All articles
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The “Green Tariff” Runs Until 2030: Ukraine’s Renewable Buyback and Its Payment Arrears
Since 2008, Ukraine has bought solar and wind power at prices set by the state. A 2020 law cut the tariffs, and the provision to repay arrears with government bonds has been suspended every year since. This article sets out the level of payment in the summer of 2026, how plants in occupied territory are treated, and the results of the auctions that began in 2024.
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Where to Get Help When You Start Living in Japan — Including Places You Can Consult in Ukrainian
A map of where someone who has started living in Japan can first turn for help. Contacts you can consult in Ukrainian, FRESC, your local municipal counter, medical care, your children's schooling, work, and learning Japanese. The contacts listed here are ones still active as of September 23, 2026. Some contacts have already ended, so we start with those. This article does not judge any individual's procedure.
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Allergen Labeling Becomes Mandatory for 9 Items: Cashew Nuts Added to Japan’s Food Labeling Rules
Packaged and boxed food sold in Japan must, by law, be labeled with ingredients, allergens, expiry dates, and place of origin. In April 2026 cashew nuts were added to the mandatory allergens, bringing the total to 9. This article covers the mandatory 9 items, the recommended 20 items, the difference between a "consume-by" date and a "best-before" date, how far the rules do not reach for restaurant food or food made and sold on the spot, and how to read country-of-origin labeling, based on the Food Labeling Standards and Consumer Affairs Agency materials.
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The River Herodotus Called “Borysthenes”: The Dnipro
The Dnipro River, which flows through Kyiv, was called “Borysthenes” by Herodotus in the fifth century BCE, “Danapris” in fourth-century Latin, and “Ozi” and other names in Turkic languages. This article traces one river's names in chronological order and looks at how the Japanese “Doniepuru” and English “Dnieper” have changed over time.
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Hand It In Within 7 Days, or 24 Hours at a Shop or Station: Japan’s Rules for Lost and Found Property
If you find lost property in Japan, you hand it to the police if you're on the street, or to staff if you're in a shop or station. Miss 7 days (24 hours for property found inside a facility) and you lose your rights as the finder. This article covers the 5-20% reward, gaining ownership after 3 months, the 2-month collection deadline, why mobile phones and ID cannot be claimed, and how to file a lost-property report, based on the Lost Property Act and National Police Agency guidance.
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To Tokyo with His Family in 1929: The Pianist Leo Sirota
Pianist Leo Sirota first visited Japan on a concert tour in 1928 and lived there from 1929 to 1946. Drawing on Tokyo Music School's staff rosters, contemporary yearbooks, and academic papers, this article traces the discrepancies in how his birthplace is recorded, the students he taught, and even conflicting dates for when he left Japan.
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311,792 Students Enrolled: Japan’s Correspondence High Schools, Where 74 Credits Come From Reports and Schooling
At a Japanese correspondence high school, you work on reports at home and elsewhere, and build up credits through scheduled in-person schooling days and exams. Graduation requires 74 or more credits and at least 3 years. As of May 2026, enrollment passed 310,000 for the first time. This article covers how the learning works, satellite facilities, the 2022-2023 rule changes, and the tuition support payment system that changed in fiscal 2026 (as of September 2026).
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1,498 People Studying Japanese in Ukraine: The Japan Foundation’s FY2024 Survey
According to the Japan Foundation's FY2024 survey, Ukraine has 14 institutions teaching Japanese, 93 teachers, and 1,498 learners—down from the FY2021 survey. This article looks at the trend since FY2012, a change in how teachers are counted, and the history of Japanese-language teaching at universities in Kyiv, based on the survey reports and university records.
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Ручка Is a Little Hand, and Also a Pen: Ukrainian’s Diminutive Forms
In Ukrainian, рука is "hand." Add -к- and you get ручка, and a dictionary will give you several meanings: a little or dear hand, a door or bag "handle," and a writing "pen." This article lays out, by grammatical gender of the noun, the suffixes that add a sense of "small" or "dear" to a word's ending, the forms built by stacking them up to three deep (as in хата to хатиночка), how they extend to adjectives, adverbs, and even verbs spoken to children, and words that have lost their sense of smallness altogether — all drawn from an encyclopedia, the orthography rules, and dictionaries.
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From Rashomon to A Wild Sheep Chase: Japanese Novels in Ukrainian Translation
In 1971, a collection of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's short stories was translated from Japanese into Ukrainian and published in Kyiv. This article traces, through encyclopedias and library catalogs, the people who have brought Japanese literature into Ukrainian, from Japanese studies in 1920s Kharkiv to the physicist-translator Ivan Dziub and the dictionary-maker Ivan Bondarenko.