Volyn “governor” Volodymyr Bondar held his first meeting with the writers of the region almost on World Poetry Day. Some of the literary figures chose to see this as an optimistic sign for themselves. The conversation was opened by Vasyl Hei, head of the regional organization of the National Union of Writers. After introducing the members of the NSPU, he complained about the fate of the Ukrainian language, his low pension, complained about the department of education and science, which does not even want to take two hundred copies of “Svityaz” for free, and lamented the destruction during Kravchuk's presidency of the book distribution network. He also reminded that this year the 25th anniversary of the Volyn organization of the NSPU will be marked. This requires funds for receiving Kyiv guests and holding the poetry festival “Lisova Pisnya.” He spoke in favor of “Ukrainians in Ukraine being supported by the new government.” The verbal relay was picked up by Mykola Panasyuk (he was angry at regional television for not inviting him to the studio), Volodymyr Lys (praised the work of his wife Nadiya Humenyuk, fretted that low-grade reading material is getting into libraries), Klava Koretska (talked about the ruined club in the village where she was born, and about difficult housing conditions)… Again there were proposals to create an artistic council that would give libraries permission as to which books to take into their collections and which not (how would this differ from censorship?), boasts about the professionalism of the Union's members (then those outside the NSPU — like Lina Kostenko or Yevhen Sverstyuk — cannot claim an appropriate artistic level?). Volodymyr Bondar promised to “give the national book a green street.” About the prospects of his running the region's executive power, he said: “We see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am convinced that we will lead the people to this light.” He politely did not comment on the writers' self-panegyrics about the highly artistic level of their works (then these books would be in demand, they would be bought), or on the professionalism of NSPU members (a professional is not only one who writes accordingly, but above all one who earns a living by his work; if a writer cannot do this, then in order not to die of hunger he must earn in another way — journalism, street cleaning, teaching, and so on, but the government should not pay for lack of talent). However, even the not cheerful and so far not made public conclusions of the head of the regional state administration after the first meeting with writers would be compensated by his awareness that in Volyn there works a truly talented poet and prose writer Vasyl Slapchuk, and that a young generation is powerfully entering literature (although this is not always to the liking of older writers).