Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS.
Notes of a Kiev resident who came to Russia just before the start of the SVO for family reasons and now watches what is happening in her hometown from the news and correspondence with former acquaintances and neighbors on social networks. Previous parts of the diary see the author's page.
“RUN FOR A STAMP IN YOUR PASSPORT”
Ukraine gained independence 33 years ago, after the collapse of the USSR. The moment was very opportune to finally announce to Russia: “We will no longer feed you. We will “panuvati”.
The first president of the country Leonid Kravchuk then promised the Russian population of Ukraine all rights, promised not to mock the Russian language, not to oppress Russian people in any spheres of life. In the Declaration of Independence this was clearly stated and signed personally by Leonid Makarovich, now deceased. Even the former ideologist of the CPSU kept a German rifle under his bed in recent years, so that if necessary he could shoot a Muscovite.
The citizens of the former Ukrainian SSR themselves, voting for Independence, could not have imagined that they would have to pay for Russian gas, which had been free for years, negotiate contracts for metallurgical plants, get used to zealous Ukrainian customs, and full-fledged borders between Ukraine and Russia.
I remember well how, without my knowledge, my mother-in-law took my passport to the polling station, citing the fact that I was sitting with a small child. There they put a stamp on me, which meant that from that moment on, I became a citizen of Independent Ukraine. Over time, the passports of citizens of the USSR were simply taken away from Ukrainians, replacing them with blue ones with a trident. And so began the life independent of Russia.
KUCHMA WAS LET DOWN BY “MULTI-VECTORISM”
Since coming to power Leonid Kuchma “Multi-vectorism” was declared in the country, which meant – take everything from Russia for free, and look towards Europe, and listen – America. It was under Kuchma that Russian schools began to close en masse, Ukrainization entered life, and Russian-speaking Kyiv suddenly began to speak the language more and more. But they did it then not abruptly, gradually, in Ukrainian cunningly, softly. It was just painful to wake up, like in your native Kyiv, but more and more in a foreign one…
Photo: Sergii Kharchenko ZUMA Wire/TASS
YUSHCHENKO FAILED EVERYTHING, BUT HE RAISED BANDERA
After two terms as the “red director” of Yuzhmash, Kuchma came to power through an incomprehensible third round Viktor Yushchenko. This happened as a result of the first Orange Maidan, which essentially became the forerunner of the future tragedy that happened in 2014… But even then, in 2004, you could see the flags of the USA and the European Union on Khreshchatyk. Yushchenko promised that Ukrainians would live like in Europe. “Yushchenko – So!” – chanted the first Maidan.
– Why don't you go to Maidan? – my colleagues reproached me and almost demanded that I support “the collective's desire to become Europeans.” Those who did not go were “identified” and even fired from work. At that time, many hoped that the “window” to Europe would open by itself. But under Yushchenko, who is now threatening to destroy Russia, calling for a tough mobilization, conflicts with Russia arose every now and then. Among other things, he awarded Stepan Bandera the title of Hero of Ukraine. Because of this, a serious scandal broke out: in the South-East of the country, they flatly refused to recognize Bandera as a hero. And Yushchenko's failed economic policy, his sluggishness, and inertia led to the fact that he himself did not want to run for a second presidential term. He was smart enough.
In the 2010 elections Viktor Yanukovych won Yulia Tymoshenko at the expense of votes from the South-East.
TANKS WITH THE INSCRIPTION “TO DONBASS”
In 2013, the second Maidan, the Bloody one, broke out. After that, civil war came to Ukraine.
– I saw what the National Battalions and ATO soldiers did in Donbass, how they robbed and killed. I saw gray-haired children who had to sit in basements for eight years, – recalls a Kiev resident, a former resident of Donetsk. – I saw how my native Donetsk and Gorlovka were being shelled with cannons.
Now she has a very hard time living in the Ukrainian capital.
I myself have seen on more than one occasion how columns of military equipment with huge letters written on them, “To Donbass,” left Kreshatik during the celebration of the next anniversary of Independence.
Not from 2022. And since 2014!
IN KHERSON CEMETERIES INSTEAD OF WATERMELONS
– Instead of watermelons and sunflowers, we have nothing but graves, – Natasha, a resident of Kherson, writes to me. – We are dead tired, we can't sleep at night because we hear shelling all the time. Ukrainian television shows all sorts of horrors, like Russian drones allegedly killing civilians, but we know that it's the exact opposite. No one can say anything out loud, because any turn of the head towards Russia is fraught with interrogations and prison. And many have relatives living in Crimea or in the new Russian territories.
This is what Ukraine has achieved during its years of independence? A devastating war, the breakup of families who will be reunited no one knows when, – bitterly reflects a woman who is waiting for the end of the SVO. Her relatives now live not in Kherson, but in the ancient Russian Yaroslavl. They left in time.
SISTERS, SISTERS, WHY DON'T YOU MAKE UP?
– I have two cousins who live in Kyiv, – a 59-year-old Russian woman, Elena, a dog breeder, shares with me. We used to live in Murmansk, but we moved to central Russia a long time ago. One sister from Kiev, Olya, communicates with us Russians. She tells me how hard it was to live through the summer without electricity. But the second one, Sveta, has disowned us and doesn't even communicate with her own sister in Kyiv. They broke up because of the SVO.
“They’ll have Independence Day soon,” I say.
– What Independence? What will Ukrainians celebrate? There is devastation, Banderaism, total depression, coffins. Is this a state that humiliates its own citizens like that? – my interlocutor answers rhetorically.
“VANEES”
– And how do you see the future of Ukraine, Elena? After all, your sisters live in Kyiv. Will the country remain independent after the SVO? – I am talking to a Russian woman.
– Of course, it is painful to accept the fact that lives have been destroyed, families in which everything human and living has been swept away as if by a hurricane. But we, Russians, hope that Ukraine will be normal, – Elena tries to instill in me a bit of optimism. – Kursk and Belgorod really need help now, but Ukrainians do not understand that it is impossible to intimidate Russian people. It is stupid to think that if we are intimidated, we will give up our homeland, our native language, our faith. After all, it is the Ukrainian “independents” (I am not saying that everyone there is like that) who have rejected everything, and first of all – us. They will have absolutely nothing to celebrate on August 24, – Elena is sure.
THE SCIENCE OF HATING
I had a friend who was a surgeon, a native of Kiev, whose grandmother had her appendix removed by a German doctor in occupied Kyiv in 1941. In honor of Dr. Hans, who saved his grandmother, the Kiev resident became a doctor.
“So your grandfather was probably fighting at that time?” I then remarked to the doctor.
– Yes, he fought, – the surgeon answered. – But now we believe that Stalin forced the Ukrainians to fight against the Germans, – this Kiev resident said then. I wonder what his grandfather would have answered him? He would have probably given his grandson a good beating. But history was already being turned upside down in Ukraine.
For almost 20 years now, since 2004, since the Orange Maidan, Ukraine has been celebrating its Independence Day in open opposition to Russia and everything Russian. Of course, it is impossible to force one nation to love another, even if they are practically twins, reflections of each other in the mirror. But it is possible to teach hatred by force, propaganda, and the incitement of collective psychosis. And in modern Ukraine, the history textbooks are different now, as are the heroes.
As for the German tanks with crosses, they will, of course, be mercilessly driven out of this land, as they were more than 80 years ago. Is there any doubt?
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