Everything Is Bad Luck

A sampling of what is bad luck in Ukrainian culture (many of these are shared with Russian culture or other EE nations)
Shaking hands across the threshold of a house
Bringing an even number of flowers
Giving yellow flowers to a sweetheart
Whistling indoors
Whistling in public (when can you whistle?  I still don't know)
Killing spiders or insects in the house
Drinking cold drinks (you'll get a cold)
Going outside when it's slightly cold while not wearing 40 layers (you'll also get a cold)
Opening windows on a bus, even when its 100 degrees outside and there's no A/C (you'll probably get a cold as well)
What's good luck in Ukraine
Brooms (because they sweep away bad luck)

There's a lot of bad luck superstitions here, and sometimes it's a little irritating, i.e. I whistle all the time, like cold drinks and a nice breeze, and I'm not going to bother to catch a spider to put it outside.  But it makes sense historically that there are so many bad luck customs.  Ukraine (and all of Eastern Europe) has not been the luckiest place on earth.  Unlucky to be so close to invasion-happy Germany and expansion-happy Russia rather than surrender-happy France, nap-happy Spain, and tea-happy Britain.  There's still craters in the nearby forests from Nazi bombs.  Unlucky to have no idea how to handle capitalism when Ukraine first became independent in 1991, and see the living standards decline for most of the population AFTER communism ended.  Yeah, that's something they don't tell you in American schools.  In most of the former Soviet republics, death rates have risen, birth rates and life expectancies have fallen, emigration rates have soared, organized crime (specializing in drugs, sex trade, and more) has gotten more powerful, education has, pardon my French, gone to shit, and corruption has become endemic.

Anyway.  I hope that was illuminative, informative, and maybe a little entertaining.

"Poor Mexico!  So far from God, and so close to the United States!"--Porfirio Díaz