Kyiv Post awards Top 30 Under 30, four refuse to accept prize

The annual Kyiv Post Tiger Conference Top 30 Under 30 award ceremony on Dec. 11 took an unexpected turn, as four nominees refused to accept the prize in protest against its sponsor – oligarch and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk.

The awards, celebrating young leaders who have in the last year achieved fame, acclaim and success, took place at the seventh Tiger Conference, at the InterContinental Kyiv Hotel.

The award was founded by the Kyiv Post two years ago. The winners of the first awards were picked by the staff of the publication in 2016. The next year, they were selected by their predecessors. And this year, the jury was a mix of both previous winners, a part of the Kyiv Post editorial team, and representatives of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which provided funds for the award.

The Kyiv Post called for nominations via the printed newspaper and social media.

This year’s list of Top 30 Under 30 includes people of various professions from all over Ukraine, all of whom are notable for their outstanding accomplishments.

The 2018 winners are entrepreneurs, activists, artists, veterans, athletes and many others. Check the full list here.

Pinchuk and his wife Elena were the first ones to present awards.Pinchuk awarded Ukrainian poet and novelist Myroslav Laiuk and Hlib Stryzhko, the founder of the education space Ukrainian Intelligentsia Forge.

Pinchuk said he was proud to be a part of the event and suggested that a 300 under 30 award be created in order that there be even more winners of the award, whom he said could go on to take positions of power in the Ukrainian state.

“Unite, do something good and come to power,” Pinchuk said.

However, not everyone shared Pinchuk’s excitement about the ceremony.

The leader of multiple projects, including Opir.org, which monitors elections, Vladyslav Greziev, and civic activist Vitaliy Ustymenko, also a winner of the award, refused to accept their prizes after being invited to take the stage.

Greziev started his speech with a suggestion that there be a moment of silence to honor the memory of the recently murdered Ukrainian civic activist Kateryna Gandziuk.

Gandziuk was an anti-corruption campaigner and local council official who lived in Kherson, a city of 290,000 people some 550 kilometers south of Kyiv. She was attacked with acid on July 31. She received serious burns to 40 percent of her body and died in hospital in Kyiv on Nov. 4.

The General Prosecutor’s Office has detained five suspected perpetrators of the attack and has recently announced the suspected organizer of the murder, whose last name was Lemenov. However, the activists believe that he wasn’t the one behind the crime.

Greziev and Ustymenko were both wearing t-shirts with a printed inscription “who is behind the assault on Kateryna Gandziuk?” and said they demanded the explanation about who ordered her murder.

“These t-shirts are another public reminder that the perpetrators of this crime and those who ordered it must be punished. And our initiative group will not stop until this happens,” Greziev said.

He then said that there were many assaults and even murders of activists happening recently in Ukraine because of the impunity of those who ordered the attacks.

Greziev said the legalization of violence had begun in Ukraine when journalist Georgiy Gongadze was murdered in 2000. Former President Leonid Kuchma has been accused of ordering Gongadze’s murder, which he denies.

Greziev and Ustymenko claim that Pinchuk, who is Kuchma’s son-in-law, headed a media campaign “to cover up for the perpetrators of the crime.”

“With the new challenges and demands for the new leaders of our country, Vitaliy (Ustymenko) and I decided not to accept this award and I hope everyone will understand us,” Greziev said.

The two added that they respected the editorial team of the Kyiv Post and all of the other winners of the award.

“We’re convinced that the new generation of Ukrainian citizens should have zero tolerance for the old oligarchic forms,” Ustymenko said.

After the two refused their awards, Yuriy Didula, who manages “We Build Ukraine Together,” a volunteer network that rebuilds homes damaged in Russia’s war on Ukraine in the Donbas, refused to accept his award, too.

Didula said that the values of Pinchuk contradict the values of his project’s team, and the Ukraine that we’re trying to build together.

“We will not be ourselves if we accept this award,” Didula said.

The founder of the online magazine Taras Prokopyshyn during his speech on stage said that he accepted the award formally as a recognition symbol of his team’s work, but that he would not accept it physically.

The other winners of the Top 30 Under 30 award present at the event didn’t refuse to accept their awards.

Daria Korzhavina, a co-founder of the non-profit organization Fight for Right, who supports people with disabilities and their rights for education and employment, said that such an award was a great responsibility.

“When you have this award you realize there is no possibility to abandon the challenge and requirements set by society. You have to move forward and confirm that this award was given for a reason,” Korzhavina said.

Korzhavina also said the conference was a way to find people to develop Ukraine.

“There is no need to go somewhere to live a better life, as it is better to build this life here,” she said.

A touching moment occurred when Oleksandr Todorchuk, a founder of UAnimals and the winner of TOP 30 in 2017, presented the award to Sofia Lapina, the organizing committee member of Kyiv Pride.

“I personally share Sofia`a views, as the only thing I believe in, is that love should finally win,” said Todorchuk.

Todorchuk also said that discrimination should be removed from Ukraine, and expressions of nationality, gender, sex should not be oppressed.

Lapina, who is the leading voice for the LGBT communities of Ukraine, said she had had many opportunities to move abroad, but had decided to stay.

“I’m sure our country can be successful,” Lapina said.

“I’m deeply convinced that Ukraine and any other country cannot be successful, unless people of all skin colors, sexual orientations, gender identities, or religions feel safe (in their countries),” Lapina added.

Presented his award by the Kyiv Post’s former CEO Jacub Parusinski, 23-year-old First Lieutenant Andriy Verhoglyad, who was injured in an anti-tank grenade explosion in late 2016, said he cannot consider himself a very successful person.

“Someone succeeds in business, someone in sports, but some people just do their military duty,” Verhoglyad said.

“It’s good that in the fifth year of fighting, the army is not forgotten,” Verhoglyad added.

Vladyslav Malashchenko, the founder of Good Bread from Good People, a social enterprise that helps adults with mental disabilities, said he hoped that Ukraine would become a country where empathy was a major feeling.

“The more we think about people who are beside us, the better the world will be,” Malashchenko said.