03.13.2014 Postcardsfrommaidan.org
Translated by Voices of Ukraine
Edited by Alex Howard for VOU

Postcards from Maidan is an art initiative that helps facilitate the psychological rehabilitation and physical recovery of patients. Artists visit the wounded and use drawings as a storytelling mechanism of Maidan. The wounded are later presented with the drawings. This is the story of one Maidan protester. It is story #14.

Volodymyr Popadiuk, from Lviv Oblast, was beaten by Berkut riot police.

“I spent three months on Maidan. I did come back home at times, to get washed up and change my clothes. Last time, I was beaten on Shovkovychna Street, on February 18, 2014. I came to back to Lviv for a funeral on February 23, and that’s where I felt my head spinning, and so I came back here.

I was beaten around 2 or 3 am, when the Berkut police [Ed. note–now disbanded riot police] started chasing us. I stood up for a young guy, he was dragging his shield, I don’t know if they beat him or it was a grenade. He could barely walk, so I took his shield and fended off four Berkut policemen from him. Well, I pushed two of them on the ground, and two of them went around to get me, and that’s it. I don’t remember what happened after. I came to the Lvivska Brama, but it was impossible to walk through there, since Berkut was nearby. So I walked to the Hotel Ukraine. There were about 12 of us. There was a slope and a chain link fence there, I untangled it and we jumped to Maidan over the trash containers. A woman, she must have lived nearby, she was great, she opened the gates for us and we came to Maidan. If we were left along with those animals back there, who knows [what would have happened]… We talked to them, they had those crazed eyes of a bull. A woman talked to one, and he almost hit her.

I was with Galya and my brother. He worked at a dispensary on Hrushevskiy Street. Berkut policemen threw a grenade inside, came in, and stomped on the medications. I called my brother and asked where he was. He was going to bring some medications to the Trade Unions House [Ed. note–the building that was burnt down in February]. The next day, he and I went to Prorizna Street, where they put a bandage on my head. I asked them not to sew up my head, that it would heal on its own. Hell resumed on Maidan that very day, I couldn’t help but go there. I went there, I don’t remember how long I stayed there for, my head started spinning. I went to Mykhaylivskiy Cathedral, we laid down there. Svitlana and her husband Leonid took us in, she applied a head bandage, we woke up in the morning, cleaned up, and [found out that] she laundered everything, because my clothes were covered in blood.

I felt so sorry for that young man on Shovkovychna Street… I ran towards him. I couldn’t have done anything else, otherwise they would have killed him then and there.

Afterwards, I remember how a man carried the lad. His eye knocked out, his skull damaged, blood nearly bubbling, we brought him to the emergency room…

Just as we arrived at Shovkovychna Street, they had forged iron gates there–a man let us in. We were saved for the second time. He hid us in his office. We waited over there, since Berkut was already near the Zhovtneviy Palace. What a great guy, he wasn’t afraid to open his office and hide us there.

We would have held against Berkut if people hadn’t panicked. Because when people panicked, Berkut ran after us and attacked us from behind. Four Berkut policemen against one [protester]. The person is already on the ground, why would you?”

Artist Dobrynya Ivanov talked to Volodymyr Popadiuk at Oleksandrivska Hospital. Dobrynya took a photo of the protester during their converstation.

Source: Postcards from Maidan 

____________________

Postcards from Maidan is an art initiative that helps bring support through truthful images of Ukrainian protests in different regions of the country, and also tells the stories of people who suffered during events on Maidan this winter in Kyiv.

The project consists of two elements:

#postcards from maidan
The Postcards Project contains a series of cards based on works of contemporary artists. Artists who participated in protests on Maidan create works reflecting on the events and as a message to fellow citizens. These cards may serve as support and a means to bring the spirit of protest to one’s relatives and friends in any part of Ukraine or the world. They are distributed on Maidan and available to everyone for free download in a format suitable for printing.

#stories from maidan
In The Stories Project, contemporary artists visit hospitals, talk to people [protesters/activists] and work on an artistic embodiment of their stories from Maidan. Activists receive these works as gifts by which to remember the events. This project is documented; the stories may later be used by various media. Through social networks, with the help of journalists, volunteers and the project’s website, organizers of this project help to recover lost contacts and enable protesters to learn about each other.

Postcards from Maidan was founded by Kadygrob_Taylor Platform for Contemporary Art, an independent non-profit.  Source: http://postcardsfrommaidan.org/about