The Voices of Ukrainians

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 ha...

Right now, I could not be more proud of my Ukrainian brothers and sisters. Everyone knows that in the midst of a revolution like what Ukraine has had, when the government turns on its people, things can easily descend into chaos.  Normal people can turn into hooligans.  But, on the whole that’s not what has happened in Ukraine.  The Titushky The leaders of the government did recruit unemployed young men to come into the cities to work with the police to fight against the protestors.  At night, these young men, called titushky would travel around commit a variety of crimes from burning cars to looting, to beating individuals on the street.  The primary reason for the hire of these guys was to create the illusion that Kyiv and the country on the whole were descending into chaos and give the government an excuse to institute a state of emergency, and therefore tighter control of the situation.  I have a friend who was near an attack from titushky this past...

I was pulled over last Wednesday on the way home from the orphanage.  We were tired as we always are, it was dark and visibility wasn’t the best because it was sleeting, and the windshield was constantly dirty from others cars.  It was the stretch coming into Kyiv when there is a town every mile and a half and in Ukraine, there aren’t speed limit signs, you just know that the speed limit in a city is one thing and out of the city its another.  All that said, when I got pulled over, I was speeding.  I was in the wrong. The police officer took me back to his car.  There he explained to me that speeding in this particular place was a big deal because there is a cross walk that is used very regularly.  I told him that I understood, I shouldn’t have been going so fast.  I confused him a bit when I used to wrong verb to say that I made a mistake.  He told me that because of the crosswalk, I wouldn’t just get a ticket, he would have to take my license a...

I've been down to Maidan to see the anti-government activists and how they are living a few times.  I'm not a protester myself, though I sympathize with their frustrations.  Things are calm at the moment, but with the barricades, it looks similar to a military zone with tents, fires everywhere and some very serious barricades in every direction.  You can click on any picture below to see a larger version. As we were coming back onto Maidan from Hrushevskoho Street, I saw activists stopping a man who was clearly drunk from entering Maidan.  They have a strict no alcohol policy which was interesting for me to see first hand.  One of the things that is most striking as you walk around is the fact that the activists want the world to see what they are doing and how they are doing it.  Protestors had taken over a few of the government buildings near the center and we walked closer to see them, and saw that crowds were going i...

(Note: There are reports of indiscriminate arrest in Ukraine.  For that reason, I won’t be referring to my friends by name.) If you are unfamiliar with the recent events in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and now spreading all over the country, I would refer you to these two articles:  10 things the West should know about the situation in Kyiv , and Andrew Wilson's article about laws that were passed by the ruling majority which precipitated the violence.  I try to keep up on events in Ukraine, but as my language teacher has told me a few times, I’m an outsider here in Ukraine.   I wanted to know what others think about what is going on.  I have two friends that have shared their opinions with me, and those opinions are very different.  These guys live in the same city, are similar in age, go to the same church, but their interpretation of recent events are quite opposite.  Last week, I read an article in the Kyiv Post about the view the ruling part...