Amazing pictures from a breathtakingly beautiful traditional Hutsul-style wedding - by Lviv-based LJ user dali-bude and his wife Marichka (the newlyweds' names are Ostap and Olya).

Holodomor-as-genocide news: from the Party of the Regions, only Taras Chornovil and Yanukovych's former press secretary Hanna Herman voted in favor of the bill; none of the Communists voted.

Here's part of an AP story:

Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday adopted a bill recognizing the Soviet-era forced famine as genocide against the Ukrainian people, a move seen as a victory for pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko.

The bill passed in a vote of 233-1, a small majority in the 450-seat legislature.

[...]

The recognition opens the door to potential legal consequences including compensation for famine victims and recognition of the famine by the United Nations as genocide against Ukrainian people. Ten countries, including the United States, have recognized the famine as genocide, but U.N. recognition would imply an international acceptance.

Moscow strongly opposed calling the famine a genocide, contending that the famine did not specifically target Ukrainians and warning Ukraine not to "politicize" the issue.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's party proposed using the word tragedy instead of genocide, in what was seen as an effort to avoid spoiling ties with Russia. Only two lawmakers from the party's 186-member faction supported the bill; the Communist Party, which is also in the governing coalition, also did not support it.

[...]

Due to the resistance in parliament, the bill proposed by Yushchenko underwent several changes, including referring to genocide against the Ukrainian people instead of the Ukrainian nation. Lawmakers also dropped an initiative that would have made it a legal violation to deny the famine occurred.

[...]

***

And a relevant picture I took today, somewhere on Vorovskogo St.:



Written in red: "And under Communists - they'll finish up the construction!"

Added in white: "[The construction of] GULAG."

A note on Kyiv's mayor: a week or so ago, he said on TV that one of the city's chief medical officials has to be "chased out of Kyiv with a broom" - "gnat' yeyo nuzhno metloy iz Kiyeva."

Normally, you'd also mention that the broom's been "dipped in shit" - "gnat' srannoy metloy" - it's a set expression, and even though he didn't say it, he most likely meant it.

And even though many medical officials - and even some doctors - do deserve just that, it kind of hurt my ears to hear the mayor say this.

Kyiv's been really foggy - and really pensive when you're away from the cars - for over a week now.

A few more pictures from the Holodomor memorial Saturday, by LJ user eagle_x - here and here. In the comments to the first entry, a girl from Krasnodar, Russia, gets furious and recommends Ukrainians to mourn privately, without what she thinks is public hysteria and hatred of Russians...

The Famine - the genocide of the Ukrainian people - has been recognized by the parliaments of Australia, Argentina, Georgia, Estonia, Italy, Canada, Lithuania, Poland, USA, Hungary. [What about] Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada???

65 photos from the Famine commemoration yesterday - here.

It started at Sofiyivska and moved to Mykhailivska Square, a very emotional affair. I got there after the departure of all the VIPs, but there were still so many people - lighting candles, listening to survivors' testimonials broadcast on big screens, just standing there quietly.

Too many media folks, though, especially photographers, but I shouldn't be the one to complain about that. A demented-looking anti-Semite by the Bohdan Khmelnytsky monument. Down on Khreshchatyk, or up in Lipki, not a trace of mourning: Kyiv is a big city now. On Channel 1+1, very inappropriately, the final part of Dancing With The Stars contest show.

***

To learn more about the Famine, here's the 1988 report to Congress (via Cyber Cossack).

35 photos from Maidan's 2 years are here. Blurry pictures of a blurry event.

***

112 photos from Nov. 23 rally in front of the city council are here.

Most young people holding the flags of Nasha Ukraina, Yulia's Bloc and Pora looked like they were just skipping classes this way. Most elderly people seemed to be genuinely protesting the new tariffs. One of the main slogans was "Mayor - out!"

A rally by the city council, a few thousand people, against the new tariffs, against mayor Chernovetsky. More photos and more about it later.


"New tariffs = new famine!"

Roman Bezsmertny and some crazy guy begging them all to keep up the fight: "I will cry, my wife will cry, the people will cry if you give it up halfway through..."

A note: I do realize that these videos are nothing special. Moreover, they aren't in English, and I'm not just too lazy/busy to translate - I can't hear much of the stuff there is to translate. So I apologise if I'm wasting your time and bandwidth, but I really have to play with it.

I still prefer photography to video. I sort of hate the invisibility factor of the video, the fear of what comes next: what if someone on someone else's video does something gross and no one has warned me in advance?

A glimpse of Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Ukraine's defense minister.

The sound really sucks, on this one and the rest of my videos. Here, all I can hear is someone calling Moroz "Judas"...



P.S. The tall guy is Hrytsenko's bodyguard - and a beacon of sorts: someone sent a photojournalist his way, and I followed.

I'm trying out a new medium: video. At some point, I have to teach myself how to edit stuff.

Here's Baba Paraska, at Maidan, tonight. I haven't watched the video with the sound myself yet - because Marta is asleep on me.

Enjoy! (Or not.)

A lot more people showed up after 6 pm.



Still, the whole thing was somewhat unfocused.

When someone with the microphone tried to start a "Yush-chen-ko!" chant, about one third of the crowd joined in, but as many seemed to be yelling "Han'ba!" ("Shame!"), and a few chanted "Yulia!"...

When they tried to get the crowd to chant "Razom nas bahato, nas ne podolaty!" ("Together we're many, we won't be defeated!"), an old, eccentric-looking nationalist yelled this, quite bitterly: "Razom nas malo, nas ne podolaty!" ("Together we are few, we won't be defeated!").

Very little work for journalists at Maidan today...



(Two years since the beginning of Maidan.)

Our answer to the Russian Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) - "No people are illegal" (in Ukrainian):