The election was indeed held under unusual conditions: the payment for the title of academician has been significantly raised. A provocative move for an academic community, which has already started to lose interest in the once honorary title.

By the way, the word “historic” was first used by Andrey Gurdzhy, who told of the decision of the Ukrainian government to raise significantly the payment for the academic title. Since then the corresponding members have paid $ 250 and the full members $400. This is somewhat less then in Russia, however for Ukrainian scientists, trying to save money on their fares on public transport, it was a generous gift.

The results of the election to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine have clearly revealed the attitude of Ukrainian scientists to the government. Thus, vice prime minister Dmirty Tabachnik was not elected as a corresponding member; he was rejected early, during the voting at the section.

Bohdan Hubsky was not elected a corresponding member either, although according to authoritative economists, the concepts, being developed by his group, is one of the most promising in Ukrainian economic science. Moreover, Hubsky set up a foundation, which plays a leading role in supporting science and scientists in Ukraine. However all of the above did not outweight his close association with those in power.

Surprisingly, Stanislav Dovgy was not elected academician. One would think that Dovgy has done for the Academy much more than many others. Suffice it to say that he organized the connection of the research and educational institutions of the Academy to the All-European research Internet network. This solved the problem of the inclusion of the Ukrainian scientific community into a process of information exchange with the European scientific community.

After all that has been said, the non-election of the head of the Chief Department of international business and investment of Kyiv State Administration Mikhailo Pozhuvanov is perceived as quite natural.

Even Ella Libanova, a person representing the scientific community, who conducted an important and meaningful research in demography lost quite a few votes in competition with those of her colleagues, who were not noted for their contacts with the government. Perhaps her working as an advisor to the President automatically incited a significant part of the audience against her and placed in jeopardy her obvious achievements in science.

Nevertheless, parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn was elected academician and director of the construction company Pozniakizhylstroy Nevr Mhytarian was elected a corresponding member. Actually, the speaker was elected by only one vote.

Nevertheless, despite all of the above, it is still difficult to understand what criteria the academicians used to elect new members. If we assume that the election was done according to the principle “not to let in the administrators, members of parliament and people in power”, then two days earlier the obvious favorites of the elections at the sections were not the researchers but academic leaders, who as a rule are not directly engaged in the research. Perhaps this is the chief mystery of the Academy - to manage to combine an obvious dislike for governmental institutions with a worship of its own petty and untalented leadership.

However, let us not identify the National Academy with the academicians because unfortunately full members were frequently elected who did not glorified it and over the last few years the most gifted young scientists tried to keep in the background or even leave the country. Distinguished were those who received their titles for working in the presidium and for their communist party merits. The real scientists were often forgotten.

This election has once again proved that the clear organizational structure of the Academy, which was its major advantage in Soviet times and helped it survive through a period of disorder, has now become its most significant hardship. The Academy increasingly resembles a hospice with all that it implies. Some scientists were amazed at the hypocrisy of the participants of the vote: they approached the defeated and said that they had voted “in their favor”. Thus one of the defeated was approached by six persons who told him that they were “in favor”, whereas in fact there were only two real votes.

However, this election can be considered as a warm up before the major event scheduled for November - the election of the president of the National Academy of Sciences. There will be a painful replacement of a leader who lead the Academy through various epochs, the Khrushchev epoch, the Brezhnev epoch and the time of an independent Ukraine. The name of Platon has become synonymous with Ukrainian science over such a long period of time and for many it is impossible to imagine how the Academy can work without such a leader. Unfortunately it is hard to see who can replace him.

The figures who wish to head the process in the future have already become obvious. They have not done anything specific in the field of science and they have not proposed any new concept of development but they are ready to make a start…

It is clear for many that the current academic system is rotten, but it is also clear that as long as there are those willing to play, this game will continue, although the number of the players is decreasing…

P.S. This story would have been incomplete if we did not mention the fact that many of the scientists believe that there has been an oral agreement between the presidium of the Academy and certain top officials. The essence of the agreement is that in exchange for the raise of payment for the titles, the academicians would elect certain representatives of the government. It did not work…