Ustym Golodnyuk
19, Zbarazh,
Ternopyl region
As he heard the first TV report about the failure to sign the EU agreement and the beginning of student protests in the center of Kyiv, Ustym Golodnyuk clenched his fists. His father Volodymir Golodnyuk, an ex-policeman, says he had never seen such expression on his son’s face. He perceived the radical change in the country’s political course as a personal insult.
The next day Ustym was on his way to Kyiv. His father found out about it when his son failed to come over for the weekend. He tried to stop Ustym—did his best to persuade him on the phone. Ustym was adamant, “In 1990 you didn’t ask your parent’s permission, either, when you went on a hunger strike on the Maidan.”
In the evening of November 23 the boy was on the Maidan. Alina Vyatk
