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Thursday, November 22, 2007


Maidan: Three Years After

When my friend and I came to Maidan on the morning of Monday, Nov. 22, 2004 — the day after the rigged presidential election — we saw but a few hundred people. “Damn, we’re not gonna make it,” I thought.

By the time evening arrived, people had flooded Kyiv’s main square, bringing a spark of hope to our hearts. Outside, it was getting cold. Inside, it was getting warm. A few weeks later, we made it. Well, not exactly...



On My Way to Maidan
Khreshchatyk Station


The Temple of Stabilnist
This ghost edifice on Instytutska St. greets everyone who emerges from the upper entrance to Khreshchatyk Station. It has been standing there uncompleted and uninhabited for almost two decades.


The Orange Sunset


Descending on Maidan


Blue, But Not PRU
In fact, these activists represent the European Party of Ukraine headed by Mykola Katerynchuk


A Down-to-Earth Perspective


Maidan Forever!
Yanukovych blows kisses against the background of a hill from which I nearly fell on Yushchenko's Inauguration Day.



Welcome to Maidan!




Look Who's Here!
PRU shacks on standby, copycat style. The Blue brothers maintain a couple of ground support units in case shyrka doesn't happen.


Lawyers of the Orange Revolution
My trophy — a book by Mykola Katerynchuk about the court battle that culminated in the Dec. 26 election rerun. (Katerynchuk was in charge of Yushchenko's legal panel.)


Like A Comet Blazing 'Cross The Evening Sky...Gone Too Soon


I Believe I Can Fly


Street Cleaners Wear Orange, Too


Anybody Home?
(Ukraine's White House)


Orange Blues


Orange Poetry


Orange Prose


Plach Yeremiji
"
Lenta za Lentoyu"

4 comments:

DLW said...

thanks for all the pics. I remember my own visit to maidan the summer after OR and we visited a lot of the same places.

dlw

Taras said...

You are welcome! You should have seen it during the Orange Revolution. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I miss you, Maidan.

Bravecat said...

I struggled to recognise some of the places... weird, can't remember the ghost building at all! And it is just around the corner from my old house...

Taras said...

You should remember it! When did you move out? That building decorates Instytutska Street (formerly Zhovtnevoyi/Oktyabrskoi Revolutsiyi). Construction began in 1987. I remember seeing it in December 1991, on my way to a novogodnyaya yolka at Budynok Ofitseriv/Dom Ofitserov.