"'Smoking Kills?' So What, We're Homeless. . . . "

The caption conveys the message of this photo taken at an outdoor,

free rock concert in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, a city of between one

and two million people. Laws are lax for drinking, although more

strict for purchasing tobacco which affects far less of the

population since alcohol poisoning and alcoholism-related diseases

affect a far greater portion of the population than smoking, but

American and British tobacco companies are working on bringing the

death and disease by smoking rates up . . . and if these young boys

survive, they'll be in the vanguard.

 

Your ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome. If you

rate harhsly or very negatively, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment/Please share your superior knowledge to help

improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

Strong photo, John! I was pulled in by the nearer boys' bright blue eyes, and have conflicting feelings about seeing his impish grin (which made me almost laugh) paired with seeing a child so young smoking. You really got something with this one!

And these boys both gave me that sign -- wanting to be remembered, cigarettes in mouth, and with the 'cool' double finger sign from at least one hand each, as they each puffed away. Notice the dirtiness on the second boy's face -- unwashed.

 

In Dnepropetrovsk, the homeless children are not 'hooligans' and often have some place to sleep, as opposed to Kiev where I am told (I have not seen personally) that homeless kids are a real crime menace; but I have personal experience from threats/harassment that in Odessa, to the south on the Black Sea homeless youths there are a significant threat and to be 'nice' to a homeless kid is to invite 'danger' and at the very least theft and the most -- bodily injury, either by one or a pack of them (there's always strength in numbers, something dogs and wolves know instinctively, and so do children -- and these are children).

 

And, it's possible these boys are not completely 'homeless' although they have the appearance and I was told they were, but they are not 'without' -- notice their parkas (Columbia Sportswear from Portland, Oregon is widely worn in Ukraine -- or knockoffs, and these appear like what is commonly worn in winter in Ukraine).

 

Last winter was brutal throughout Europe, but Ukraine commonly is a steppe climate, with winters being five or six degrees below freezing and thawing very often (just not last winter).

 

Dnepropetrovsk takes care of its citizens at city center -- there's a giant TV screen sponsored by KievStar (mobile phone company) and it displays sports events, such as FIFA (football/soccer) games to crowds (often drunk on beer) and other things, there were numerous political rallies there, some with telecasts from Kiev, the capitol -- including one with long-winded but beautiful Julia (Yulia) Timoshenko who got the most interim votes after having been kicked out as second in command of the reigning government (she helped lead the so-called 'Orange Revolution' -- and no, not the Holland 'House of Orange', but the Ukrainian 'Orange'. She's stunning looking, but her speeches drone and drone and drone.

 

Finally, in this same place, and why these kids were there, there are frequent, late afternoon, early-evening rock concerts (live) with local talent, which block off the main drag (Karla Marksa Prospekt) -- Karl Marks Boulevard -- which goes through the center of town.

 

After each event, the streets are littered with beer bottles, and drunken youths are everywhere, but everyone's pretty well behaved, anyone behaving belligerrently is met with police and German shepherds (muzzled), (but not roughed up or arrested), and everybody just goes home. Then the cleaning crews go to work, cleaning up broken glass and plastic piver (beer) bottles, which are simply thrown to the ground (sometimes the drunken youths stomp the empty glass beer bottles just for fun and with amusement to a loud 'bang'.)

 

That's life in the center of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.

 

And with little prospects for the future, it probably will describe life ten years hence (except there probably will be far more smoking).

 

Women a few years ago almost never smoked; now many more 'popular' and 'stylish' ones smoke, exhorted by stylish ads invoking cigarete smoking as 'stylish' and men (when they can afford it) have a longer history of smoking and long have smoked disproportionately to women three or four to one or more until recently. (WHO statistics for former times -- current statistics not available from WHO.)

 

And 'blue' eyes are common in Ukraine -- Katherine the Great 'settled' Ukraine with Russians (often blue-eyed) during her reign, to protect Russia's southern flank -- and it's likely these boys are Russian heritage if one goes back a hundred years or less (they undoubtedly speak Russian as do the majority of people in almost all of Ukraine except a few holdout cities in the far West near the Carpathian Mts.).

 

John (Crosley)

They almost seem excited to be captured "cool."

Notice the slight grin of the guy in the back, and the over-eager, much less mature, excitement on the boy with the blue eyes. Besides that, the boy in the back's hand seems old. It does seem as though it belong to a smoker of 40 years instead of a boy of 13.

 

I can see the boy in the back being the "leader" of the two, while lil' blue eyes is the overactive side-kick. (Completely the opinion of a middle school teacher about ready to end summer break. :)

 

timeless, sad.

cg

Ooolala...

I think I agree with you completely. You analysis seems spot on and complies with my memory.

 

You have good analytical/perceptive powers -- you know your kids.

 

John (Crosley)

I'm mystified by the meaning of your comment . . . . but pleased you stopped by.

 

John (Crosley)

I wonder how many tobacco industrialists also own healthcare and insurance stocks & shares? The circle is complete.

Touchee (no accent on this computer).

 

And surely their directorships must interlock?

 

John (Crosley)

As my wife's Uncle so curtly puts it...

 

"They're all sleeping together."

 

as my son may see it...

"The wheels on the bus go round and round..."

 

 

Yes, the wheels on the bus . . .

 

My most recent view of Ukraine (which I must admit was extremely recently) shows that women are smoking at an ever-increasing rate.

 

I recently got invited to share a meal with two extraordinarily-beautiful young women, both Ukrainian -- 0ne was a very headstrong doctor (she looked barely a teenager, but was already a specialist) and I guessed that she was so headstrong (and smart), she'd never take up smoking, but her best friend had taken up smoking, and smoked around that friend's young (and very active and intelligent) son.

 

A casual look around many Ukrainian cities shows that women are smoking in increasing numbers -- and I suppose sometime a few years ago at some tobacco company in Britain or America, this conversation took place:

 

'Hey guys, in Ukraine the men die young and the women die old, so women's where the growth is . . . look at the numbers . . . men are already smoking and dying in their mid-late '50s, and the women live old and don't smoke, so if we sell women (and girls) smokes, they can smoke longer . . . and there are more women than men to to hook (since vodka, accidents and cigarettes have been finishing off the men) . . . and let's market cigarettes as a 'fashion accessory' -- long, thin and 'light' like there's none of that killing tar getting through that little filter to cause those beautiful young women that awful stuff -- that lung cancer, heart disease or any of those forbidden words -- we'll just market our cigs as a 'cosmetic' that makes the women 'sexy' -- and appealing to the menfolk, sort of make every Ukrainian woman wants to be a Lauren Bacall type, with a cigarette clenched in her mouth all the time . . . or some sex symbol out of a '40s movie where everybody smoked cigarettes.

 

'Well, that's our sales pitch meeting for this month, fellas, now go out and peddle those good old coffin sticks'

 

'And remember, hook the pretty, young ones, the younger and prettier the better, and their peers will follow.'

 

Yes, cigarettes are 'taking hold' in Ukraine, and unlike 'modern' countries, like Austria which has on every pack BIG BOLD LETTERS SO LARGE THEY'D DOUBLE AS BILLBOARD LETTERS 'CIGARETTES KILL' OR WORDS TO THAT EFFECT, Ukraine has billboards with beautiful women on every street corner, advertising this brand or that -- especially 'Parliament' and other brands that disappeared from the American market decades ago.

 

Are you old enough to remember those doctors who peddled those coffin nails to us over television as I grew up and lied to us 'there's not a cough in a pack . . . ' with sincerity over the airwaves?

 

Well, they're selling a whole nation where once some of the world's most beautiful women had a smoking rate of only 6% or so, according to the WHO (percentage from memory). And they've taken that as a challenge . . . all the way to the cemetaries.

 

John (Crosley)

It's a shame that money dictates all we do and all we are.

 

White collar crimes vs. violent crimes is there a difference? well besides in punishments...

 

Here's a promotional idea, have a cig on a mug shot. Title of "Serial Killer."

 

And no, I don't think I was around when docs promoted cigerettes. Must be before my time, I don't think I have any memory of popular culture until mid-late 80's.

 

Well, I must be off, in a hurry once again!

cg