Our reporter from Kiev: tales from the Maidan

When did you arrive in Ukraine do the situation seemed calm? Or was it already in the air that something was going to happen?

From the beginning we have heard of expectations for the signing of the agreement with the European Union, scheduled for November, and about tensions on the Ukraine-Russia customs, which here were related to that. In November, I think, began demonstrations in support of the signing of the treaty, while Yanukovych then announced that it was better to postpone.

The demonstrations continued, pro-European, but also against, always peacefully, so much so that here everyone thought “Europe, goodbye and thank you”. Only a couple of hundred guys has continued to remain under the column of the Maidan, until the night between 29th and November 30th. The evening of the 29th we were in the square, like most nights, because we live 400 meters from Maidan, and all was quiet.

We returned home and we felt sorry for those guys who were playing guitars, I remembered with little melancholy of the most significant earlier gatherings. I say melancholy because the feeling was that all this would just be over in a little. It was already a bloody cold.

Who’s the Maidan? Do you think that the violence occurred would just leave fascist movements on the front?

To hear Yanukovych and Putin, Kiev would be in the hands of the Nazi-Fascist hordes, who march goose-stepping through the city, burning churches and clubbing people. I can confirm that a lot of people were there, but they were not beaten by any Nazi. In addition, there are the nationalists, Pravi Sector, Spilna Prava, the Democratic Alliance, and many more. Then several Jews, who shared the reasons for the protest, and if I’m not mistaken four are dead.

Nazi-fascists also where there, for sure, and had also been photographed with the doodles on the shields, and so what? I have not seen just some fascist rebel teams: I saw an entire people. And in my view, the point is: there were the reasons? I think so. Here no one is burning the churches: because they have already been burned and razed almost all by Stalin, and then the remaining ones they hold them tight. But mainly because the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was the first to give shelter to the demonstrators and to stand with them, even before politicians.

Every day on the stage (there were also Catholics, the minority) to pray, and at the end of the barricades, to the last, even them with their shields. And the union of the Ukrainian churches recognized the new government. The propaganda hits hard here but elsewhere too: in my view, to describe how the situation is, some of our journalists had never set foot in Kiev.

I also had information about it directly or indirectly. I also asked for certainty to my teacher: ” Nazis?” she answered me with a smile and said: “this stuff (disquisitions on Nazism, fascism, etc.) are philosophy, rich’s stuff. Here there we can’t afford this, here it is only a matter of xlib (bread)…”

Why did you decide to see things from the “front line” instead of just staying safely at home?

What happened here is incredible: a popular movement that is entrenched in the main square of the capital, making it peacefully inaccessible to the government for months. Stuff I ever seen, at least by me. This is what prompted me to squeeze in there. Inevitable solidarity for those people and the passion for ramshackle photography did the rest. And of course my wife, fundamental, always in close contact with the local working environment, and simultaneously translating me what was being said on stage and people’s comments.

Here, the views on the events of the square are two, who says that it is peaceful demonstration pro-Europe and those who say that the movements of the extreme right have orchestrated the protests and it is therefore an organized coup. The truth lies somewhere in between or somewhere else?

Suppose you need a blood test (constitutional right to health), you arrive in the Kiev hospital and they tell you that they are missing the needles. Come back the next day, and there is no doctor. The day after that, and the computer does not work. And so on. But if you take out a bit of hrivnie, you do the exam on the first day.

Or suppose you have to sign documents for the renovation of your home, or for any other bureaucratic stuff: take the appointment, a day off, you get there and there is nobody to makes the signatures, the day after a lack of electricity, and so on. But then someone approaches you and, with a bit of grit, in an hour makes you have the whole package signed…

Or, start a business, and just when you start to go pretty well (and so do you compete with someone) the police come with some specious infringement, you seize everything, and you get stuck with the risk of ending up in jail. After a while, when you’re now desperate, someone comes along that just to do you a favor buying for 30 what it’s worth 100, and you have to also say thank you. A must is when you get a fine: if you want to pay regularly you lose 3 working days in the attorney’s office and pay 100, the bribe doesn’t make you waste time and you immediately pay one-third.

The flow of money is huge, and is distributed proportionally to the hierarchy of the administrations involved. Imagine what happens to the upper floors. Who has the right friends from year to year may end up with hundreds of millions, if not billions, in his pocket. A giant, capillary, collective bribe. Not without reason, they call that “Mafia”.

The Ukrainians have endured much over the centuries, and many are resigned to such a system, but when they stepped on their sons that morning that was the last straw. When talking about Europe here, people are not intended to refer to the latest model of smartphone, but the RULES, European standards of law and justice, to ensure people’s right to live without having to walk with bundles of money in your pocket. And then on the barricades, they were all there, and all remained to the last: students, teachers, professors, lighting technicians, seismologists, theater directors, engineers, journalists (these are some of the categories to which killed people belong). And the priests, but this is a different story.

Instead at 4 in the morning berkut have beaten boys and journalists and surrounded the square. Some of the TV showed images in the morning, and many have come to the streets. I saw women and old men cry and yell at the cops. During the day people began to gather in front of the monastery in which some protesters had taken refuge.

Towards evening a van with loudspeakers arrived. Some people took turns talking and wondered where the opposition politicians ended up (who had spoken at the Pro-Europe meetings of the days before), inviting everyone to word of mouth for a protest demonstration the following day. The night began with a car horn carousel, and the next day, Sunday, in the square there were between 500,000 and one million (hard to know) people. I have seen no trace of organization in all of this.

In the days before January 19, when the fighting began, the parliament, with irregular procedure, approved a law banning helmets (some years in prison), defamation punished with years of jail (warning to journalists), years in prison even for those who lent amplification equipment, and many other repressive measures. protesters are really pissed off.

After the deaths of 22 January, the uprising is also equipped with weapons. Apart from the photographic evidence (and ads of some sectors of the revolt) would seem evident from the number of police deaths February 18, which is 11. That morning, the demonstrators headed towards the area of government buildings. We do not know who started it, but in addition to the policemen, twenty people were killed. The police counterattack swept everyone and, getting to the Maidan, has occupied half of the square. A semicircle of tires on fire, and immediately behind the activists and their shields, was the only barrier between the stage and the berkut. That evening we saw the shields of the police shine over the flames, with the water cannon above the tank trying to shut down the whole thing, and then we saw the labor union building on fire, attacked by berkut: some charred bodies were found.

On the 19th morning, the situation was unchanged, but I have seen new teams of activists arrive at the square from different cities. The 20th-morning activists fought back. The police retreated very quickly protected by sniper fire. Another 50 people died, all in the stretch from the square to the concrete barrier erected by the police shortly after the subway, in Istitutska: a hundred meters.

There are several movies on the web. I heard the shots, but I thought it was the plastic bullets that I had seen used in the clashes in January. Then I saw the stretcher bearers coming, and align the wounded bodies along the barricade: shots to the head, face, chest. That same evening, 26th caught police officers were released. As a result, agreeing with the protesters, the police has completely abandoned the scene. And when Yanukovych signed the deal on Friday, there was no one out to defend him, and so he ran away.