Communications, or what's available on TV



A Hutsul gate. Sadly, few are around these days. 




Weather this week has been sunny and warm with temps hovering around 0C and down to about -6 overnight. When the sun is out the snow keeps melting and then another cm or two falls again so we do have a little of the white stuff around.

In the photo, the round thing on the gate post is a recieving dish for satellite TV.  Because of the poor reception in the mountains most people here use satellite for their TV and radio. 
It's not only in the mountains that these dishes are used, as reception on the ordinary TV antenna's is often very poor, depending on the location.  Satellites offer a wide variety of channels to choose from around the world.  In some locations cable is also available.   We have over 2,000 TV and radio stations on our dish,  however, a large majority of them are blocked as Ukraine doesn't have an agreement in place to use "pay for view" channels.  This restricts us to watching such channels as CNN, BBC, Euronews and several other mostly news channels in English. A majority of the other channels are in a variety of languages such as German, French, Italian and Arabic as well as some Asian languages. 
There are close to 40 TV channels that are produced in Ukraine, but, a small number of channels use the Ukrainian language only occasionally.   A large percent of the programing is of Russian origin or Ukrainian programming trying to mimic the programs from their northern neighbor.  Ukrainian TV is in the same state as was Canadian TV back in the 1970's. Very little money is allocated by the government for cultural programs and there is still a preference for things Russian.  Recently, a movie was made about Taras Bulba and the producers choose to do it in Russian.  There is a law requiring all foreign language movies and programs be dubbed into Ukrainian but the present government has tried to recind the law and also ignores any violations. However, Homer Simpson sounds much better in Ukrainian. (аї карумба)
Pop radio programs in Ukraine are mostly produced in Kyiv and carried by local rebroadcasters and reflect Kyiv's musical preferences.   On satellite, CBC I, II and III are available as is BBC and a variety of US stations broadcasting in English. There is also a wide variety of music available from jazz to classical and ethnic on the satellite. A number of CBC style Ukrainian language stations broadcast political, cultural and music programs. These choices offer us the opportunity to be as immersed in the local culture and/or isolated from western culture as we want.