The New York Times: In Ukraine, drinking on the people’s tab
The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 brought great joy to my family. The Soviet Union relocated hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians from the contaminated area to new houses in other parts of the countryside. Ukrainians are shrewd. Many families that had lost one home tricked the government into giving them two houses as compensation, and then sold them off at ridiculously low prices. And so that was how my wife and I came into possession of an excellent second home in the country with a garden and a plot to plant vegetables in, and a separate brick shed that was later converted into a real Finnish-style sauna — for only $6,000. Read the story here.