Constitution Day

True or False? Pylyp Orlyk, an 18th century hetman, wrote the first constitution for Ukraine in 1710.
True or False? Adult Ukrainians are required by the constitution to take care of their parents if their parents are unable to work.
True or False? Constitution Day is not a national holiday, according to the constitution.
These were among the questions featured in a fun quiz at the June 25 session of the English Talk Lab as members and Peace Corps volunteers prepared for Ukraine’s annual observance of Constitution Day on June 28.
The answers to these questions, by the way, are:
--- True: And the Ukrainian constitution written by Orlyk came 77 years before the constitution of the United States of America.
--- True: Article 51 says that “Adult children are obliged to care for their parents who are incapable of work.”
--- False: Article 161 says that “The day of adoption of the Constitution of Ukraine is a national holiday. . .”
Everyone wished each other a safe and joyous Constitution Day, with hopes that some members will talk next time about how they actually celebrated this year’s holiday.
Talk Lab participants also learned that Ukraine made international news at least twice during the month of June. Members practiced their English reading, speaking and discussion skills with excerpts from these news stories.
One story was about Kherson’s city council approving a new law that bans dogs, cats and other pets from making noise between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. or the owner could be fined.
The other story concerned the discovery of 32,000-year-old human fossils in a Crimean cave site. Experts say that these human bones, teeth, tools, ivory ornaments and animal remains provide some of the oldest evidence of modern people in Europe.
In the news report, Professor Clive Finlayson, an evolutionary ecologist and director of the Gibraltar Museum, said that the discovery in Ukraine offers a glimpse into a very early and important human culture. Photos and video.