Visiting Maidan

Two years ago, Janna and I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps.  The group we were with was very somber as we walked through the barracks, prison blocks and gas chambers where over a million people were killed.  People in our group talked together but it was hushed.  You could see people stop and look around, knowing they were trying to envision what it would have been like to live through the Holocaust.
On Tuesday, Janna and I went down to Maidan to see everything after the most recent bout of violence that had started only a week ago.  Thousands of people were on the square, and the atmosphere was very much like it had been in Auschwitz.  Very somber, very subdued.  Lots of emotion. And rightly so.  In this place, police attacked civilians, their own people.  Last Thursday, a group of snipers started picking off anyone who was on the wrong side of the line, including medical volunteers.  But Ukrainians stood firm and they have changed the government. 
(click on any of the photos below to see them in greater detail.)

 

As you leave the metro station and walk up to the main square, the first thing that struck me was the blackness. Usually the asphalt of the street is great and the granite paving of the central square is a rich brown, but at the moment, almost everything is black because of the tires the protesters burned to create a smoke screen between them and the police. 
This week, now that peace has been reached, people from all over Ukraine are coming to pay their respects.  Flowers are everywhere to honor those who fell.

This is the base of a monument to the angel who is said to protect Kiev. 

The barricades are still everywhere.  The protestors are staying around.  One older gentleman took a moment to read a statement that he had written to passerby's.  As I watched him speaking, with his old helmet and pretty much nothing else that would mark him as a soldier of the opposition my eyes started to water up. He has probably been living on Maidan with the few thousand who have been there for three months.  He's probably tired and mentally scarred from last weeks actions, watching teenagers and men fall around him.  Yet as he read his statement so that other Ukrainians would remember what had taken place, he smiled.   He had hope.

We saw many of the Maidan security force walking around.  Young men wearing whatever they could that would serve as armor. Their were shield lying in many places, all of them were homemade, though some were well made.  Some of them though were just a piece of rotting 3/8 plywood with a piece of water hose screwed to it to make a handle.  The most dangerous weapon that we saw was a machete.  In videos, I saw a couple of low caliper hunting rifles and two pistols in the hands of protestors.  These are peasant weapons, the weapons of civilians, not those of an army.  This is compared to the fully equipped police forces. 

Two of Maidan security personnel.

The best weapon that the protestors had was the one that anyone can make: the Molotov cocktail.  The Molotov cocktail was invented in Finland in 1939, by forces resisting invading Soviet forces.   They mockingly named the petrol bombs after Stalin's number two, Molotov, because Molotov was putting on a propaganda campaign, claiming that the bombs the Soviets were dropping we actually relief supplies to the hungry Finns.  The Finns dug in even though they were outnumbered and outgunned.  The comparisons are many.  The Ukrainian administration, until the end claimed innocence, labeled the protestors as terrorists and fascists, even as they created a more authoritarian system and hired gangs of young men to create havoc around the country. 

However, during the course of events, it seems that the police, equipped with rubber bullet guns, concussion grenades, tear gas, sniper rifles and more, resorted to using Molotov cocktails too. This exchange and the burning of the tires resulting in the burning of Kiev's Trade Union.

To build their barricade, protestor used everything, including the brick that pave all of downtown.  And we were blown away by how many barricade their were. 

Even with the soot everywhere, and the barricades, I was struck by how clean Maidan is.  Yes, the barricades are essentially piles of junk, but there isn't trash all over the place.  I found a pile of garbage bags ready to be hauled away.  This is being done by the protestors, volunteers who take pride in their country.  At one point I saw pairs of gloves and a tiny kitchen sponge, people were already scrubbing the bricks and cleaning up. 

Those on Maidan have won some major victories, but they know the fight isn't over.  Former President Yanukovich was just part of the problem. Ukraine's courts and police forces are still corrupt, the country is still on the verge of bankruptcy.  So much still needs to be done, and many of the same politicians are still in place.  So, many people are staying on Maidan.  Living in tents or whatever type of shelter they can construct. 

There are two guys sleeping in there.

This sign reads:  "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and turn from their wicked ways and seek my face. Then I will hear them from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.  Pray for Ukraine"

Priests pray for Ukraine.  We heard many prayers during our time on Maidan.

 

Please keep praying for Ukraine.