At the end of each year, Ukrainian culture is put to shame with statistics on what Ukrainians most watch and listen to on the internet.
In 2020, four out of 10 most-watched YouTube videos in Ukraine were from Russia or Belarus. The rest were Ukrainian parodies on Russian music, scandalous TV programs or interviews. The top 10 music videos were mostly by Russian artists, with only two Ukrainians who sing in Russian.
There are no Ukrainians on Spotify’s top five lists of most-listened artists, bands, songs or albums, with Russian and U.S. artists leading the charts. In Apple Music’s chart of current top 100 songs in Ukraine, there are only nine Ukrainians, eight of whom sing in Russian.
The coronavirus pandemic has further undermined the standing of Ukraine’s cultural industries. The government’s lockdowns and limits on public events have most damaged the music business, cinemas and theaters, all of which depend on ticket sales in Ukraine.
“2% of the country’s GDP, or over Hr 83 billion ($3 billion), is the total loss of businesses in the sector of culture, creative industries and tourism from the income not earned since the beginning of March with the first lockdown,” Oleksandr Tkachenko, minister of culture and informational policy, said in a statement.
At the start of the pandemic, the government cut Hr 1.9 billion ($68.4 million) from the state budget for cultural programs to fill the national COVID‑19 fund. But then it took Hr 1 billion ($36 million) back from the fund to help culture and creative industries survive the pandemic through grants and institutional support.
The government also decreased the value-added tax from the regular rate of 20% to 7% for ticket sales in cultural industries. Most recently, it also started offering Hr 8,000 ($288) in financial aid for entrepreneurs whose work will be banned during the next three-week lockdown in January.
Still, many artists and cultural entrepreneurs say that this is not enough. Even if they meet the stringent requirements for government grants or aid, its agencies, like the Ukrainian Cultural Fund, delay payments because of the budget deficit.
So the real achievement was to survive and keep working in culture this year. But there are also some examples of how Ukrainians created great art despite the crisis. And there is definitely more to look forward to in the next, hopefully post-COVID, year.
Books
The one culture sector that benefited from the lockdown at first was literature. According to social networks research by the Ukrainian Book Institute, Ukrainians started reading and posting more about books during the lockdown. However, after the May peak, reading habits returned to normal when restrictions eased in June.
On the other hand, lockdowns and restrictions hurt the book industry because it could not hold festivals and other big events. Most of them moved online, losing much of the audience and the benefits of publisher’s stalls that drive the sales. Ukrainian writers also adapted to online formats with podcasts and readings, like Serhiy Zhadan, Oleksandr Mykhed and Yurii Andrukhovych.
Some statistics show that Ukrainian books have increased in popularity. There are two or three books by Ukrainian authors in the top five bestsellers lists of the country’s leading online bookstores. One book is on top of all of these lists. “The Vasyl Stus Case” by Vakhtang Kipiani has been sold out several times after the pro-Russian politician and lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk has won the first-instance trial to stop its distribution.
The book about the Soviet trial of Ukrainian poet and dissident Stus, argued that Medvedchuk has intentionally lost the case as Stus’s public defender in 1980.
Protesters dance to techno music at a rally in front of the government’s headquarters in Kyiv on Sept. 1, 2020 with demands to allow nightclubs to work after midnight during the COVID-19 quarantine. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Music and nightlife
The most profitable of Ukraine’s culture industries — the music and show business — was most affected by the pandemic. Without live events, the industry lost most of its income because record sales, streaming and royalties bring only a fraction of profits in a country where piracy is widespread.
“Ukraine has never experienced such a blow to the music business,” Mike Yasinskiy, producer and CEO at the Secret Service Entertainment Agency, told the Kyiv Post.
The institutional aid that the government provides through the Ukrainian Cultural Fund is discriminatory against commercial music, Yasinskiy says, and the Hr 8,000 aid to entrepreneurs is inadequate. He says the cut to 7% value-added tax doesn’t help when there is zero profit.
“These are half-measures that don’t reflect the industry’s depressing situation, which creates real jobs,” says Yasinskiy, who is also the head of the All-Ukrainian Trade Union of Music Industry.
Nightclubs had also been a vibrant part of the industry, but they have rolled back years because of the lockdowns and limits on parties in the nighttime, says Alisa Mullen, CEO of Strela Promo Agency. Closer, one of Kyiv’s most popular electronic music clubs, had to crowdfund Hr 1.2 million ($43,000) to pay off debts. Other clubs, like Otel’ and Mezzanine, followed the example of Closer in trying to crowdfund enough money to pay off their debts.
As an art center, Closer is the only nightclub that applied and will receive Hr 1 million ($36,000) institutional aid from the Ukrainian Cultural Fund.
But it’s not yet clear when because of the deficit in the state budget.
“It’s some kind of ‘Schrödinger’s grant,’ “Mullen, who did PR for Closer, told the Kyiv Post. “But Closer and other clubs still managed to survive by cutting costs and adapting new party formats.”
Most musicians either switched to their side jobs not related to music, Mullen says, or started to compose more for commercials or pop artists. But according to Yasinskiy, many professionals are quitting the industry.
Despite that, there doesn’t seem to be fewer releases of Ukrainian music. On the contrary, new artists pop up nearly every week after finding more time for creating during the lockdowns. Many musicians are also finding their audiences at online shows and festivals.
“And if COVID‑19 ends next year, everything will bloom again and people will party insatiably,” Mullen says.
Cinema
2020 could have been an excellent year for cinema in Ukraine: more local movies won prestigious awards abroad, and some earlier festival hits came into wide release at home. The problem is that a relatively small audience saw them because of the quarantine restrictions.
Because of the lockdowns, Ukraine only had 35 out of 52 weeks when the cinemas operated, most of which were at half-capacity. During this time, only six Ukrainian movies made it to the top 10 of the weekly box offices.
But the year started so well. A low-budget comedy “My Thoughts Are Silent” by debut director Antonio Lukić became an unexpected hit among viewers in February and one of the few profitable Ukrainian-made movies. Then came COVID‑19.
Film releases had to be canceled or postponed indefinitely when the first lockdown started in March, while most film festivals moved online. Cinemas reopened in July at half capacity, slowly adding screenings of older films and a few Hollywood novelties. They had to close again for three weekends in November, the so-called “weekend quarantine.”
“The lockdowns critically reduced the attendance, and many Ukrainian premieres were affected,” Philip Illienko, producer and board chairman of the Ukrainian Film Academy, told the Kyiv Post.
When things returned to some normalcy in October, it still wasn’t enough to guarantee a successful theater run for “Atlantis,” Ukraine’s most important film of the year. A winner at the Venice Film Festival, the arthouse film imagines what Ukraine’s future might be after it defeats Russia in the Donbas region.
Things have not been good for films that are currently being produced. The State Film Agency has been delaying funding for projects that have won in the government’s pitches, again, because of the budget deficit.
“It not only damages the industry and puts many productions on the verge of bankruptcy — it completely undermines trust in any cooperation with the government,” says Illienko, who was the head of the State Film Agency in the previous administration.
But there is a lot to look forward to in Ukrainian cinema in 2021. Two award-winning Ukrainian films will come out in the year’s first quarter: “Bad Roads” war drama by Natalya Vorozhbit and “This Rain Will Never Stop” documentary by Alina Gorlova.
There are also high hopes for “Dovbush” — Ukraine’s most expensive historical drama that was supposed to premiere in 2020, but then postponed for some better times, hopefully in 2021.
