It's so strange being far from Kyiv: so easy to miss something important.

So I keep reminding myself of the times last week when Gazeta.ru was reporting huge crowds at Maidan - but there were only a few dozen people left there.

No civil war in sight, really, no matter what they say. Inshaallah.

Today (yesterday), they were expecting up to 750,000 protesters (RUS) - did it really happen? And if it did, where are all these people now?

Here's what Maidan looks like just half an hour past midnight, Kyiv time (screenshot of Channel 1+1's webcam view):



All this reporting in the future tense is really annoying.

This guy, the deputy minister of internal affairs, Victor Suslov, for example: they've been quoting him all day long today (yesterday), all the paranoia (UKR) about extremists and possible confrontations. He probably does have some info that forces him to say things he does, but when you're listening from, say, Moscow, it's as if something terrible is already taking place in Kyiv, as if Kyiv is an extremely dangerous location right now - which is crap, of course.

Reporting the coalition's expectations - the number of protesters tomorrow and the day after, civil war, etc. - is, in general, so like reporting Yushchenko's (or any other politician's) promises. I'm all for freedom of speech, but sometimes I think journalists should be banned from writing about stuff that is yet to happen (or not).

And I, of course, have no way of knowing whether there'll be confrontations in the near future or not, whether Maidan will finally stay full and alive 24 hours a day beginning tomorrow (today), despite rain and cold - so I guess I should shut up as well, but the way things are going, I really feel it's realistic to believe everything will end peacefully, sooner or later. One of the signs was Yanukovych flying off to Donetsk to see a football game instead of addressing his supporters - it's unforgettable.

Got mentioned in the Guardian Unlimited News Blog, at the very end of a roundup by Peter Walker:

One thing that can't be avoided is that the current situation is just that bit less exciting than those heady days of November 2004, with far smaller protests.

The Neeka's Backlog blog is continuing the work it did on the Orange Revolution, but remains mindful of the differences.

One entry shows a picture of restaurant tables out on the streets all of 100 metres from "where the biggest political crisis in the former Soviet Union is currently taking place", adding:

"And the only reason the tables are empty is because it's kind of cold outside - not because it's dangerous or something."

We're back in Moscow.

I hope it stays quiet in Kyiv, not just because quiet is kind of nice during revolutions, but also because, you know, I'm in Moscow.

***

I have a pretty huge backlog of photos, and I'll try to post them in the next few days.

***

I should've mentioned this on Saturday, but kept getting distracted:

A bunch of my recent blog entries and photos have been arranged in an awesome-looking story at ZUENDER, a webzine run by Germany's biggest weekly newspaper Die Zeit - Die Koalition der Gelangweilten.

I'm extremely proud and happy (and a little upset - because my German is too poor to even read what I myself have written).

I've just noticed this correction on a New York Times piece by Andrew E. Kramer:

Correction: April 4, 2007

An article yesterday about the deepening crisis in Ukraine misidentified the political leader affiliated with the Our Ukraine Party. He is President Viktor A. Yushchenko, not Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich.

It's becoming a trend to confuse one for the other.

Yushchenko was supposed to distribute Holy Fire near St. Sophia's tonight, but the ceremony got postponed - allegedly because the delegation delivering the Fire from Jerusalem to Ukraine (headed by Yushchenko's brother, as far as I remember) was running late (RUS).

If it's not Yushchenko himself who's being late, then it's his brother.

***

Yanukovych was supposed to speak at Maidan in the early afternoon, but changed his mind abruptly, somewhere around European Square, and left for what had at first been reported as some very important, very urgent negotiations that could solve the conflict, etc. - but in the end it turned out to be a mere football game (RUS) in Donetsk, Shakhtar vs Vorskla (Poltava), 2:1.

***

Speaking of Poltava, Mishah and I were passing that restaurant on Khreshchatyk that used to be Pora's headquarters (or press center?) during the Orange Revolution - Chateau - and he stopped to take a picture of the neat tables that they have outside - because, you know, this is, like, a hundred meters away from Maidan, where the biggest political crisis in the former Soviet Union is currently taking place...



And the only reason the tables are empty is because it's kind of cold outside - not because it's dangerous or something.

Yes, but speaking of Poltava, we passed an ordinary Ukrainian family - mama, papa and their son, 8 years old or so - near this restaurant, and we overheard a tiny bit of their conversation: the boy, obviously, wanted to go inside for, perhaps, ice cream - and his mother explained the reason they couldn't go in - very loudly, in a beautiful Ukrainian:

"Because in Poltava life is a lot cheaper!"

***

Speaking of Pora (the party), it looks like they've split into two (once again, sort of) - and it looks like a bunch of Kaskiv's former allies are accusing him of sending some thugs over to Pora's office. Pictures of the damage are at Obozrevatel (UKR).

***

Another very telling quote that we eavesdropped on as we walked by the Pochtampt building at Maidan, of the "East and West together" variety: a bunch of guys - of what seemed like every age and every political view possible - stood there in a circle, discussing politics.

"But in principle, we are all alike," one of the men said in Ukrainian.

(Here's a line for Bono: "We're not one, but we're all the same...")

LJ user potekhin on Yanukovych supporters currently in Kyiv (UKR):

On the way from Maidan yesterday, with friends, [saw] several guys on Kostelna:

"I've been everywhere here already - to the McDonald's and two cafes. Man, the prices that they've got here. If it hadn't been for their [50 hryvnias] (points in the direction of European Square), I would've died already."

Via Wu Wei, nice Crimea photos by a Lithuanian photographer Tomas Cernisevas.

My very favorite is this one: Princess.

This is from April 4, early afternoon, when the majority of them moved off to Bankova: Coalition of the Bored.

A guy came up to me at some point, asked what paper I worked for, I said I was shooting it all for myself, history and all that, he said taking pictures of nature was better, I said it was up to me to decide, and he agreed. Basically, he could've been hostile to me, but I disarmed him with ... not really a smile, but some semi-friendly, meaningless chat.

Around 7 pm yesterday, Maidan was practically empty. Not even the dancing young people were there. The weather was kind of chilly, maybe that's why.

Here's a video of "orange" women talking to some foreign reporters (not sure if it was ethical to just place myself next to them and basically steal their stuff with my tiny camera):



They came to have a look, but there's no Maidan, and there's no support for the coalition in Kyiv, because no Kyiv people have come to stand at Maidan, and if these guys had invested their souls into it, they would've been here now, but they aren't, and it's all been organized artificially only to fall apart...

Babushka with a little flag and an orange scarf around her neck seems to be the one who thought I was photographing her for Yanukovych people - but this time she didn't seem to mind.

***

Today, I just can't make myself go there again.

Ukrainska Pravda reports (UKR) that they're all watching Easter movies there now - all, including the Communists.

Korrespondent.net writes (RUS) that the Party of the Regions will hold no rallies "until Jesus rises" (until Monday, that is), but no one knows whether Communists and Socialists will abstain, too.

***

Yesterday, some crazy shit was happening at the Pechersk District Court - with the Party of the Regions politicians (not people) storming the building and, among other things, beating a young woman up. Then, one of those politicians was rude and loud - and lying - on 1+1, and the host got him to leave the studio, not politely, I've heard, but quite fairly.

At some level, it's all about money right now - finding it for the new election.

Someone anonymous who does this blog type of thing called Ukraine Today - A Political review left a comment on my Global Voices translation, which, among other things, had this claim:

The cost of the election is estimated to be around 150 Million dollars. Money that would be better spent on other issue.

I remembered a different figure mentioned by Davydovych back in March:

In early March, head of the Central Election Committee Yaroslav Davydovych said (RUS) an early election would cost approximately 400 million hryvnias - which is something around $80 million.

Here's the response from the Ukraine Today person(s):

when calculating the cost of elections you need to take into account the direct costs and indicate costs. The true cost of the election is expected to be well over the estimated 150 Million dollars when you take into account impacts on Ukraine’s economic development and cost of running a nation wide campaign.

I do agree that there are many better ways to spend this money.

I went out with a dear friend today, for example, who works at a budget-funded institution that's supposed to represent Ukraine in a completely non-political way. Or, in a predominantly non-political, yet very significant, way. But for all its conspicuousness, this institution has always been struggling to survive financially. And this struggle has always been reflected in my friend's salary: about $200 a month now, four times as much as he had been making some five years ago. My friend is totally brilliant in his field and works really hard - but imagine having to pay $50 out of $200 for utilities, plus there're also food and clothing to buy, public transportation costs, and yes, entertainment, because, you know, my friend isn't some old fart content with soap operas on his old TV. Everyone here, including my friend, has got other sources of income, of course, which sort of explains how people manage to get by, but his official salary is still the ridiculous $200 a month, paid to him by the state. And he's not happy about it, even though he loves his job.

I, of course, think that my friend and the institution he works for would have really benefited from those $80-$150 million that they are going to waste on their posters, rallies and other crap.

But what also bugs me is that all the Yanukovych schmucks are suddenly up in arms about this huge waste of money - as if they were not running this country when my friend was making $50 a month and as if they were not buying all these fancy cars like crazy in the past year or so (and driving them on sidewalks, but that's a different matter, I won't get into this now). As if they've really managed to lure those Rada defectors with their good and charitable deeds, and not with money and property offers - and then got their asses busted for nothing. Please.

I'm sort of undecided with this new election. I do buy the argument that if I voted for a bloc and then its members switched to the other side, they aren't being fair to the people who voted for them. It sort of doesn't concern me personally - because I voted for Pora and they didn't get in, and now Kaskiv is rumored to have been given $2 million or something to keep him quiet, but that's irrelevant. What I don't believe is that the election's gonna change anything. Even Moroz would manage to squeeze himself back in, as part of some new Party of the Regions/Socialists/Communists bloc.

And I really wish there was some way to make it all work decently regardless of the politicians' political affiliations - you are up there, you are responsible for cleaning up the big mess down here (like, raising my friend's salary) - and we are responsible for cleaning our own, comparatively small, mess (like, not driving on sidewalks and not peeing in the elevators). But - sigh - you probably need to be a German or something to make it work so smoothly...

For the first couple of days, I liked the suspense that my walk from Besarabka to Maidan involved: will there be many people? what if there's lots of orange there now? Somehow, the Besarabka end of Khreshchatyk is like another world, no politics whatsoever, only cars, both on the road and on the sidewalk.

But by now, I'm bored with their Maidan. All the same faces, lots of garbage, and the politicians speaking from the stage are full of shit.

First, they say they are against one man grabbing all power in Ukraine, and this one man is, of course, Yushchenko. Then, they happily declare that they want Yanukovych to be both the president and the premier.

And even though the crowd is barely audible, the speakers go on and on about how it's the whole Ukraine represented there, and the whole Ukraine hearing their voices, including the president at the Secretariat (which, by the way, is located at such a place where not really a sound is heard from Maidan, even when Maidan was really loud).

I got so bored there today that it reminded me of the night right after the second round in 2004, the night before the real Maidan began: how I couldn't sleep because I was scared no one would show up the next morning, and how I had a nightmare about that when I did finally fall asleep, and how in the morning I heard people in the street talk about the very same fear.

I wonder if there's anyone at this Maidan who can't sleep at night, worrying that there won't be enough of them there the next day?

More coalition people dancing.

April 3, after 6 pm, after most of the babushkas have been taken away.

It would've been more natural to see them listening to Oleksandr Moroz day and night, or to classical music, taking into account what that scary woman said earlier that day about the opposition's lousy song-writing skills.

Seriously, though, it's really amazing how politics gets mixed with entertainment here - and how the latter often prevails. I've heard this observation before, and it seems to be true about every political force in this country.

Maybe this is what saves us from violence.

But after spending time at this kind of Maidan, where hardly anyone would care or be able to talk about "serious" politics coherently, I find it even harder than before to focus on "serious" commentary. Much of it just doesn't make sense to me - and bores me. Maybe when I go back to Moscow, I'll find it in me to digest some of the abstract stuff. Maybe not.

How do they lure kids like this to Maidan? And what do the old Communist farts think of it?

Dark and quiet at Maidan around 9 pm. Lots of tents, some flags, a few dozen people. It's more crowded at the nearby Globus shopping mall (where a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice costs nearly $5).

***

At 2 p.m., Maidan was full of people, though when I got there, many were already on the way to the Presidential Secretariat (or whatever it's called now), on Bankova.

A dozen or so bio-toilets, urine leaking out, and two old women standing nearby, discussing a miracle:

- These! - are - the bio-toilets! [Beeo-tooalety!]
- Aaaah!

***

Theirs is a Through-the-Looking-Glass Maidan.

They were watching us in 2004, and now we're watching them - and I dislike what I see perhaps as much as they disliked what they saw.



And I remember some people complaining in 2004 that the point of view of Yanukovych supporters was not properly represented - well, now they are in the spotlight and what they make of it is completely up to them.

***

From Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll:

They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had `DUM' embroidered on his collar, and the other `DEE.' `I suppose they've each got "TWEEDLE" round at the back of the collar,' she said to herself.

***

Whenever the horse stopped (which it did very often), he fell off in front; and whenever it went on again (which it generally did rather suddenly), he fell off behind. Otherwise he kept on pretty well, except that he had a habit of now and then falling off sideways; and as he generally did this on the side on which Alice was walking, she soon found that it was the best plan not to walk QUITE close to the horse.

***

After three days spent around the poor old women and unwashed young men, it was pretty shocking to see Kaskiv, Lavrynovych and Rudkovsky near the Presidential Secretariat: all three were so shiny, in nice suits - like aliens.









***

An old woman wearing an Our Ukraine flag as a headscarf asked me angrily who I was photographing for: "For Yanyki?"

I blame it on my blue sneakers, of course.

I've no time for anything, so here's my last night's translation for Global Voices - I guess I was writing it in my sleep, but it turned out nice.

I really, really hope to post pictures and write a few updates later today. Right now, I can hear some hysterical intonations coming from Maidan, and the webcam shows quite a crowd there...

Ah, 2007 is so different from 2004: I didn't have to figure out ways to have my parents take Marta for a walk then... Avoiding the traffic and the stinking masses at Maidan aren't the only factors I have to take into account now, unfortunately: there's also my father, and there's no way to cross Khreshchatyk with a stroller, no way my mama can do this, that is...

Anyway, here's the translation:

Ukraine: Betting on Yushchenko

On Saturday, tens of thousands of people attended two major rallies in Kyiv: supporters of prime minister Victor Yanukovych and his ruling coalition were brought to European Square to protest president Victor Yushchenko's plans to dissolve the parliament; supporters of Yushchenko and his current allies stood at Maidan Nezalezhnosti, voicing their approval of this tough measure.

On Sunday, all was perfectly quiet and uneventful in Kyiv.

Then on Monday, Yushchenko dissolved the parliament, accusing Yanukovych of usurping power. The ruling coalition reacted to the president's order by defying it; the parliament continued its work throughout Tuesday.

How the situation is going to develop and whether the early election, scheduled for May 27, would take place, is anyone's guess right now. But Ukrainians seem to be used to such unpredictability. After all, it wasn't clear until the very last moment whether the president and the prime minister would reach compromise, and hardly anyone seemed too surprised when they didn't - but even if they had, it wouldn't have been a complete shock to many.

LJ user chernikovsun (Ukrainian journalist Andrey Chernikov) has written this (RUS) about the risky business of betting on Ukraine's president:

A political totalizer

I've got some political forecasting skills. But at a bookmaker's office, I wouldn't bet on the parliament's dissolution or its non-dissolution. Because our president is an unpredictable person. I haven't been able to figure out what determines the decisions he makes. And I would've lost on any stake I'd made.

Funny, but some gambling did take place (RUS) - at the forum of Ukrainska Pravda, one of Ukraine's most popular news sites, founded by Georgiy Gongadze: Yushchenko's firmness allowed three forum dwellers to win 50 hryvnias ($10) and two more twice as much; one of the bettors who didn't believe the president would dissolve the parliament lost 200 hryvnias ($40).

Almost like betting but not quite is a survey question (UKR) posted at Ukrainska Pravda's forum; readers are asked whether they'd be prepared to support their president right up to the victory. Of the 154 voters, 132 said they would, 13 responded negatively, and nine said they didn't care:

VERBICKY: So we'll support him, but he'd let us down and recall his order on Easter's eve.

[...]

Kram: Yes, but even yesterday I didn't expect myself to feel this way!

[...]

Matroskin: No. In the two years of his presidency, one firm decision? [...]

LJ user unika_ is one of those who is skeptical about the idea to re-elect Ukrainian lawmakers. She notes that Yushchenko's order to dissolve the parliament was made public shortly after full moon appeared in the skies on April 2 - and full moon is known to only make it worse for the mentally ill, according to unika_. Seriously, though, she writes:

[...]

They can do re-elections ten times or more, but the result would still be 50/50. Both optimists and pessimists understand this. So what's the point in spending money, distracting people from the work in the fields, stopping the ministries' work?

[...]

And here is a view of someone who agrees with the president - LJ user skylump writes (RUS):

Hurrah. I'm glad. Yushchenko has made at least one dignified step. I continue to enjoy the story of the parliament's dissolution. Because the elites have to be taught democracy. The old European method, guillotine - or the old Ukrainian method, throwing hetmans [commanders] onto spike - do not fit the spirit of the time. Nowadays, the elites have to be reshuffled and led to bankruptcy during the multiple elections - to make them understand at least something.