The Maidan is Still Here

My apartment in Kyiv was situated on Volodymyrs'ka Street, tucked away behind St. Sofia's Cathedral.

I captured this stunning view of St. Sofia's at sunset

Wandering around this part of town, I was surprised to see how little had changed. Reading all of the news reports and watching all of the live videos from Kyiv had made it seem like half the city had been destroyed. My first hint that things were different was the medical tent which was still pitched in front of St. Michael's monastery.

The tent is at the bottom-left, with the Ukrainian flag on top. The first night that the police beat protesters, they fled and were given sanctuary in this monastery. Monks gave them tea, medical care, and a warm place to rest, and prayed over them, while locking out the riot police.

It was surprising, indeed, when the woman in the produkti where I stopped for a bottle of water addressed me in Ukrainian and not in Russian. But it would not be until that evening, when I went down to the Khreshchatyk, Kyiv's main boulevard, that I was again surprised to see just how much had changed.

Shevchenko's 200th birthday poster appears many places down the street.

Shevchenko's stern countenance also stares out from the Rada building, where protesters set up camp for months during the winter. The spray-painted label of "Revolution Headquarters" has now been painted out. The white sign says that the Rada building is closed for renovation and repairs, and apologizes for any inconvenience.

Army tents are still set up in the middle of the street; men in fatigues wander between them. They hang with signs describing the group which lives inside: many are from regions like Vinnytsia, Luhansk or Crimea, while others carry the party logos of far-right groups like Pravy Sektor and Spilna Sprava.

The tent from Vinnytsia

The Maidan itself is unrecognizable from my previous visit. The burnt-out husk of the Trade Unions building towers over everything as a somber reminder of the violence which has occurred here. Its charred facade has been sprinkled with blots of pink paint, which seem to glow like sparks in the twilight.

The last time I returned to the Maidan, after these pictures were taken, one side of the Trade Unions Building had been covered by a screen showing the iconic Ukrainian landscape of golden wheat under a blue sky, with the words, "Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes"

Some barricades still remain, made of tires, cobblestones, and debris.

The base of Hrushevskoho Street, where the first protesters were killed after the passage of repressive anti-protest laws in January.

This sign says, "25 May [the date of the election] your voice is crucial- time to live anew"

You can also see where Maidan activists tore up the cobblestones to build the barricades and for use as weapons against the riot police. In some of these spaces there are stacks of new bricks waiting to be lain, but as yet they are still unrepaired.

The above reads "A united country"

And rising up through the center of it all, the "yolka"--the Christmas tree which was never fully assembled, which became the beacon for the protests.

"It all started with this yolka," my friend Halya tells me, "because the government wanted to put it up, but the students would not allow them to do it." As the protests went on, the yolka became covered with flags and banners rather than evergreen boughs.

These say "Everyone together against Putin" and "We love Russians, we despise Putin"

The message of the Maidan has changed; now that Yanukovych is gone, focus has shifted to the violence in the East of the country and Russia's role in it. Anti-Russia sentiment is much more apparent than before. More Ukrainian is being spoken in Kyiv than before. Though things are quiet here now, this was the place where the first blood was spilled, where a hundred protesters were shot by government snipers just days before Yanukovych fled and Russian troops invaded Crimea.

I walked with Halya up to Instituts'ka street, where most of the deaths occurred.

It is difficult to capture this experience in words, because the wounds are still so raw. The barricades are still here, layer on layer of them. Memorials line the street on either side, covered with mounds of flowers, candles, and pictures of the dead. Some of them were quite young-- we stopped at the memorial of a man who was only 18 years old. Friends and family stand mourning before them. Pointing, Halya shows me where the snipers were standing-- on top of Hotel Ukrainia, where I stayed in 2012 before observing the Parliamentary elections. Then she shows me a metal lamppost with bullet holes in it. "The men were carrying wooden shields," she says, "it could not protect them from bullets like this. Or their helmets." They are heroes, she says. She is sure they are in heaven now.

The people who remain on the Maidan these days, however, have ambiguous significance. They claim that they needed to stay in place until the election in order to ensure that all of the demands of the Maidan were fully carried out in accordance with the wishes of the people. But, several Ukrainians told me, the people there now are not really representatives of the people. "They should go home now," my friend Halya tells me, "Go home to their families, go back to work. We got what we wanted. There is no need for them to be here any more. They are just lazy. They sit here all day and drink. And then people come to the Maidan and see them, and they say 'Oh, the people on Maidan were just a bunch of lazy drunks.' They say they are heroes, but if they were really heroes, they would be going to the east." Whether it is really laziness or Post-Traumatic Stress, it's hard to say. But it is certainly clear that these men (because they are mostly men) do plan to stay here for a while.

Klitschko, the new mayor-elect, last week called for the square to be cleared. Now he has retracted that call. It will be interesting to see what happens with this space in the future.

"European Square" at the end of Khreshchatyk. The sign reads "A United Country" in both Ukrainian and in Russian.

Ukrainian Christmas

On my last day in L'viv, I met Mariana at the bus station and we took the hour-and-a-half ride to her grandmother's village.

During my stay at her house, I never went hungry! Every moment I was being offered tea with pampukh, poppyseed bread, and cake, or enjoying an enormous meal. The first night, since it was Christmas Eve, we had the traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve meal of twelve courses; starting with garlic dipped in salt and pickled herring and ending with кутя (Kutya, a dish made with buckwheat, honey, poppyseed, and raisins). In between there were various vaguely familiar dishes of mushrooms, potatoes, stewed cabbage, and so on.

Early Christmas morning, Mariana and I got up and went to the village church for mass. Though crowded, it was a beautiful service. After a nap and a hearty lunch, we went on a short walk around the village and down to the river with Mariana's uncle.

The village was small, but pretty.

On the day after Christmas, we took the bus back to the city. Mariana's sister waited with us.

We waited a long time for the bus... it was really cold (-7* C/ 19* F)!

After the long bus ride back, I had to wait almost an hour for a bus into the city. At one point the correct bus came, but another was already stopped where I was waiting and I didn't see it in time to flag it down. By the time I made it to Charitie's apartment in the center, I was freezing!!!

Charitie and I went out to dinner at a new restaurant in L'viv with Russell and another L'viv Fulbrighter named Steven, to say goodbye to Russell, whose Fulbright term was up just a few days later. We also stopped by the Pampukh festival on Rynok square. Pampukh are traditional Ukrainian Christmas donuts, filled with various delicious things. Mariana's grandmother had made hers with poppyseed filling, but at the festival I was able to try one with apricot filling and one filled with cream. So good!!! This should totally be a tradition in America too.

I had tried to get my train ticket for the same day, but there hadn't been any available, so I had to stay an extra day in L'viv. It turned out to be good, though, because I didn't get into the city until evening and was tired and hungry. That night I slept in the same apartment I'd stayed in before I left for Mariana's, then the next day caught my train back to Vinnytsia. I was in platzkart, third class, sharing a car with a TON of high school students who had been on an excursion to L'viv and a few other places. Fortunately, the woman sitting next to me was their chaperone, and she was nice and chatted with me, assuring me she could understand me even though I was terribly mixing my Ukrainian and Russian at that point (starting to speak surzhyk like a native, haha).

It was such a relief to get home and rest! And Mariana's grandmother had sent home with me copious amounts of cake and poppyseed bread, along with five poppyseed pampukh. Om nom nom.

Back in Vinnytsia, I was finally able to take care of some important business that had been put off in my absence. With Tanya's help, I got my boots repaired (they'd been broken ever since I ran after the train when leaving for Turkey) and picked up the care package my parents had sent for Christmas, which had been waiting at the Meest office in Vinnytsia.

Words can't express how thrilled I was with this spread. God, I miss Dr. Pepper!!

I also met up with my student Tania a few times to help her with an application for IREX, which is a program that enables foreign students to study in the U.S. After one of our sessions working on her application, we took a walk around the city to enjoy the holiday decorations.

The main square was all decked out for the holidays. Even the hideous Soviet eyesore that is the administration building had been transformed into a magical winterscape.

In the park by the tower there had sprung up a Christmas Festival similar to the one I'd seen in L'viv.

Then we walked down the street to the main park, where the city's main Christmas tree was standing. In an earlier entry, I posted a picture of this tree being built. Now it was fully decorated, and rotating, too!

The giant tree even rotates!

At the base of the tree.

As we walked around enjoying the beautiful decorations, Tania and I bought some солодка вата-- cotton candy.

On another adventure, she helped me to buy my train tickets for my trip to Chernivtsi, and we walked all the way from the train station back to the center of town.

On the way, we passed the building of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Outside the Ministry of Defense. This one's for Paul :)

 During the few weeks between these two crazy trips, I also did a little shopping with Karis. We went to the main bazaar and to the expo-center near my house to find some fleece-lined tights. I also did a lot of knitting. I made a hat!

...all of which was good, because I was about to embark on a my fantastic but extremely cold and crazy adventure to the Bukovyna region!