Kyiv Post and local economy

We've seen the exchange rates changing every day. The hryvna for dollar exchange rates back mid September were about ~4.80 and now are ~6.05 hryvna. The inflation is hurting the people here.

I was scanning the Kyiv Post to read about the Ukranian economy and spotted this editorial on the U.S. elections ... here is a link.
http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/editorial/30681 . I enjoyed the comments about GWB!
(Larry and I tried to get our absentee ballot mailed to our facilitator here but we have not received it yet, so we will not be able to vote this election.)

Public transportation costs in Kyiv/Kiev are raising from 50 kopecks to two hryvnia. We've seen some very poor struggling people. Most of the people you easily notice are well dressed, fashionable, skinny people and walking quickly. If you sit and watch for awhile you will notice the older people. I've seen an old woman standing by a corner of a building standing with her head down and holding a small plastic cup hoping for some spare change. Yesterday I saw an old woman with several plastic bags (which looked full of more bags) looking in the trash can outside of an eatery. She found something and ate it. Her coat was nice but her shoes were house slippers, no socks on a cold day. We've heard that the elderly are really hurt by inflation and are trying to exist on small pensions. (We heard that when Ukraine became independant the people lost their bank accounts that were in Russian banks.) In Torez I saw a woman taking her trash out to a dumpster in a grocery bag. She dumped her trash out of the bag into the dumpster and carefully folded up the grocery bag to use it again. (stores charge for bags here) We also saw women on the sidewalk selling milk in 'reused' bottles. I am guessing it might have been goats milk since we have seen small herds of goats. In Kyiv we saw people in the square silently gathering beer bottles. (There must be some sort of recycle or deposit value.) I saw one well dressed woman stop at a trash can and carefully unload about 8 beer bottles from her bag into the trash can and go on her way. About 5 minutes later an older woman with several big heavy plastic bags full of bottles stopped at the trash can and loaded those bottles into her bags, filling a third bag. She then carried these heavy bags one at a time over to the next trash can to find more bottles. I got a photo as she was going back to pickup the next bag to carry to the next trash can on her route. She was dressed nicely. I never would have guessed she needed extra money.


(In Torez we left our beer bottles in a clear plastic bag outside of a dumpster and they were quickly picked up by someone walking by.) People walk around here drinking beer from bottles, setting the empty bottles down anywhere. Now I understand why. They know someone will pick up the bottle.