OK, I promised.

Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
0) Why isn't Ukraine in the trade union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan?
I don't know really. One should be skilled in economics to say what exactly are pluses and minuses of that union. I guess that our previous president was romantic and was expecting to make a kind of trade relation with EU instead on the base of ideology: "orange revolution", "pro-Western government" etc..

Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
1) Are Ukrainian people even more cynical about Politics than Russians?
In some sense yes. Russians often have sentiments about "Great Eurasian Nation," "Political and cultural superpower" and so on. Ukrainians usually have not.

Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
2) What are the three main parties in Ukrainian politics and what do they stand for?
This is the problem. Our main parties usually has no responsible political ideology, they just fight for power with each other. Of course there are populist slogans and promises before the elections but after the elections they are easily "forgotten". Organization of parties in fact are based on personal (corrupted) relations rather than on ideology. Still I'll try to describe some trends.

Our main parties are: 1) "Party of Regions" (PR), which keeps the power now. It is traditionally supported by big industrial business of the urbanized Russian-spoken Eastern Ukraine. 2) "Fatherland", which has good results in Central Ukraine, consists of "petty bourgeoisie" in Marxist terms and strongly based on the personality of the leader Yulia Timoshenko. (Not so long ago the party was called "Yulia Timoshenko's Block") 3) I don't know which is the third now. Some time ago it was "Our Ukraine" leaded by previous president Viktor Yushchenko. It was based on ethnic-cultural nationalism and had majority in Western regions. But now they lost many votes as their president was extremely unsuccessful.

3) What triggered the Orange Revolution?
Well, a group of people (behind the contemporary "Party of regions") tried to get the power without enough support of other players and mass media (especially in Kiev).

4) What precisely happened in the Orange Revolution?
Err... Too much. There were president elections where Yanukovich (from PR) won with minor advantage. Then there were mass demonstrations in Kiev against him claiming that elections were falsified. The power collapsed and there were re-elections where his opponent Yushchenko was elected with minor advantage.

5) What good/bad things came out of the Orange Revolution and is it still relevant today?
The bad: we got a president and government, which were in permanent quarrel and were unable to work effectively and finally crashed the economy. The legal procedures were violated and now no political power respects the procedure: nothing is stable, everything can be revised at any time. Chaos, instability. (I don't know, who is more guilty: falsifiers or revolutionizers.)
The good: we got more pluralistic politics, media and society.

6) Where lies the future of Ukraine, with Russia/CIS, with the EU, with both or neither?
Pray and you will be answered. We are not masters of our fate.

7) What are most important problems that the Ukrainian government must solve, according to regular Ukrainians?
Provide stability. Rise the level of life. Stop the corruption.

8 ) Is there a bit split in the opinions of people in rural vs urban areas.. and what about Russian speaking vs Ukrainian speaking areas?
OMG. Yes, there is a difference between Russian-spoken East and South vs Ukrainian-spoken West. In attitude, traditions etc. But the border is smooth.

9) Is language preference a serious problem in Ukraine or rather insignificant?
Well, I live in the East and we have no this problem locally. There are very few people who speak Ukrainian in common life. (Though there are some people who say that we should. My wife says that we are Ukrainians and we should not forget our beautiful language. OK, I say, let us speak Ukrainian each second day. Oh, no, it is too complicated, I am tired, I have more important problems right now. Maybe some day.) In the Center and in the West situation is more complicated... But I guess in common life it should not be a problem now anywhere. You will be understood in both languages as well as in great number of local variations and language mixtures.