President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that beautiful Ukrainian women were part of the country’s brand and always had been admired by foreigners. This statement from his speech in Paris during an official visit caused a swift online backlash.
Beautiful women are part of Ukraine’s brand
The most controversial president of 2019 Volodymyr Zelensky broke news worldwide when Ukrainian citizens voted to elect a former comedian with no experience in politics to become the country’s leader in April.
One of his first decisions to dissolve the parliament (Rada) added even more excitement to the local political landscape.
In his speech on 17 June Zelensky talked about the image of Ukraine on the global scale and how the country was perceived by foreigners, Finance.ua reported.
Beautiful Ukrainian ladies are part of this brand, according to the President, however, he wanted to emphasize that there was more to his homeland than meets the eye.
“There has always been a representation in the whole world that Ukraine is, first of all, an agricultural state, it’s mining, it’s metallurgy. And tourists always were saying that it is very beautiful in Ukraine, very tasty and very beautiful people, especially women. Yes, that’s true, and it still remains our brand. But there are also other numbers, which say that the IT industry, IT technologies and companies are developing in Ukraine very quickly,” the President stated in Paris during his speech at the opening of a startup incubator Station F.
The point the President was making was, of course, not about branding Ukraine as a country of beautiful women, but about the current representation in the world, what tourists noticed and said, and what remains unnoticed by an uneducated observer.
As we reported before, Ukraine has been dubbed a “New India for IT outsourcing” and the IT industry has been already providing about 4% of the country’s GDP. Encouraging the development of this sector is a priority, in the eyes of the new government.
The words of the president Volodymyr Zelensky about beautiful women being part of the country’s image in the eyes of foreign tourists sparked a storm of comments online.
Online backlash
However, what listeners picked on was not the point about the technological advances, but about the Ukrainian ladies being seen as something that tourists associate with visiting the destination.
The phrase ignited a whole storm of online commentary from Ukrainian ladies who started a rally under tags #ЯНеТуристичнийБренд and #янебренд reading as “I am not your tourism brand” and “I am not a brand”.
The commentators complained about the lack of respect and culture in the presidential remark, treating it as a bad joke.
Kherson’s journalist Marina Usmanova commended that a travel brand is what the country sells to tourists, a type of a sourvenir, which Ukrianian females are certainly not. If indeed Ukraine were the country where women became a tourism brand, this would imply that they were forced to sell themselves, Usmanova resolved, and it needs to be changed.
Julia Drozd from Kharkiv commented that she is “not an object of purchase-sale”. Katja Korolenko from Kyiv wrote that she is not a “tourist memory”. Journalist Irina Trebunskih wrote about a “price tag”. Other reporters referred to the controversial statement as an example of the “foot in mouth decease” the new leader is being blamed in.
Were the words of the Ukrainian president simply taken out of the context? What do you think? Are beautiful Ukrainian women part of the country’s brand or not?
Featured photo: Official Instragram of Volodymyr Zelensky @zelenskiy_official
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This is the world we live in now, where someone says something and people interpret it in an offensive manner. I visit Ukraine often and i am always stunned by the beauty of the women and also by the open and kind manner in which they perceive me. So much so that it has led to me returning and even getting to know a few friends on a personal level. This is part of Ukraines brand from my interpretation as a visitor. It doesn’t mean i believe i can buy a woman easily or that i believe this to be… Read more »
I don’t see anything wrong with that. I can even agree with Zelensky. Everyone knows that Ukrainian womens are among the most beautiful womens in the world. We should feel proud about it. In fact, people simply cling to what has been said or done to show that Zelensky is a terrible president. I am generally proud of our girls.