By Julia Babich
11.22.2014
Translated and edited by Voices of Ukraine

We went to Maidan [Kyiv’s Independence Square] from the side of Kyiv’s City Council … Ruslana had just started to sing the hymn [National Anthem] … Déjà-vu … back then .. December 8 … when I first came to Maidan, I also came to it from the subway .. . and first, before even seeing it, I heard it … it was 6 am … .. Ruslana sang the National Anthem …

With a head immersed in memories … even, it seems, the smell of smoke from the barrels to heat yourself by, that you can still feel … too bad that no one passes around tea anymore … and no one asks if you are warm enough? And the paving bricks are no longer of strategic importance as before … there is pain … some unspeakable pain … All words seem to be not right … There is memory …

“Yul, we’re heading home … (we have only been on Maidan for 15 minutes) … I can’t be here long …”

Memory …
“Here they came upon us … People. One-on-one. You try to pull them out. And those hands … hands that reach for you from this heap of people .. and each one asks –”Help!”– And you choose one hand and pull …”

Memory …
“And here we are with the deceased Arthur ….”

Memory …
“We said goodbye to life … and then a miracle … we left the captured October Palace … with surprise … and there – were dead … many dead … ”

Memory …
“Right here is where he got the bullet meant for me … He was younger than I … he covered me …”

Maidan won’t heal … and it won’t become a holiday …
Maidan … it is memory … and rightly so …

[Editor: posted the day after the one year anniversary of Euromaidan with photos from the Nov. 21st, 2014 anniversary evening].

Source Julia Babich FB