It was situated down the hill from Ira’s, in the Podil port district. Yaroslav stood in the galley kitchen, stirring a pot of vegetables (clean ones, he insisted) on the stove. He had been away on road trips, reporting from other republics. I envied him this ease of travel. I had been given permission for one visit to Budapest to pick up my car. Otherwise, however, I remained stuck in Kiev, still unable to reclaim my passport. I wished we had a Canadian or British consulate here or someone else who could help. Once in a while I thought of Ute and understood a little better now how she must have felt.
“Want some?” Yaroslav asked as he took the pot off the stove. I nodded yes. He put plates full of ratatouille topped with stringy melted cheese on the table. Then the phone rang. Yaroslav spoke Ukrainian to the caller. When he finished, he turned to me and said “There’s going to be a student hunger strike. The students want the Communists out of power. Their demands include the dissolution of Parliament and new elections by spring. We should meet in the square tomorrow morning. They’ll set tents up then.”
“Wow! This is amazing on top of everything else that’s happened. So the students are trying to oust the Communists. Maybe Ukraine will be the new Hungary,” I said.
“It’s not Hungary here,” Yaroslav insisted.
The phone rang again. Yaroslav picked up the receiver and handed it to me. My regular evening call to the foreign desk had come through on time. I pitched the student hunger strike story. Just after my call ended, another one came through. The operator connected Yaroslav to his foreign desk. He worked for a British daily now. He offered the same story as me.
“We’re meant to be competitors, not collaborators,” I joked after he hung up.
“The rules change when the entire foreign press corps fits in the front seats of a Lada,” Yaroslav replied. We finished eating, scrubbed melted cheese from the bottom of the ratatouille pot, washed the rest of the dishes, turned out the light and locked the office for the night. Yaroslav lived with his granny. I drove him home and then went back to Ira’s, the wide boulevards free from traffic.
The next morning, I reached October Revolution Square early. I hovered as students equipped with hammers drove tent spikes into the paving stones. I worried that riot police would sweep in and cart the students away on charges of vandalism. The only person who actually appeared was Yaroslav, bleary-eyed, with a knapsack hanging off his shoulder. He wore a black sweatshirt as protection against the morning chill.
“Do you think the police will intervene?” I asked Yaroslav.
“These are students. It wouldn’t look good to beat them up,” he said. An hour passed. No police officers arrived. A few canvas tents similar to those I had seen in pictures from 1930s camping trips now stood on the square. Students placed plastic sheeting over the tops of the tents to protect them from dew, frost and rain. They camped near a huge red granite Lenin statue, which dominated the square.
“Hi guys,” I looked up the steps that led to Lenin and saw our friend Mary, an American Ukrainian lawyer. She volunteered for Rukh.
“I hope they’ve practised how to handle riot police,” she said. Yaroslav, Mary and I milled around as the protesters pitched more tents. By the time we left, a dozen tents stretched down the square. Over the course of the following days, the tent city swelled and support for it grew.
I don’t know who was more surprised by the size of the protest when students marched, Mary and me, the police or Communist politicians. That morning I put on Doc Martens, anticipating standing for hours on the streets. I dressed in jeans, a sweater and a large maroon duffle coat. I had my favourite Kiev breakfast, dry cottage cheese–like tvorog, topped with smetana, a cross between crème fraîche and sour cream. I ate this snow-white mountain from a bowl. Fuelled by black tea, I strolled to the square through streets lined with elegant buildings, enjoying the walk as I always did. I remained in awe of the architecture in central Kiev. No one had described the beauty of this city to me before I arrived. It still amazed me.
As I reached the crest of the hill leading down to Khreshchatyk, I heard a voice amplified through a megaphone. Once I topped the crest and headed down, I had a clear view of the square. It already teemed with students and more were still pouring in along adjacent streets. I joined the throng and watched as organizers took charge.
I spoke to a group of students who said that organizers had barricaded the doors of the library where they studied. The students had gone to the library and had found that the doors were locked. There was a notice about the march on them. They went to the square. Some seemed irritated at the disruption, but most were curious enough to join. A teacher in her late twenties led the last contingent that arrived, a spirited class of twelve-year-olds. The teacher looked as if she was the oldest person in the square.
The organizers shouted instructions through megaphones. Everyone obeyed. First the protesters formed small squads. Then they assembled in orderly lines. Student guards linked arms around the perimeter of the crowd. They walked quickly, to the beat of a drum, toward Parliament. I wondered how MPs would feel when they saw city children on the march.
Mary stood on an embankment near Parliament, a tall, striking figure draped in a heavy, long coat. I climbed the embankment to join her.
“I never thought this many people would turn out,” I said.
“It’s quite a show,” Mary replied. We tried to estimate the size of the crowd (we noticed adults in it now) by counting rows as people marched by. We gave up at 80,000. Still more marchers passed.
The protest worked. The authorities allowed the student leaders a lengthy appearance on TV. The prime minister resigned. The students returned to class, assured concessions on their other demands would follow. They did not. I felt tricked and was sure that the student leaders did too. Momentum dissipated. The atmosphere soon changed in Kiev. Communist leaders organized a large military parade to mark the November 7th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. They banned all protests for that day.
Yaroslav and I both had parliamentary passes that let us cross between city zones established for the parade. We arranged to meet by the Rukh building on the morning of the 7th. We would come from opposite sides of the city.
As I neared the Rukh office, I saw a long military cordon. My pass meant nothing as my path was blocked. I wondered if Yaroslav was faced with a similar situation over on his side. I stared at huge green army trucks. They stood so close together that their wheels nearly touched. Their engines still hummed. The tailpipes spewed diesel fumes. It seemed the trucks might charge forward at any moment.
I stood still, paralyzed by the noise and the size of the trucks. I thought of my accident in London and worried that a truck might move and crush me. I could either inch my way through the crevice to reach the other side so that I could interview trapped Rukh protestors, or I could stay put. I knew that the blockade would not deter Yaroslav. I breathed slowly to calm myself. I smelled diesel, felt vibrations from the engines and fought panic. I rubbed against two walls of black tires as I squeezed through. I reached the other side clammy. My heart raced. I knew that hard-liners had seized charge. All that optimism I had felt for Ukraine just a month ago faded away.