24.01.2014, 15:32 Anna Holland
Translated by Maria Stanislav
Source: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=603771259693398&id=100001815888945

I haven’t posted here before, but I can no longer be quiet. I’ve lived in Kyiv for three years. Three years I walked these streets, made friends, worked and talked to these people. Not only work colleagues, but shopkeepers, cab drivers, neighbors, concierges, home owners and businessmen. I’ve been to the Carpathian and Transcarpathian regions. And not a single time, NOT A SINGLE TIME did I meet with hatred towards Russians or Jews, be it on the household or social level. They’d figure me out as soon as I opened my mouth – “Are you from Moscow? I can tell by the accent.” At first, being half-Jewish, half-moskal [Russian], I’d tense up every time – but once I’d confirm that yes, I’m from Moscow, that subject wouldn’t be discussed any further, unless I wanted to talk about it; the friendly tone wouldn’t change; and no one would pretend that they can’t understand my Russian. I had my share of problems, of course, strangely enough, with my own colleagues – although, no, that’s hardly strange. Television is a world where language counts for a lot. But it is also a world that brings together people from all over the country. You’ll see people from Armyansk (Crimea) working side by side with ones from Novo-Frankovsk (the West). A lot of those who come from the western region aren’t that fluent in Russian – they had two hours of Russian a week in school, and it still remains a foreign language for them, because, whether we Russians like it or not, Ukraine is a foreign state. Yes, full of personal connections that are stronger than any large-scale social or political agreements – but it’s a FOREIGN STATE, with its OWN laws, traditions, language, anthem and other attributes of an independent country.

Yes, my colleagues and I had some difficult times at first – they didn’t speak much Russian, and I had no grasp Ukrainian. But we did our best to understand each other, and a few months later, I was no longer gawking whenever they’d start spewing sentences that sounded like tongue-twisters, and they no longer had to pause and translate my Russian words in their head. Working in the entertainment segment of the TV, I had the right to avoid political issues, and used that right all the time. Even when asked, “Are you for European integration?”, – I’d stick to diplomacy, and say – what does my opinion matter here? It’s something only Ukrainians can and must decide for themselves.

Then it came – the Maidan. Friends, family and colleagues are calling me from Moscow. They’re all genuinely frightened for me, worried that I’m stuck here in Kyiv in the middle of a revolution. They honestly believe that Maidan consists of a pack of low-lifes and larger packs of neo-Nazis, aggressive youths that shower poor Berkut units with Molotov cocktails. Marginalized never-do-wells, without any self-preservation or any responsibility for their country. This is what the Russian television is telling the Russian people, day in, day out. If you can’t see very well, and they keep telling you that black is white and white is black – sooner or later, you’ll believe them.

I’m not in the crowd yet. So far, I’ve stood nearby. I monitor the events through different sources. I’m not yet incensed, not inspired by the Maidan from within – so I can still be objective. I know the people who stand there. Take my word – they’re not marginalized people, they’re not the “banderovets” dragged here from Western Ukraine. These are people I’m close to, and some of them, I see every day. They are Kyivans. They are my colleagues who, without shouts or grandeur, come to Maidan every evening/day/night – not for professional reasons, but doing their civic duty. They’re young people, under 35, talented, with higher education. They’re my friend –a retired intellectual lady with three university degrees. They’re my other friend – a chief accountant in a company. They’re a family – a businessman father, a painter son and a project manager daughter. People like them are 80% of the Maidan. They weren’t rearing to take to the streets. They were driven there. Driven by the sense of dignity and responsibility for their country, for their children, and for the future. Those are the things that they’ve been standing for, 2 months now, in temperatures dipping down to -20. Not for European integration. Not for personal ambitions.

They came out after the first Berkut raid. Because they can’t comprehend that peaceful citizens can be beaten – brutally, half to death, kicked while on the ground. That an old woman, kneeling and pleading them to stop killing her old, already battered husband, can be hit in the face with a truncheon. That a student can be stripped naked and sent through a row of men with truncheons who will proceed to cut his anus with a knife. They cannot live like this. They don’t want to live like this. They don’t want to leave this world for their children to live in. And I respect them. Yes, it’s possible that the opposition leaders of the Maidan are peculiar people, and many view them skeptically, and they didn’t have and probably still don’t have a clear action plan. But people don’t stand up and take the hits for them – they do it “for themselves and that fellow” [referring to a poem by Robert Rozhdestvensky], they show the government that they won’t hold with the outrage.

It was the government that provoked it. It was the government that’s responsible for a peaceful protest turning into carnage. A government that gives criminal orders, that votes for unspeakable laws, that delivers “titushky” thugs from all over the country to stage violent provocations. Think about it – yes, by now, in defending their freedom, the Maidan people have turned to Molotov cocktails and self-made spears, but they are facing armed, trained, fully equipped people that were the FIRST to use violence against peaceful citizens. Ukraine is not Russia. You can’t get away with these things here.

Now the Maidan people are declared to be outlaws. Knowing them, I understand – they will not leave the Maidan. Yes, they’re scared – because there’s beatings, and even shootings now, and no one knows what may happen in the next few hours, but they won’t go. Because if there’s anything scarier, it’s the thought of what happens to them and the country tomorrow if they retreat today.

Today, I won’t be on the sidelines. Today, I understand that the money and food sent to the Maidan is a contribution both pathetically little and painfully cowardly.

Mother, dear, you begged me to stay out of trouble. I’m sorry, I really am, but today, I’m going to be there, next to my colleagues and friends, next to the people of Kyiv, even if it also makes me an outlaw. But if I don’t go there, I’ll never have peace. I’ve always admired Ukrainians for their ability to stand up to the government when it goes too far. Today, I admire them more than ever, and I will go to the Maidan, to support the people among which I’ve lived for three years. People who are proud and passionate about their fate and the future of their country. Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes!