By Anton Miroshnichenko, acting president of Urantia Association of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
In January 2014, we, the members of Urantia Association of Ukraine, began negotiations with Urantia Foundation concerning the importation of Urantia Books into Ukraine. There have been almost no books available in Ukraine since the distributor of the Russian translation in St. Petersburg, Russia, lost the inventory in a fire in 2012. Also, the average cost of The Urantia Book in Ukraine increased to 60–75 US dollars (USD).
In the fall of 2013, due to the demand for The Urantia Book, we asked Urantia Association International (UAI) to help us obtain books. Rick Lyon sent us ten books, and we sold them at an affordable price and started a fund for repeat purchases. After selling the first ten books, we were able to buy another ten from Amazon.com. We did this for the next five to six months and sold fifty copies of The Urantia Book. The disadvantages of this method were the wait times of one month for delivery and the cost of 40–45 USD per book. This is quite expensive for Ukrainians. Also, when purchasing goods, including books, on Amazon, according to Ukrainian legislation, we have to pay customs duties on goods worth more than 300 euros. Hence we prefer smaller orders valued at less than 300 euros.
To make The Urantia Book available at an affordable price to the readers in Ukraine, we decided to accept the offer of Urantia Foundation and proceed with the official importation of a pallet of 270 books. We arranged for the shipment of the books, paid the customs and import fees, and will pay for the books on consignment. A few months prior to importing the books, I received a legal license to import goods in connection with my employer. This is serving our Urantia Association well! Special thanks go to a close friend of my mother, Larisa from Sumy City, who is the director of a customs brokerage firm. She helped me a lot and greatly simplified the process of my registration at customs.
Initially our association wanted to pay all importation costs ourselves, but we could afford only one fourth of the amount. Rick Lyon advised us to ask for help from the Urantia community. Gary Rawlings, the membership chair of the UAI, advised me to send a request to the UAI for a loan.
A few days later the dissemination chair and the president of UAI, Chris Wood, approved the loan. So I signed another contract with the UAI to receive this loan, which we promised to pay back after we sell this shipment of books.
Below is a list of all the fees paid for the 270 books.
Expenditure |
Amount in USD |
The cost of one book from Urantia Foundation. |
$15 |
Ecological certificate. |
$145 |
Customs. |
$892 |
Delivery of books to Lviv, Ukraine, from the Netherlands. |
$520 |
Services of customs broker. |
$145 |
Payment for 1-day parking of the car at the customs terminal. |
$21 |
Overhead (5% tax for transfer of funds to the bank account to return funds to UAI and Urantia Foundation and banking costs of 1%). |
$292 |
The total cost of import. |
$1,723 |
Import costs per book. |
$7.50 |
The contribution towards the next shipment per book. |
$5.80 |
The final price of one book. |
$28.30 |
We sell the book in Ukraine for 340 UAH (28.33 USD). One week after receiving the 270 books, we had sold 20 books. As of today, June 19, we have sold 50 books.
Our plans for the future include putting the book in the main bookstores, on the internet stores, and in the retail chains of bookstores.
The complexities concerning the importation of the books has attracted the attention of many people. Everyone involved now knows about the existence of The Urantia Book. You should have seen the eyes of the Ukrainian frontier guard at customs in Lviv when he opened the sealed container with the 270 books. It was funny!
I would like to say thank you 1) to Henk Mylanus, trustee of Urantia Foundation and European sales manager, for his patient answers to my emails and his comprehensive assistance with the importation of the books; 2) to Michael Hanian, the translator of the Russian translation, for the idea of importing the books; 3) to Vladimir Slyn'ko, a member of Urantia Association of Ukraine, for helping with the import arrangements and believing that it was possible; 4) to Gary Rawlings for his continuing support and his offer to apply to the UAI for help; 5) to Andrew from Lviv, another member of Urantia Association of Ukraine, for helping with transportation and storage of the books; 6) to Chris Wood and the dissemination committee of UAI for their support and quick response to our need for financial assistance; and 7) to all the members of the Urantia Association of Ukraine for their full support of this project.
And finally we express our gratitude to the Father and to all our unseen friends. Truly, when man goes into partnership with God, great things can and do happen.
Anton Miroshnichenko