If you have never visited the Ukrainian parliament for whatever reason — fear of brawling lawmakers inside or rowdy protests outside — now is the perfect chance to take a digital sneak peak alone.
From now on, Verkhovna Rada has a virtual 3D tour, where visitors can see the main hall, take a closer look at deputies’ workplaces, imagine oneself in the speaker’s role and walk along the lobby.
To see the tour, one needs to access Google Maps in Google Street View and chose the Verkhovna Rada building. Once inside, it is easy to navigate with the help of arrows and level indicators. The tour is accessible from both computers and mobile devices.
This level of virtual openness puts the Verkhovna Rada in the same line with parliaments of Denmark, Canada, Hungary, Israel, the White House in Washington, the United States Congress and other institutions around the world.
Speaker of Parliament Andriy Parubiy invites virtual guests himself.
“Today Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine joins the world’s open parliaments club and invites on a virtual 3D-tour together with Street View technology that is a part of Google Maps,” Parubiy said in a Feb. 24 statement. “Now anyone who is interested may take a virtual trip to the central hall and the lobby of parliament, just the same as in the Israeli Knesset or the United States Congress, and may feel the spirit and mood of the Ukrainian parliament. This policy of openness was the result of cooperation with Google.”
This project was originally Google’s initiative, which was presented to the speaker during his meeting with Doron Avni, Google’s Director of Public Policy & Government Relations for Europe, Middle East & Africa Emerging Markets region.
“Google’s mission is to make information available to users worldwide” Google’s Country manager in Ukraine Dmitry Sholomko said in the statement on Feb. 24. “We are pleased that in cooperation with Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine we were able to implement the project, with the help of which anyone can take a virtual tour of the Ukrainian parliament.”
During the virtual tour, users will have an opportunity to see the “Flag of Independence” – the one that deputies of the first convocation brought into the hall on Aug. 24, 1991. In addition to the flag, there are other “Independence artifacts” — exhibits related to the Ukraine’s yearning for independence.
Kyiv Post social media editor Iryna Savchuk can be reached at [email protected].
