denied on July 17. show it was a fair and accurate broadcast. bank. Commercial banks are no longer The final decision regarding another We would like them to show us the allowed to accept hard currency for deposit. Effect on hard currency stores petition, filed by Oleh Nikolyszyn of Businesses retain the right to have hard experts that said 'kike' is a fair and accu­ Goods sold in former hard currency Providence, R.L, against CBS to block rate translation of *zhyd\ They haven't currency accounts to clear settlements. The assignment of a license from WPRI-TV in NBU guarantees mat hard currency deposit­ stores will still be priced in U.S. dollars, put out a single word of explanation," said but payment for them will be rendered In Providence to CBS, hinged on the out­ Mr. Belendiuk. ed in personal accounts will be preserved. come of the Detroit petition and also was Only "duty-free shops, hotels servicing karbovantsi. Mr. Kyreyev said the bank "If CBS told the truth, we should give will open additional currency exchange denied. CBS had been given conditional them a chance to show their evidence," foreign tourists, restaurants located in cus­ assignment of the license while the FCC toms territories, travel agencies servicing offices to supplement the 8,000 already he went on. "If it is a fair and accurate functioning in Ukraine. deliberated the Serafyn petition. statement we will back off." foreign tourists located in international Some of Kyyiv's hard currency stores The two petitions had accused CBS pri­ Attorneys for the two petitioners said ports [of entry], and transport companies have set up their own currency exchange marily of news distortion and failure to they will proceed with separate appeals engaged in international passenger carriage booths, converting dollars to karbovantsi meet public interest obligations by not serv­ to the United States Circuit Court of in zones bordering Ukraine, as well as in a at their own rate. Since early 1995, the ing the needs of the Ukrainian American Appeals in Washington. Mr. Belendiuk number of other instances" are exempt Ukrainian karbovanets has remained community. filed an appeal on behalf of Mr. Serafyn from the hard currency ban, read a press steady against the U.S. dollar, exchang­ The FCC decision said it has long ruled on July 28. Ms. Pochoday said she would release from the National Bank of Ukraine. ing at approximately 150,000 kbv to $1. that "it will not attempt to judge the accura­ file soon for Mr. Nikolyszyn. Oleksander Kyreyev, deputy chairman cy of broadcast news reports to determine The third party with grievances against of the NBU's board of directors, defended The Mekos store, a popular former whether a reporter should have included CBS because of the "60 Minutes" piece is the NBU's ban on foreign currency as an hard currency supermarket on Karl Marx additional facts." It also emphasized that the Ukrainian Congress Committee of important step in ensuring stability on the Street, exchanges karbovantsi for dollars the petitioners, Messrs. Nikolyszyn and America, which had filed a personal attack eve of Ukraine's monetary reform. On at a rate of 165,000 kbv to $ 1. Serafyn, had to show that the news distor­ complaint with the FCC on November 10, July 26, President Leonid Kuchma had Clerks at the Levi's store in downtown tion they allude to arose from the actions of 1994, that was subsequently denied, as was announced that Ukraine's currency, the Kyyiv sat behind their cash registers on CBS in preparing the segment and not from an application for review filed five months hryvnia, will be introduced in October. August 1 armed with calculators. The the contents of the broadcast itself. It ruled later and rejected on July 10. By banning the use of hard currency in Levi's store will exchange their customers that "Serafyn's broad-based speculation The FCC stated in its original decision Ukraine, the karbovanets will become dollars for karbovantsi at a rate of 150,000 derives from a single episode of a single stronger, Mr. Kyreyev told the Interfax- kbv to $1. A pair of Levi's 501 jeans, sell­ CBS program, one which... Serafyn has (Continued on page 6) Ukraine news agency on August 1. He ing for $75, now costs 11,250,000 kbv. failed to demonstrate rises to the level of news distortion." On another point, the FCC stated, "Even if the '60 Minutes' episode represented a Maria Rudensky: the pioneer U.S. consul in Kyyiv 'hateful attack,' as characterized by Mr. by Marta Kolomayets adventures and their insights, represent­ Serafyn, such an isolated instance does not, ing the red, white and blue in golden- and indeed cannot, rise to the level of 'a KYYIV — They were the pioneers: the domed Kyyiv. pattern of prejudice,' the burden required..." first ones to come to Ukraine to work for Maria Rudensky, who grew up in Arthur Belendiuk, Mr. Serafyn's attor­ the U.S. government. And, they were Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., attended ney, said he felt the regulatory body had unique because they were Ukrainian Ukrainian Saturday school and Roma wrongly decided that the issues were not Americans coming to their ancestral Pryma-Bohachevsky's Ballet School sufficiently serious for a hearing, homeland after Ukraine declared inde­ before going off to Columbia University, although he was not surprised by the pendence in 1991. where she majored in French. She went FCC decision. "Again (FCC) asked the Although there have been other on to do graduate studies in journalism at wrong question. The question is whether Ukrainian Americans who have worked Columbia, before moving to Washington we provided enough evidence to set the at the U.S. Embassy in Kyyiv, the four to work for a trade publication. matter for hearing and not whether we who will be profiled in this series over Influenced by the numerous diplomats proved our case," said Mr. Belendiuk. the next few weeks saw it grow from a and bureaucrats in the nation's capital, He said the FCC has set an impossibly small outpost to a full -scale embassy in Ms. Rudensky joined the Foreign Service stringent standard of proof of news distor­ 1992. in 1989. She was assigned to a post in tion. "The only way we could've met the Maria Rudensky, Wolodymyr Sulzhyn- Ukraine in 1991. standard is if CBS was to admit guilt." sky, Natalie Jaresko and Stephen Another attorney, Bohdanna Pochoday, Wasylko all came to work in Kyyiv during Maria Rudensky jokingly announces who represented Mr. Nikolyszyn in the the first few months of 1992, just as the that her job description includes the five second petition, explained that dealing fledgling state began emerging as a sig­ "d's" and a "u": that's the dead, the with the FCC is difficult also because nificant country on the map of Europe. detained, the deranged, the diseased, the legal procedures are different than in the As they conclude their assignments at destitute and the undocumented. As the civil or criminal judicial system. She said the U.S. Embassy in Kyyiv, leaving jobs U.S. Consul in Kyyiv, Ms. Rudensky that to gather the evidence required to they defined, and to a large degree creat­ I Marta Kolomayets prove news distortion she needed "discov­ ed, they shared their experiences, their (Continued on page 4) Washington-bound Maria Rudensky ery," a legal procedure that allows for the THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, AUGUST 6, 1995 No.