§ general     # Ukraine • Europe • travel

For the Nth time have found myself referring back to an exceptionally vivid infographics on how many Ukrainians have ever been abroad:

There are three parts of the country represented in the picture — the West, Center, and South-East. The colour code is as follows:

• The purple area represents percentage of people who have never been outside Ukraine
• The green area corresponds to those who visit other countries less that once per two years
• The blue — once every two years
• The white — once a year
• and the red for those who go abroad more than once a year.

It was a staggering revelation for me that almost 8 people out of every 10 have never been abroad in their life! Even more, another poll reveals that 37% of people never travelled outside their region (county) within Ukraine!

That data correlates neatly with the hostility or indifference towards the EU integration as well. In the west we see about 11% of people are regularly travelling abroad and support there for EU integration is the strongest. Compare this with a meagre 5-6% in the East with the most vocal opposition towards Europe. Indeed, the less people know the easier it is to manipulate them.