Until recently, the ‘church’ also had a portrait of Elon Musk in the traditional orthodox style, dressed as a saint, holding a SpaceX rocket, with the inscription ‘Prophet Elon.’
He was already popular, but Elon became a bonafide Ukrainian hero when the full-scale invasion began.
He offered Starlink terminals to beleaguered Ukrainian troops who were struggling to connect to the internet in the field.
Bohdan's love for Tesla grew into his own company, Tesla Service Kyiv (TSK).
They sell used and new Teslas from the US and Europe and provide services to Tesla owners in #Ukraine.
But despite loving Musk’s electric cars, the shop plans to stop celebrating the man himself so much.
At the showroom itself, its manager Vitalii told The Counteroffensive that they plan to change the label, no longer calling it the ‘Church of St Elon’.
"We have ordered a new sticker, we will remove this one. First of all, it is written in Russian, and secondly, what Musk is doing is not normal. I've been in combat since the beginning of the war... Yeah, we sell Tesla products. The cars are cool, everything is cool, but what he claims..." Vitalii trailed off.
Ukrainians once had a lot of time for Elon.
Musk had become a hero by providing Starlink internet terminals to #Ukraine, just days after the full-scale invasion began.
Musk has called for a truce in the war, which would likely mean freezing the battle lines where they are now.
That would essentially mean a concession of Ukrainian territory to occupying Russian forces.
Putin recently praised Musk as "an active and talented businessman," following reports that Musk helped disrupt a Ukrainian attack on the Russian Navy because Starlink communications were not available off the coast of #Crimea.
And this week, he went after the Ukrainian president, mocking Zelenskyy for asking for his repeated requests for aid as his country is being invaded, its civilians subject to war crimes, and its soldiers being maimed and killed.
Musk’s transformation into a villain for Ukrainians has meant that Tesla cars in #Ukraine face the prospect of being defaced, either by passersby, or even the owners themselves:
However, most Tesla fans still justify Elon’s wildly changing views on #Ukraine, or otherwise say they have disconnected their views on the Tesla technology from the views on Elon Musk the person.
"When a person has a Tesla, it sounds cool compared to a Mercedes or an Audi," said Bohdan.
Another Tesla owner, Vitalii Levchuk, bought his car in 2019.
In addition to the other amenities, electricity is much cheaper than gas in the war-torn country.
Bohdan Holovatiuk – who labeled his Tesla shop ‘The Church of St. Elon Musk’ – insists that Ukrainians should focus on the development of their own country rather than thinking about Musk too much.
"We need to develop the economy so that Ukrainian companies can compete for other markets. And if we don't do this, we will be constantly looking at what Elon Musk says. We have other things to do, and I think Elon is not the priority," Bohdan says.
But Ukrainians on Elon Musk’s own website, Twitter, are not in the mood to forget.
Passers-by on the street near the so-called Church of St. Elon are also unhappy.
They told The Counteroffensive that they don't understand how people can tolerate Musk.
"Demolish this church if Elon Musk behaves like this, and supports Russia. Those who buy Teslas, like him, are helping Russia," said a passing soldier who did not disclose his name.
"There shouldn't be such things, because it's also in Russian. We should at least erase that inscription," said Oleksandra, a 20-year-old passerby, referring to the hashtag along the roof about ‘St. Elon.’
The church’s manager promises that the inscription will come down soon.
It seems like all people can talk about here is the surprise attack on Israel this weekend.
More than one person has noted that the imagery from the last 24 hours has mirrored the imagery of the early full-scale invasion of #Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy quickly expressed his "solidarity" with Israel, noting that Ukrainians are in the unfortunate place of knowing what it feels like to have rockets fall on them, to have civilians killed in the streets.
@timkmak in this case, though, the parallel ⬆️ ends when we compare what Russians were living like compared to what Palestinians in Gaza were living like. I don't like what Hamas did, but I think the parallel is poor.
As the attacks unfolded, the Ukrainian embassy in Israel announced that its citizens should seek shelter during periods of shelling.
I couldn’t help but imagine the Ukrainian refugees who have sought refuge in Israel but found the war coming to them there as well.
“Information about the possible death of one Ukrainian citizen is being verified and the search for two of our citizens is underway,” Zelenskyy said in a message.
The relationship between #Israel and #Ukraine is complicated, to say the least.
But Israel has been reluctant to provide military aid to Ukraine, even as Zelenskyy’s government does battle with Shahed drones made by Israel’s enemy Iran.
Part of this is explained by Israel's interest in maintaining good relations with Russia, since the Russians are fighting in Israeli's next door neighbor Syria.
But FP's Stephen A. Cook argued earlier this year that Netanyahu's stance was also due to the Israeli-Russian "political affinities based on nationalism, identity, antipathy to liberalism and hostility to Muslims."
A slight change of pace: Tim noticed at a cafe a Ukrainian person declining to put two flowers on the same table, and asked Myroslava to write about the Ukrainian traditions around them.
Myroslava adores flowers – indoor, wild, or bouquets, in general – it doesn't matter to her.
But most of all, she appreciates having a variety of flowers at home.
She is lucky – she grows indoor plants on her own.
Today’s Dog of War is this cute dog that our friend (and William Glover Weiss’ fiance) Sophie Mestas saw on the street and chased after to capture in photographs.
She didn’t get the dog’s name because she didn’t know how to say ‘name’ in Ukrainian – we have since learned it is ім'я (pronounced im’ya).
@timkmak FWIW, I think Ukrainian might be like a lot of European languages where you say "what are you called?" instead of "what is your name?"
So it would more likely be something like, "як свуть собаку?" (pronounced "yahk svoot so-bahk-oo"). Similarly, "what is your name?" would be "як вас свуть?" and you would answer "меня свуть тім".
My Ukrainian is limited to just fooling around with Duolingo, so I might be wrong there.
@timkmak in hindsight one could speculate that the reason Musk provided starlink at the beginning of the war was all along a plot to execute control over ukrainian communications...
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