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National Features of Ukrainian Middle Class
Henri Faux, Deputy Director of the Department for social needs transformation studies. ASCOF “You'll protest and say that Ukrainian housewives know how to count money, and save on everything, but believe me, you just do not know French housewives”
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The intellectual default of our elite has taken place already
Andriy Yermolayev, President of the Center for Social Research «Sofia» Now for the key question: will our elites form a concept of their new role and new place in the globalized world? The price of this question covers not only the economy and social well-being, but, maybe, the State itself. We are facing a historic challenge, while our elite behave like lazy man in the street thinking: “Well, I’ll get out of this pit, and proceed along the same tracks.” In doing so, he overpasses the fact that there is the next phase of the crisis ahead, when one needs to fight for the living space.
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So far, there is no fever pitch; however, four years passed and we’re men of the world
Victoria Podgorna, Candidate of Philosophy, Director of the Center for Socio-Political Planning  Ukraine has neither system, nor control center nor relevant instruments. The current leadership has no idea of such instruments; it is illiterate and without formal education. For some reason it believes that we will weather it like we did it in the 90s. But it's not the case, because at that time we had a full stock of our own resources, and we also used external resources, as well as there was no global crisis, and cheap gas we pumped with all our heart. We were on our beam ends about market and democracy Western-style with its credits and role model. Now they are themselves looking for a crisis management plan.
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The right to consume
Semen Gluzman, human rights activist, Psychiatrist  Our community has obtained a new right––a right to consume, which is guaranteed by the state, whose main duty is to work tirelessly to provide loans, promote import, and back production.
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Present Crisis Is Like Chornobyl Disaster
Olexandr Vyshniak, Ph.D., Director of Ukrainian Sociology Service Co.  During crisis the level of public trust is down, and level of paternalism is up; we do not trust the government, president, Verkhovna Rada, local authorities, though we go cap in hand to them.
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Populace Labors Under Misconception About Future
Volodymyr Balabanovych, Head of Entrepreneurs’ Trade Union  The trustful Ukrainian people reap a harvest of unproductive, thoughtless, and predatory policy of top politicos establishing conquista amid Europe.
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Crisis Mitigation: Either Positive or Negative Public Agreement Needed
Victor Nebozhenko, Political Scientist  Ukraine has found itself in the group of pseudostates with pseudosocieties and seemingly lacking nothing; however the quantity is never translated into quality. And it is very convenient for the centers of global management, because everybody has the same top-to-bottom agenda without provisions for our national interests. Until we will have a public agreement guaranteed by political elites and their leaders, even negative ones as in Russia, Ukraine will never see a ray of hope.
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There Is Still This Row-In-The-Same-Boat Feeling
Pavlo Frolov, Head of the PR Lab of the Institute of Social and Political Psychology  The upper strata have concluded that if they do not promote social programs, resort to sharing, and have light fingers, they will find themselves on a powder keg. Leonid Danylovych Kuchma used to forewarn about it, hinting at the failed escape of Ceauşescu: “guys, there won’t be enough helis for everybody.” I believe it helped him and our rulers would rather remember the crack
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Crisis Boosts Potential of Social Self-Organization
Yevhen Bielonozhko, Researcher, Social Situations Monitoring Lab, Institute of Social and Political Psychology  The crisis opens possibilities of local self-organization, both regular and irregular. The social potential of self-organization is very likely to increase now. Inevitably. It means that people will take over the control of their life and will deem themselves responsible for it.
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The state is inevitably sagging. Nobody trusts the state now.
Olexandr Stehniy, Sociologist  This crisis may disentitle the ruling elite. Nobody can tell if it understands the menace. We will witness the response the moment the social unrests climax. Meantime the populace deems it incompetent. Therefore we go on distancing from them, despising them, and the problem of Ukrainian nation is in the lack of political leader, which we, just plain folk, could trust. The crisis is a two-edged sword, and social dissatisfaction will certainly tell on them.
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"We never lived high, and we’d rather never ventured out into it!"
Vadym Kolesnykov, Psychologist-consultant  Well, we used to live in communal apartments and primitive tenements, or didn’t we? We used to feed on the old folks’ kitchen garden, or didn’t we? Definitionally, this crisis cannot bring more harm to Ukrainian society than our not so distant past.
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We need extraordinary anti-crisis measures to improve the situation
Oleksandr Shmorhun, Leading researcher of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, senior researcher of the Institute of European Studies of the NAS of Ukraine  Before long, our so-called economic elites will understand that fidgeting outside Ukraine our nabobs can have beds of down no more.
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Business Before Pleasure!
Holovakha Yevhen Ivanovych, Deputy of Director of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, Ph.D.  At long last the Ukrainian families will resort to consumer discipline; people will learn to be thrifty. The level of spending will meet the level of earnings. People will take to thinking before depending on bank credits. These are positive changes: they train man’s will and give a lesson of money managing. The Ukrainian society will grow up and stop being tempted with bright trinkets in a shop.
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