After more briefing in Kyiv Friday morning, my colleague and I headed to the airport to fly to Lviv. For a capitol airport, the Kyiv airport is remarkably small - essentially a commuter terminal. We found ourselves flying on a YAK 42, a Russian built aircraft - not something I was too thrilled about!

Lviv - what a lovely, very old town. So different from Kyiv in scale, architecture, traffic, etc.

We walked to all of our appointments yesterday (and walked in between appointments). Medieval walls, 12th century Armenian and Dominican churches, centuries old universities and Ukrainian Orthodox churches, with statutes and cobblestone everywhere. (It amazes me how Ukrainian women maintain their style, wearing very high heels and navigating the cobblestone!)

We met with several NGO groups - one run largely by university students now very involved in local issues - which means historic preservation in Lviv (i.e. 14th century local landmarks) as well as election monitoring work. The students were passionate about their work. When our meeting concluded, three of the eight students that we met with wanted to walk with us around the old city and show us buildings of importance, buildings they had saved etc.

We also met with two European based NGOs involved in election observation: at least one of these groups got started in places where promoting democracy and free and transparent elections was dangerous. Some of these volunteers are still young, and yet have only known it to be dangerous to believe in the right to vote in a truly free election. Some are under 30 and they have gone to jail on these issues.

At least so far, we in the US are lucky in that regard.

Twenty four hours before the election all campaigning must stop. That means television shows with candidates stopped discussion at midnight Friday, ads no longer run on TV, street placards come down.

Campaign finances in Ukraine are not transparent. The law distinguishes between "private party funds" and "volunteer contributions." These two sources of money may be (but don't have to be) deposited into a campaign account. Only "volunteer contributions" are limited in amount, and only expenditures from this account need be reported. But every campaign has money to spend from some source - Ukrainian, Russian or other foreigner. Apparently, lots of people have a stake in the outcome of this election.

Anne

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