Oleksey, 39: “Before 2013 we didn’t think it was possible to oust the Soviets”
SENT TO KIEV. There are many places, in space and time, where a people is born, the idea of a single people. Ukraine was born a hundred times, a hundred times it was crushed. But it is November 21, 2013, with a message on Facebook, that Ukraine has risen and has never given up. «Let’s meet at the Independence monument at 10.30 pm. Dress heavily. Bring umbrellas, tea, coffee and positivity. Share the message! ”Wrote journalist Mustafa Nayyem. He was initiating the Revolution of Dignity, the Euromaidan. The Ukrainians, betrayed by Putin’s puppet, President Yanukovych, wanted to end with corruption, poverty, oppression, they wanted to look to the West, to Europe. The story is known, the number of victims also identified, 130, two thousand injured.
Today the sun shines on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, hundreds of normal days have ended up erasing the fires of tires, the wooden barricades, the sounds of the batons, the snipers on the roofs, the streaks of blood on the asphalt. But the shocked kids screaming “Why?” Because you are doing it “to the Berkut agents who are massacring them, they are still here, in this square:” Thanks to them, Ukraine is what it is today – says Natasha, 26, owner of a pastry shop -. And we young people are the children of Euromaidan, we are free ». In one corner, near the entrance to the subway, there is a small altar made with stones thrown in 2014 to defend against police charges. Three white roses, a plastic helmet that protected some of the demonstrators. Who knows if he survived?
«Before the Revolution – says Oleksey, 39, software developer – we thought it was impossible to drive out these post-Soviet bandits. Greedy, corrupt, ignorant. Metastases that multiplied in every corner of the state, of life, of business. The “Party of Regions” (that of Yanukovich, ed) controlled the whole society, just as Putin’s “United Russia” party does in Russia ». But then something changed, when people began to gather on the Maidan, even before the bullets, the whole Ukraine understood that the Revolution was inevitable and just. Young people in Kiev are afraid to speak out, they are afraid of being used by propaganda: “Who can make sure you don’t work for Russia?” Asks a girl who takes a selfie under the Independence Monument. These days the pressure is high: “If there is one thing the Maidan has taught us it is awareness, and the consequence of one’s actions. I don’t want my words to be used by the Russians, they do it all the time. ‘
In the clear sky the domes of the golden Monastery of San Michele sparkle. In the churchyard, a priest shovels the snow and sings “Go, thought.” It is Father Lorenzo, that Father Lorenzo. The Orthodox priest who on 11 December, at four in the morning, woke up to screams, ran still dazed from sleep to the gates and opened them to the demonstrators fleeing the Berkut charges, snipers and horror. He, with the seminarian Giovanni, now a priest, began to ring the bells of the monastery, it had not been rung since 1240, since the Mongols invaded Kiev: “I think we did it to try to stop the police, and at the same time to to attract those who were fleeing, ”says Father Lorenzo, now 45. They offered hot tea, warm clothes. Then the wounded began to arrive. Lorenzo points to the chapel: «There we set up the operating room, in the nave a kind of hospital for the less seriously injured. The others took shelter behind the gates ». It was like this until the end of the protests: “I can’t forget any of them, the idea that we were a family there, that a new Ukraine was being born there.” The Maidan generation, that of Orthodox and Catholic priests, muftis and rabbis, together in a single square: “We fought with prayers, among the demonstrators, because we believe differently, but we believe in human beings and not in violence” . Police, he adds in a whisper. For any Ukrainian there is a before and after the Maidan. Aleksandra works as a waitress and is younger than Independence: «After the Revolution of Dignity we started writing another page. I am still a daughter of the Soviet Union, even though I was born in the 90s. But since 2014 young people have begun to breathe, and the generation after mine knows and knows how to assert their rights. I envy them a little … ». And when you begin to taste the rights, it is impossible to go back: “If now a new war begins – says Natasha – this time I am ready and old enough to go voluntary”. Resistance is done in many ways: “My parents are divorced, my father lives in Russia and my mother lives in the United States – says Anastasia, 32, journalist -. I have decided to stay in Ukraine. After the Maidan, a path that cannot be stopped began, towards peace, for development, unity, openness to everything and everyone. I want to be part of it ». He sees emergency suitcases near many doors, invasion is not an impossibility, fear is exorcised but it is there. “Putin’s intentions and actions frighten me as much as thugs frightened me as a child. Five of them could surround me and take all the money out of my pocket – says Oleksey -. But if you showed them at least a modicum of resistance, they fled immediately. Putin’s Russia is not very different from these bandits, who attack the weakest in groups. Oleksey, Natasha, Petro, Fedyn, Vira, Aleksandra, the Maidan generation speak: «Let the Russians try to be seen here. They will find resistance in every corner, in every house, at every window. I don’t lose themwe’ll be back the second time, especially after what they did in the Donbass. All our anger will come out. We are no longer afraid ».
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