On Ukrainian Revolutions and their impact on my life

It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years since I've become interested in Ukraine and started learning the language. Of course, this date (22 November 2004) is purely symbolic, because when you're 13, you often become fascinated with something and you never know, whether that would last for 10 days, 10 months or 10 years :) But after 10 years I can tell that it was the Orange Revolution, which inspired me to learn Ukrainian. I could already speak a bit of Russian at that time, but watching the news about peaceful, colourful and democratic revolution in Ukraine motivated me to learn Ukrainian as well. As a teenager, who already had quite a huge interest in politics, I was truly fascinated with those events and wished I could be on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square - the main square of Kyiv, where all the big demonstrations take place) as well. It was impossible because of my young age, but since I've moved to Ukraine, I've always tried to travel to Kyiv on the anniversary of Orange Revolution. Some people thought this "tradition" of mine was weird, because, despite all the enthusiasm that people had back in 2004, those events didn't bring any significiant changes for Ukraine. In fact, that wasn't even a proper revolution, because it didn't bring any really new faces to Ukrainian politics - it was just a political game, but the emotions and faith of common people were real. And at least there were no victims - which is a very important "detail" in light of recent events in our country. Therefore I see nothing wrong in commemorating the anniversary of Orange Revolution in this way or another - afterall that was the event that helped me to discover my Ukrainian self :)

 

So that's me on Maidan Nezalezhnosti yesterday with my new hairstyle :) But nowadays most of people come there to commemorate another revolution, which happened exactly 9 years after the first one, on 21 November 2013. I'll be honest with you - my attitude to this one is completely different and there's more than just one reason for that. Maybe it's because I've been studying political science for almost 5 years and I simply don't believe in revolutions anymore. Revolution always seems to be an easy way of solving social and political problems, but that's just an illusion, because most of problems come from our own mentality. I believe that something has to change in minds of people before we can have a fully democratic political system. I absolutely don't blame people, who believed the ideas of Euromaidan last year - they hoped for a better life, for an European country without corruption and they probably didn't realise where this revolutionary path could lead us. People blamed me for being "anti-Maidan", which isn't actually true. But when there's a revolution, people get very emotional and they don't see that there's more than just one step between being "pro" and "anti". They tend to believe that once you're not with them, you must be against them. I was sceptical about the Euromaidan, because I knew that its ideas weren't supported by everyone in Ukraine and that there was a huge regional differentiation. Euromaidan was mostly a Western Ukrainian movement. Of course, there were thousands of people from East supporting the revolution as well - but statistically, they were a minority in their regions. I also had the feeling that the energy of Euromaidan, just like energy of any other revolution, could get out of control and have totally unexpected consequences. But you know, even in my worst nightmares I couldn't see the war coming... Saying that Euromaidan caused the war would be slightly unfair, but I believe it was the factor to trigger the tragedy which we've been observing in East Ukraine this year. And again, I'm not even sure if that was a real revolution, because people, who rule Ukraine now, have been in politics for many years - and Euromaidan simply helped them to come from opposition to the power. I'm afraid that in a few years people will be disappointed in Euromaidan just like they were disillusioned a couple of years after Orange Revolution. But as far as in the first case they could only blame themselves for wasting time standing on Maidan Nezalezhnosti for the sake of political leaders, who weren't worth it, now we're talking of thousands of lives that were lost both during the Euromaidan and the war this year... So no, there's no way I'd celebrate the anniversary of last year's events. I still love this country and hope things will get better, but that certainly won't be a result of any revolution. The change must start within ourselves...

 

But let's move on to more optimistic topics :)

 

Aren't trains beautiful at sunrise? Well, not only at sunrise, if you ask me ;) I came to Fastiv, where my friend Anya lives, on Saturday morning. We've had a really nice time together and she convinced me to try a completely crazy hairstyle :) In fact, I like it that this year I've finally become open for experiments with my appearance. It's just a pity that I'm in last year of my studies and later I might have to stick to a more conformist style :)

 

Last but not least, here's my letter for my dear Sandra in Germany, which I've sent from Kyiv on Saturday. Hopefully it will arrive soon, because sometimes mail to Germany takes 3 weeks! :/ Currently I'm working on my letter for Søren in Iceland :) I'll still have a lot of time for writing tomorrow, especially that my dentist appointment will have to be postponed, as she's sick. Not that I'm happy about my dentist sickness... but I feel a bit relieved, at least for the few next days ;)