The Celestial Hundred

The Chronicle of the Euromaidan-1

The Chronicle of the Euromaidan

2013

November 21

The Government of Ukraine officially terminated preparatory work for the signing of the Agreement on the association (AA) of Ukraine with the European Union. In the evening of this day the first action of protest took place in the Independence Square (the Maidan) which rallied 2000 people.

November 21

Sergei Suprun, 37, Kyiv, businessman,

Director of a promotion agency,

an activist of the Common

Cause movement, a father of four

I went out to the Maidan hoping to see our nation wake up.

Sergey Suprun is the first one from the left

The country was in the midst of a "satisfied dissatisfaction": Ukrainians complained about everything at all—from dirty entrance hails to the price of gasoline, from the Regions Party to homosexuals. We had not realized yet that it was all our responsibility—we ourselves were responsible for everything. And if we really want to eliminate corruption and stop degradation—it is not enough just to come to the polling stations once in five years.

Year after year we have been driven out of legal terrain, we have been turned into servitorial staff for the oligarchs' clans. They have taken our land, our language and our chance of national self-identification. Now, driving the last nail into our Euro-integration, they are taking away the future of our children. An inner "khokhol" inside us has long since strangled a Ukrainian.

In the evening of November 21 me and my friend Sergei Tishchenko, a journalist from the Common Cause, arrived at the Maidan when there were just about six people there, one of them—with the EU flag on his shoulder. And there were about thirty times as many riot policemen there. My friend pulled out a bar of chocolate from his pocket and gave a little piece to each of us. That is probably when I heard the phrase "Look! Kyivans are bringing food to the Maidan!" for the first time.

Within an hour there were several thousand people on the Maidan—mostly journalists and politicians—and that was the beginning of the action which was later called the Students' Maidan.

November 24

The first Peoples’ Veche [Popular assembly] took place in Kyiv. A column of protesters heading towards the Maidan and counting 50 to 100 thousand people by different estimates stretched all along the Khreshchatyk. Rallies took place in dozens of other cities of Ukraine.

November 29

At the summit of the Eastern Partnership in Vilnius President Viktor Yanukovych officially refused to sign the Agreement on association with the EU.

In Kyiv the protesters for the first time demanded the resignation of the Head of State.

The forces of the special riot police Berkut are drawn to the centre of the capital.

November 30

At 4:00 am in Kyiv Berkut forces brutally cleaned up the Maidan of several hundred protesters, including dozens of students who had kept vigil during the night. About a hundred activists were injured, many more detained. As a reason for the violent dispersal of the meeting the authorities claimed the need to put up the main New Year tree of the country in the Maidan.

November 30

Taras Shumik, 27, Kyiv,

IT recruiter

I was following the developments in the social networks when Mustafa Nayem, journalist, called everyone on the Face-book to come out to the Maidan to protest against the refusal to sign the EU Association agreement. The next day, November 22, I came to the Maidan. Everyone was aware that failure to sign the agreement puts an end on Ukraine's future and deprives us of any prospect of development. The only way out then would be to pack the suitcase and leave the country.

I met some friends of mine who settled down next to the Independence stela, and after that I spent almost every night on the Maidan. That night, several hours before the police crackdown, we gathered for the meeting of the Coordination council of the Euromaidan. After the failure to sign the EU agreement lots of people were disappointed, their enthusiasm was on the wane, and the Maidan started to turn into a youth discotheque. Something had to be done.

After a long discussion we decided we should join forces with the opposition. We decided to tidy up the lot next to the stela by next morning and remove our equipment from there so that the opposition could put up their screen and sound equipment. The plan was to run a joint action on Sunday, December 1st.

Around midnight we got back to the Maidan. After 1 am the crowd started to break up and my companions and I went to a nearby coffee shop to warm up. We returned to the stela at about 3 am. There were few people left—about 300 people: several dozen of coordinators and ordinary passers-by and lookers-on who were all different from night to night, a small group of students and some members of the youth wing of the Svoboda and UNA-UNSO. We were sitting, trying to warm up next to the fire burning in a barrel, playing the guitar and talking. Activists and volunteers were tidying up around the monument, some guys were dismantling the sound equipment structures, I was picking up some wooden planks and flagpoles. All of a sudden we heard some Maidan guards shout, "Berkut is coming!"

I looked up: really, from the Instytutska street Berkut men started to climb down the stairs.

In front—an attacking group of about 100, behind them—some more policemen in a rank. Along the Khreshchatyk there were ranks of Internal Troops, standing like a wall. And by the way, a bit earlier several ambulances pulled up and parked by the House of Trade Unions. We later realized it was a clear sign: they are going to attack. It always worked like that later on.

Berkut men and IT [Internal Troops] forces surrounded us. One could only escape by breaking through their lines. Or never to escape at all. Because the passage next to the Conservatoire had already been closed by a fence and the site for the Christmas tree had been prepared. Our guys stood fast on the stairs by the monument. They made a human chain to stop Berkut. Our girls stayed inside and hid immediately beneath the stela. We didn't believe they would beat us—we thought they'd just try to push us out. But they started to beat us brutally with their batons right away.

Where Berkut managed to break our chain, our guys suffered most. Also by the stela, on the side of the Instytutska street where Berkut charged and the guys by the monument to the Founders of Kyiv— they caught it really hot. Those who fell on the ground were kicked. Ustim Galadniuk, a hero of the Celestial Hundred, was also badly beaten that night. Before my eyes they smashed a journalist's camera and beat his head in.

I shouted, "Let the girls out!" The girls were screaming with fright, but it only infuriated the Berkut men more—and they beat them to make them stop screaming. And generally they beat more brutally those who resisted or tried to talk to them.

Those who had left the square earlier were not beaten so cruelly. Internal Troops servicemen who lined the Khreshchatyk, shocked by what they saw, made a little corridor to let us escape. I helped the girls to pass through and started to withdraw myself. I got a couple of strikes on my hands that tried to protect my head. Berkut men hit us mostly on the head, arms and legs. It looked as if they wanted to detain as many people as possible, so they tried to knock out as many as possible. While trying to escape we kept throwing percussion grenades. By the stairs leading down to the Metro station some ambulance men were trying to give first aid to a guy with a fracture in his head who was lying in a pool of blood.

We crossed the Khreshchatyk to the other side towards the building of the Central Post Office. I saw a friend there talking to a man in plain clothes with a walki-talki in his hand. Something told me he was one of those in charge of this operation. So I tell him, "What are you doing?! Stop it now! Let us help the wounded!" And he says, "Idiots should be beaten!"

Meanwhile riot policemen formed a rank and moved towards us. The dispersion operation began.We dashed in the direction of the McDonald's. I reached the dome of the Globe, skipped over the parapet towards the House of Trade Unions and looked back. Those who fell down on the ground were drawn towards prisoner vans. Some were taken away by ambulances. The whole operation took no more than 5 minutes. After that I and a group of friends were hiding in the building of "Dnieper" hotel for an hour and a half. We watched from the windows Berkut and Internal Troops knock down everyone who hadn't escaped.

Now, if we set aside all emotions and look at the situation soberly, if it had not been for the brutality of Berkut that night—we might have stayed in the Maidan for some more time, but then it would have subsided. The Euromaidan wouldn't have rallied 1 million people—as it did on December 1st.

At the meeting of the 1st of December we were standing among a crowd of 1 million people infuriated by the police crackdown on students during the night of November 30th, and we were thinking to ourselves: at least we weren't beaten in vain, at least our people have woken up and realized—we cannot live like that any longer.

December 1

By some estimates about 500 000 Kyivans took part in the protest march against the violent dispersion of the Euromaidan and the brutal battering of the students. The protest action was announced termless. The protesters captured the buildings of the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA) and the House of Trade Unions—for the warm up of the protesters and to provide the site for the Headquarters of the National Resistance.

Some activists, egged on by the radicals, tried to storm the building of the Presidential Administration. The law enforcement forces that defended it were showered with stones, they retaliated with percussion grenades and counterattacked—all in all 200 people suffered on both sides. Four buses of Berkut servicemen prevented 300 Automaidan protesters from reaching Mezhyhirya Presidential compound.

December 2

The protesters in Kyiv captured the third building—the October Palace in the Instytutska street—and started to put up a tent camp and barricades on the approaches to it to defend it against a possible attack by the riot police.

The court applied the most severe measure of restraint—two months under arrest—to the nine protesters detained the day before by the Presidential Administration who will be later called prisoners of the Bankova street.

December 9

Sergey Suprun

The Maidan was getting ready for the police attack. I had been spending nights in the building of the KCSA occupied by us for a week by that time.

Ever since December 5 we'd been receiving alarming news about Internal Troops and Berkutforces being pulled in to Kyiv, and it was clear that the showdown was coming in the nearest future. Kyiv was under the information pressure.

By 6 pm the center of the city was absolutely empty. At rush hour I drove across the Podol and never once stopped at the traffic lights queue. Empty streets looked depressing. There were almost no pedestrians. As I drove I realized it was a one way road. I just couldn't understand—why is there no mobilization? It is obvious the crackdown on the Maidan is coming! But the opposition went silent. They had other things to do—the parliamentary by-elections were close at hand.

I reached the European Square—and it was like crossing the border. A brightly lit square, thousands of people—all as busy as bees. A shocking contrast with the deserted city! The people were shoveling away the snow and tidying up. Those who have taken part in the Maidan, know very well what is the essence of unification and solidarity. I felt it immediately as I shut the door of my car. The people on the square didn't walk—they ran! They were scraping snow with shovels, wooden planks, with their hands. You could see chance pedestrians and newcomers join in willingly. Sacks were quickly filled and taken away. Welders were welding steel rods which were then covered with sacks of snow and turned into barricades.