The Grand Adventures of Anna Ravioli: Heavenly Hundred

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.

I am admittedly late in beginning this section of my blog, and there are a score of adventures from last year still missing, but I will skip ahead to the present trip in the spirit of relevance.

For a country that some claim is “on the edge of civil war,” all Ukraine has thus far shown to me is the same peace and hospitality as ever before. Men may be fighting and dying in Luhansk and Donetsk, but everywhere that I have been has betrayed no hint of this violence. That said, some things have certainly changed in the eleven months since I was last here.

A patriotic slogan, "Glory to Ukraine!" spray-painted on the crumbling ruins of a building in Stryis'kiy Park. I was to see much more similar graffiti during my time in Ukraine.

L’viv is an eternal city, like Rome or Paris. It wears its age like a crown of flowers on its head. It is perhaps the most under-appreciated gem of a city in the world. The analysts who fear that all of Ukraine may descend into chaos on a moment's notice have obviously never visited this wondrous place.

Here, mere hours from the Polish border, life goes on as usual. Crumbling Austrian facades tower over quiet streetside cafes. There is music, laughter, and life. The only remaining sign of the recent tragedy is a poster in front of the main government building in Rynok Square, honoring the "Heavenly Hundred" who were killed in clashes against Yanukovych's government in February. More of the dead came from L'viv than from any other city. And while hints of mourning still appear now and then, it is apparent that most L'viv residents understand that the country's struggles are not over. At the Ukrainian Greek Catholic church service I attended on Sunday, all of the intentions were offered for Ukraine's Crimean Tatars, who have been forced off their land and threatened-- again-- by the Russians.

I know that in America right now, one is hard pressed to find a picture of Ukraine that does not include men with guns. So here are several that I took on a Sunday stroll through Stryi'ski Park.