Three more cab/gypsy cab driver stories.

In the past week, I've started asking them directly whether they were planning to vote on Sunday.

The first one wasn't very talkative, but has said enough: he thought it was okay for Yushchenko to be on Our Ukraine/People's Self-Defense campaign ads; was impressed with how much more presentable Yanukovych has become in the past three years; was going to vote for either Tymoshenko, or Lutsenko; did not believe they'd manage to sort out the mess this time; was sure there'd be another election soon after this one and then some more, but didn't really mind it, seemed prepared to vote ad nauseam.

The second one was in his 30s, a large man with a shiny, bold head: we were going to the center, and I asked him whether there was the Blue Maidan at Maidan, and he said he had no idea and couldn't care less; he was going to vote against them all; he'd spent two weeks at Maidan in 2004 and then ended up being hospitalized with pneumonia; we started sharing various moving memories of that time, and one of mine was about the guys yelling to the cops through the snowstorm: Idit' pohriytes, a my za vas postoyim! ("Go get warm and we'll stand here for you!") - and it turned out he was there then, yelling this, too, and also telling jokes to the cops and giving them flowers; as for his "against all" vote - he did not see anyone worth voting for right now.

The third one was the least talkative of the three: he was not going to vote at all; I asked him if he had ever voted for anyone, and he said, "Yes, for Yushchenko, when he was running for president."