Heavenly Hundred

Sleeping on the Square

So far, I've slept out in the street, the ' Maidan' Square now on several occasions, in the union building and now in a van on Kreshatik. Quite cold in the car really, there was a drop down bed but the covers kept falling off,  the engine would be switched on until it got baking, temperature would drop, a dampness inside would envelope and cold would seep into every crevice of any gaps in the additional rough sheep wool Karpathian blankets that topped a thick cheap synthetic quilt borrowed from a cossack tent. 

Places available to sleep on the square were the Trade Union Building where the press center was and other rooms for different civil groups, city hall, various tents, whoever you could make friends with, the October Palace and cars. The important thing was to stay close and available to defend the barricades and fend off any attackers who wanted to clear the square. 
When I arrived on the train sunday afternoon I got a metro train to Kreshatik which strangely is a tube station that exits right in the middle of the street that holds protest camp and is in fact inside one of the scrap metal, wood and old tire barriers made by the protestors.It was now becoming quite colorful raw planks of wood painted reminiscent of adventure playground in London. I noted some of the tires featured everywhere  Food is plentiful at the independent square these days. Where usually food would be got from fast food places like McDonald's there are two in the same square block fancy 24 hour cafés where cappuccinos and food are available. Now just go straight to one of the tables giving out white plastic bowls full of buckwheat, stew or cup of chicken soup with rice. Open faced sandwiches which they call canapés provide baloney and cheese combinations unexpectedly 'smachno' (tasty) treats, accompanied always with black sweet tea or coffee made with fresh grounds mixed with hot water in thin plastic cups which look flimsy and maybe would melt but seems to work fine.

Beautiful Drone of the Stage

I collapsed last night,in my own bed at home in Lviv, a small picturesque city on the west side of Ukraine close to the polish border.  Yesterday was a blur.  I picked up money sent from my mother (my job here hasn't started yet) and it was enough to buy myself some simple food and get a train ticket back to Kyiv I indulge in delicious raw honey and raw milk from the "babas bazar" and a friend visits and helps me get to grips with paying bills in my new Ukrainian apartment. red tape concerning the gas boiler. nothing is easy here.

I bump into an old patriot friend.  Lviv is a small picturesque city, likely you will bump into people you know esp in the centre where I live. She tells me she does not agree with joining eu and wants Ukraine to stay as Ukrainian as possible. no point arguing with her about how Ukraine's only hope of getting rid of Russia is to go towards EU, if only for a little while until Ukraine gets stronger.

 I surf the web today catching up on links and news about the Protests back at ground zero, the independent square in Kyiv, The capital of Ukraine. I was too busy and nervous to read while there at whats known as the 'Maidan'. People seem to have have dropped the "Euro". In the evening I tap into Aronets live video stream of the independent square. It's been two empty days away and I'm hungry to see how things are and if its the same as when I left on New Years morning. Relief.. It is ...and the beautiful drone of the loudspeaker with protest voice is suddenly for the first time in my life extremely comforting.....touching something deep......i need to be back as soon as possible. tonight?

Surprised by emotions I don't understand: how a screaming male voice over a loudspeaker about Ukrainian nationalism (I'm guessing as I only understand limited Ukrainian words) in indiscernible language could have an effect on my emotions. this is the longest I have been away from the square in a month. I walk in the cameraman's shoes, smell the wood burning smoke, the musty smell of unwashed clothes, campers huddled by burning barrels, the soup cooking on the open fires and tea with lemon and jam. I think I miss the 24 hour excitement that something will happen. Anything could happen at any moment.

Here I was again in the country that my grandparents fled sixty years ago and abandoned for ever. seemed to me the country was headed towards the same turmoil and instability of a war-torn country (that they left behind) and was I running to it, wanting it, maybe wanting to finish off the job that they had started! England had been my home all my life but for Ukraine the roots ran deep. but why was the voice on the loudspeaker so familiar?

Was it a memory trigger for when I was a child? A two year old, California, Berkeley campus where my mother, a single mother student finishing her degree in English and Psychology. Protest voices calling for freedom, expression, young voices, frustrated, new at this protesting thing. protesting about sexual equality, race equality, to end the Vietnam war to express their freedom by turning a derelict space into a children's park. The next day the military tore down the park, students were hurt, maybe even killed. I remember playing in a dusty park with makeshift crooked metal fence and my mother giving me marijuana seeds to plant in the soil. later she described how I had been one of the children who played for that one day inside that illegally created park. Later it was to become a symbol and part of the sixties history, it was named "peoples park".

Our move to back to Europe and to England was spurred by my mothers experience of this moment in history and by a police raid in the middle of the night that landed my mother in jail overnight. Police came into my bedroom as I was sleeping and grabbed me out of my bed carting me away to an unknown place....officers arrested everyone in the house, and me too I thought (two year old child) really I was in a children's home. A week later my mother and my teacher got me out. I only remember it as a lonely place full of rows of children and hot chocolate. Would this explain why I have the protest fever.....at age two hearing "down with the pigs" and "this is the revolution" evening deep discussions, in the future things will be different. revolution, it all came to me naturally!.....

I continue watching video streams, nationalist marches for a commemoration day, live footage of walking around the crowds, hearing the sounds of the Maidan, the occasional chanting, singing, rustling of thick coats in the wintry night, boots on the cold concrete. There had been no snow recently, temperatures were mild of late ( a problem for the barricades made of ice bags that melted) On the phone to a friend at the square, there a loud bang in the background, she says there was an explosion, then says it was nothing. My mind goes wild with imagination, what could it be? and will I miss the big day when the authorities will come and try to sweep the people away? possible to do it?

These people seem so determined, so angry. They have been waiting for this moment a long time. The orange revolution had just been a false start. Now it was the real thing. This is what seasoned people were telling me. On Twitter, the post Christmas police and authority clamp down has begun. Central heating was turned off at the union building which held the press centre where I slept, a building leased by the protesters. At the city hall occupied mainly by supporters of the nationalist party, the hot and cold water was switched off today...I tried to picture it, people using large bottles of water to flush the toilets. Ukrainians are already used to this and always have a supply of a few filled gallon bottles of tap water by their toilets at home always. as the water supply can sometimes go off for half a day in the cities. And who need needs hot water in a revolution?

What keeps this revolution going is people, siting, standing, talking, walking. It's a brand new social scene, and all the networkers ran out of business cards in the first week. If a few police show up, out of nowhere there are a few hundred people immediately at that place. The Maidan is like a living breathing being with antibodies ready to expel the germs that enter. I read in the local news that the local authorities had a meeting yesterday and agreed to start blocking the roads bring in the supplies into the square, wood, food, water, come regularly in large trucks delivered to each camp. The fires are constantly fed with fresh wood to burn to keep people warm. Food by the truckloads comes in too. and endless jars of fruit preserves, pickled items in huge clear jars, large Slavic sausages, raw honey of all colours, and tastes, coffee and teas a whole assortment are always available for the masses. Ukrainians know how to stay well fed and watered to entertain, keep warm and comfortable.

A friend filming a group in a large tent, who had proposed an horizontal system of governance instead of a pyramid. Was the 'Maidan' a microcosm of the Ukraine the country? a political testbed for future government systems being tried out in miniature? perhaps. I had the feeling that different parts of the square represented a different approach how to run a country. In the union building it was definitely soviet communism, with people barking and obeying orders without question, and most of the building was off limits to the ordinary person and we have yet to determine how much money goes into it, where it goes and how much. Outside in some of the camps, 'olde worlde' medievals roam and beat their drums complemented by ginormous vats of cooked millet and rabbit stew, full Kozak Uniforms, swords and white furry hats. Then you have the fresh faced smiling liberal Eco types with their homespun cloths, rainbow hats, loose fitting garments describing clumsily alternative democracies while holding small children on the hip. A regiment of young men in balaclavas and orange hard hats march past. Are their lives so miserable that they would literally fight and risk injury or death by Berkut policemen in the hope it will change their country? Its all very confusing.

One nice thing is that alcohol seems to very low key; even on New Year's Eve, bottles of champagne were spotted outside the perimeter. The rumors that "provocateurs" were going to smuggle in vodka and get everyone drunk was enough to keep everyone sober....more confusion, I thought Ukraine was known as a problem area concerning alcoholism in epidemic proportions? Perhaps the drunks have exchanged their bottles for loud speakers and microphones. On one occasion I was wooed by a Ukrainian mother and daughter to their house miles away from the Kyiv city centre. They plied me with deliciously perfect vodka (called Horilka here) shared by a German and a Canadian Ukrainian who had also been seduced by their promise of delicious meats and desserts. The Canadian brought out of this world Canadian whiskey ... who knew?

Two days later I escape unscathed yet having fallen in love twice, one with the Canadian and once with a young Kozak regiment security guard they had also captured with a long moustache and dreamy eyes. i was disappointed. I thought I had finally come across part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia who had not been sent to Siberia.

I sit again on the press center floor

Im sitting in the press center in the maidan again, where I feel happiest these days. i sit in the corner on the floor not feeling like i deserve a real chair as im not affiliated with a bonified newspaper or tv radio stations. anyway all chairs are taken already by serious looking reporters with real laptops .i have my very compact ipad mini, probably the best choice under the circumstances, we are sitting in what is basically an illegal squat in a building occupied by anarchist types, who are training more groups of thugs to defend this little bit of territory in kyiv. The berkut could theoretically come in anytime, jumping through the windows like the police in a film called 'brazil' gas masks and full black armored combat gear. a scattering of helmeted guys with balaklavas roam around inside and outside the building, the entrances, a tiny gap in fortressed baracades 10 feet wide, spanning layers of barbed wire, bags of ice and sand, tires, stacked benches .are now lined with rows of civilian guards . If this isnt war , i dont know what is.

as i walk through the crowded building and outside in the cold square during nighttime, i look at the faces, its hard to tell who these people are, and what they intend, are there spies among us? most probably. i seem to stick out somehow, different from everyone, maybe i smile too much, have different clothes. for sure im not wearing the obligatory padded greyish or light coloured 80s style coats or fur coats.

I told someone earlier that as a person of ukrainian origin living abroad but now in ukraine, perhaps we could somehow imbue and communicate support and confidence, or maybe the possiblity that you can now be Ukrainian and not let anyone tell you otherwise.

Its hard for some westerners to understand what it is like to be a country proud of your land and heritage and yet for over 200 years to be denied the ability to celebrate and even speak about it. not able to speak your language, read books in your language, describe yourself as ukrainian, being sniggered at if you speak your language in a major Ukrainian city, which by the way still happens today. AND then not only that but a british person would say are you an extremist?

that the only thing missing from this country is the confidence to take back the country. Ukraine has been kidnapped by Russia, and the english media seems to have been bought by putin. two days ago the bbc world news playing repeatedly on tv was reporting that 60,000, or maybe it was 6000 pro-government supporters were protesting in kyiv and and also anti government protestors too. what they didnt report was that there were about 200,000 plus euromaiden protestors in the center of kyiv and that the anti government protestors had been hired and paid to come to kyiv in buses. it was reported that after their stint in the park , they came to the maidan to get healthy home made organic food and warm clothes which are given free at the protest camp. 

I wandered around just now and photographed a number of christmas trees now sitting beside the fortified and tents now growing in size, strength, and insulation. frames are being built, doors are now appearing. Christmas trees hung with political cartoons and shiny baubles.

As I sit again on the press center floor, I look around cute dynamtic young guys, mostly ukrainians with concentrated expressions, bring to the world the story about the revolution.

I sit and reminisce the past few days in cherkassy, I laready mis the adventure of trying to catch people paying people for votes.

Elections in Cherkassy Ukraine

Today I woke up at 6am and got on a bus to cherkassy, a run down alcoholic ridden city 4 hrs drive south of Kyiv along the dnipro River. Its beautiful vast body of 'water power' lake that sprawls across to sandy banks  now frozen with waves of different shades of ice and snow. Underneath this unstable sheet of ice lies several villages that had been flooded by the power company years ago but now always provides breath taking views from the endless bridge by road or train shades of fading or rising sun and shadows and indescribable subtle colors.          

I woke excitedly for a day of elections observing in Ukraine. The day lay ahead of observing bandits and voters slightly flexible with honesty who take it as fine to sell their votes not knowing its fraud. They are promised an upgrade of their apartments and get cash in the hand. After many years of vote selling, it has become business as usual with organized training groups, official paperwork, and lists of people. Its so common that people feel cheated if they don't get anything for voting.

its now 9:15 pm the day is finished and Im locked inside a childrens school polling station watching the counting of the ballots.
Two polling stations inside one building an old stone cement  School, interesting to compare the two. One side seems friendlier an occasional cheer and applause. After hours of mind numbing counting of the ballots voting went with the party of regions guy.

The counting can go on all night, some ballots and numbers can be challenged by committee members.  voices reading the names of each bulletin , echoes through the school.  two names of candidates ring out repeatedly. Buletetsky and Pavlowsky.
Theres discussion as to the results being challenged because of clear bribery, 2 prisons and a number of hospitals where where its hard to control regulations. It went unchallenged, the central elections committee in Ukraine has been the same for many years and continues to go unchallenged.

Maidan March -I arrive in Kyiv