It’s true that the “constitution” was approved back in June, but it is only a formal and legal framework. On the one hand, the self-proclaimed authorities declare that they want to be an independent and democratic state. On the other, they affirm their attachment to Soviet traditions.
Asking about how city and communal institutions work here turns out to be problematic. “Everything is all right. We work as we did before,” a doctor tells me but he doesn’t agree to be recorded. The hospital administration barred him from talking to the media.
In the schools, children follow the program set by the Ukrainian Ministry of Education. “The only thing that has changed is one hour of Russian that was added to some grades,” says the principal of a Russian-language school. Most of the instructions come from Kiev. To demonstrate this, this woman shows me some documents with Ukrainian emblems. Ukrainian is still being taught. But Ukrainian history has been postponed until the second semester. Schools with classes taught in Ukrainian are functioning as well. Only the schools near the airport were not opened after the summer vacations because it would be too dangerous. Children living near the airport can attend other schools in Donetsk. They were all opened on October 1, but according to the principal they will catch up with the syllabus because the fall break has been cancelled. However, there are rumors that the program will be changed soon. At the universities, too.
The separatists have even decided to impose their new time. In the DPR clocks don’t run on Kiev time. The hands of the clocks are set one hour forward.
Novorossyans are more and more sure that they will create a separate and independent state. They realize that they have a long way to go. In September there was a summit in Minsk that de facto sealed Ukraine’s loss of large parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk territories. Even earlier, Novorossyans published an article on their website Russian Spring, entitled On the Way to a Great “Transnistria.” Its main thesis was that Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko couldn’t immediately recognize independent Novorossiya, but he would do so in the end since he had no other choice.
Right now it’s a stalemate. Both sides are in their trenches, and they can’t take a single step forward.
This report is dated October 2014, Donbas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WHEN I ARRIVED in Slovyansk for the first time, I didn’t think I would write a book based on my observations. Only when I went to Donbas for the fourth time did I decide to write something more than press or internet articles or do more than broadcasting for radio or TV. I didn’t want to lose “the moment.” That’s why this book is partly based on my texts that were published in Dziennik Opinii, Nowa Europa Wschodnia, and New Eastern Europe. The last two chapters are extensively based on my articles from Tygodnik Powszechny. I finished writing in October 2014 in Donetsk, when the fighting was going on full blast.
This book would have never been written if it weren’t for many people who were so kind to me. First of all, I thank my mother who supported me to the very end, although she was skeptical about my travels and worried all the time.
I thank Ania, Jarek, Małanka, and Ostap Junk on whom I can always rely. I thank all the people with whom I traveled all over Donbas and spent many hours talking. These are, first of all, Piotr Andrusieczko, Piotr Pogorzelski, and Tomáš Rafa.
I thank my friends in Warsaw, Wojciech Kuźnicki and Jakub Piłczyński, who always tried to help as much as they could.
Perhaps I would have never seriously begun to write this book without the encouragement of Professor Jarosław Hrycak and Dr. Tomasz Stryjek. They were the first to motivate me, and thanks to them I believed it possible.
I am grateful to the Warsaw branch of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and in particular to Małgorzata Kopka, thanks to whom I went to Donbas for the first time. And finally, I would like to thank Wydawnictwo Krytyka Polityczna for deciding to publish Pozdrowienia z Noworosji and for doing it like the wind.
In chapter 9 I used the fragments of the following texts:
“Samolot zestrzelony przez separatystów,” Tygodnik Powszechny, online at http://tygodnik.onet.pl/wwwylacznie/relacja-korespondenta-ze-wschodniej-ukrainy-samolot-zestrzelony-przez-separatystow/fs581.
“Boeing 777 nie wytrzymał walk,” Tygodnik Powszechny, online at http://tygodnik.onet.pl/wwwylacznie/boeing-777-nie-wytzrymal-walk-korespondencja-ze-wschodniej-ukrainy/ybbfe.
“Rosyjskie śledztwo nie będzie uczciwe,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 30 (3394).
“Ukraińcy: Donbas wyzwolimy sami,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 31 (3395).
In chapter 10 I used the fragments of the following texts:
“Dziwny rozejm,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 42 (3406).
“Noworosja krzepnie,” Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 43 (3407).
The translators wish to thank Lena Surzhko-Harned for her advice on Russian and Ukrainian terms.
ILLUSTRATION CAPTIONS
One of the last pro-Ukrainian demonstrations in Donetsk. April 17, 2014
Kramatorsk, April 2014. Russian sign reads: “Donbas, our land”
Kramatorsk, April 2014. Russian sign reads: “Referendum. Fascism, Nato—NO”
103 Lenin Street, Luhansk, October 2014
Main square in Slovyansk with its Lenin statue in the center. April 21, 2014