The Story of Maidan: Part 9— How Utopia looks like

The big metal christmas tree on Maidan in December 2013

We take a look around Maidan and what life on the square was like. In Chapter 7 -First Clashes in November we saw how violence was carried from the state to the protesters in early Maidan.

A satirical time-table of a maidan-activist, repeating all the silly clichés that opposing Ukrainian state-media and Russian news-outlets use to discredit Maidan[1]:

8:00 — Breakfast of salo (back fat)
9:00 — Get on the Metro and ride to the US Embassy to get paid
10:00 — Ride to the Maidan for a free meal and hanging out in the City Hall
11:00 — Knock down the monument to Lenin
12:00 — Engage in improper homosexual relations, which brings me one step closer to Europe
13:00 — Beat up Russian-speaking women and children
14:00 — Spread out my mat and pray to the monument to Bandera
15:00 — Run around the city and paint swastikas
16:00 — Take a chain and start whipping the helpless columns of Berkut
17:00 — Sing the American national anthem
18:00 — Go to the Russian Embassy and steal their WiFi
19:00 — Steal Russian gas
20:00 — Dinner of salo (Baconfat)
21:00 — Dinner with horilka (vodka)
22:00 — Pack it in

After December 11th, the government really thought twice before it made its next move. It actually took a full month. This is a time where Maidan was fortified with barricades as well as with a structure that tried to resemble civil society, an ideal version of it. Let’s do a walk-around. Say its end of December, weekend, afternoon. Coming out of metro station Kreshchatyk one stands on the boulevard with the same name. At first there is nothing unusual. Hawkers sell useless stuff, funny guys dressed in huge cartoon-animal-costumes take money for photos. The mood is festive, shops are open for Christmas-business.

Maidan visitors fall prey to wild animals. But all they want is some coins.

Only then you recognize a couple of military tents right on the street, its inhabitants stand around them with dirty faces doing pretty much nothing. It’s absurd to see dirty faces and combat fatigues next to high heeled teenagers coming out of fashion stores just some yards further.

Walking 200 yards leads us to a barricade made of benches, pieces of wood, tyres, barrels, sacks filled with sand. Maidan tourists pose for photos in front of it. There is a small open entrance between the barricade and the general post office and some mobile toilets that don’t look very trustworthy.

One of the main barricades on the South-West side, the Union building on the left.

The first four camps are manned by Cossacks, the spiritual or real followers of an old Ukrainian tribe. Once they defended the borderlands against the mongols, today they defend Maidan. They live their own culture with dress, hairstyle, musical instruments. They sit and wait and they pose for children, show them how to beat the big drum.

There are several camps, followed by tents, followed by info-stands with volunteers handing out flyers and news-papers. It’s all a bit messy, barrels are burning like in a rap video from inner city Detroit of the 1980ies, there are wood-staples everywhere. The burning barrels define the smell of the revolution. After a day on Maidan you come home smelling of bacon. This view is quite impressive in the heart of a European capital city. It is messy but it is not really dirty. There aren’t even cigarette butts on the pavement, volunteers clear the square at all times.

While there might be around 5.000 people working and partly living on Maidan, especially on weekends there are ten times more people coming. To hear speeches from the main stage, to get a free lunch, to see what it is all about. To have been there at least once. There are families and a lot of kids. They have fun. They stand in line at tea and food stalls. Volunteers work in make-shift kitchen-tents, cut cheese, bread and sausages, make sandwiches, thousands and then thousands more.

There are supervisors who hand out kitchen passes to new volunteers and scrounge food. There is the story of the lawyer who came after work and said “I am here to help. What can I do?” He was told to cook soup. He said that he had never even cut an onion before. But he was put in charge of a 30 gallon soup pot and managed it. At night he surfs the internet to find new recipies.

There is tea handed out at about 20 stalls all over the square. The soup comes with raw garlic cloves, good for activists health. This is an outdoor adventure and it is winter. Where does all the food come from? Nobody knows for sure. On television a news-segment calculates the daily need of food at a value of 100.000 Euro. Protesters consume around six tons of bread and 1,5 tons of cheese — every day.[2] One food cache is in the trade union building. You see important looking men running in an out, carrying sacks of pasta noodles or bread loaves. But there are also grannies from the country side bringing a bag full of eggs for the boys and girls on Maidan.

“The kitchen on Maidan is very well organized and people bring a lot of food. But there’s a shortage of desserts. People usually want something sweet with their tea, especially when they are cold and down. I think sweets always raise people’s spirits,” says 18-year old Sofia Marchenko, student from Kyiv. She loves to bake trays full of heartshaped biscuits adorned with the letters UA. [3]

75-years old Yelena has a pension of $120 per month: “I’m ready to give whatever I have, however difficult it may be. This is my way of protesting. I’ll make barley kasha. I’ll fry onions and throw them into the kasha with some lard, and I’ll bring it to Maidan. It should be enough to feed 10 people. I’ll also bring bread loaves, otherwise they might still be hungry.”

“It is not a good idea to idealize the Maidan. This is like a real society. Not every part of it is positive, but the vast majority is,” says Dmytro Shymkiv, general director of Microsoft Ukraine. While he leads the software giants Ukrainian outlet during the day, in the night he becomes a Maidan activist. “My task is to help, to protect and to reduce the number of conflicts. People are tired; they start to discuss, to speak in raised voices. In view of my experience, my task is to extinguish the conflict,” he explains. Sometimes he even organizes support for riot police, provides them with tea, collects their mobile phones to be charged and even have their cigarettes lit. “What is great here on the Maidan is that everyone is equal, you won’t find a hierarchy here,” says Shymkiv.

After five weeks of protesting in the cold many seem tired.

Of course this is not completely true. The protesters headquarts for instance is lead by Batkivshchyna lawmaker Stepan Kubiv. He once worked as the CEO of two Ukrainian banks. His skills seemed perfect for organizing Maidans activities. Along with other members of Parliament he thought of the idea to sign a rental agreement with the owners of the Trade Union building to avoid being evicted by court order. Besides this he recruits volunteers, organizes food transport and production and garbage collection. He even organized cleaning Mariyinski Park after the less successful, pro-government Anti-Maidan protest left in end of December.[4]

As president of the farmers Association of Ukraine, Mykola Markevych wants to achieve European standards in agriculture. But in December 2013 he is overseeing food deliveries for Maidan. “We are in contact with the headquarters’ kitchen chief. If there is a lack of fat, bread, garlic or meat, I ask farmers to bring this,” he says.

A list of what food is needed. Chocolate the main item.

Maidan’s food group reports their spendings for the sake of transparency. In the period between 1 and 15 january, a time with far less people on Maidan than in previous weeks, they report to have provided:

6.000 hot meal servings
25.500 sandwiches
50.000 cups of tea
12.500 cups of coffee

They had a revenue of 29597 US$ and expenditure of 22.000,29. They also list the names and amounts of private donors as well as collection boxes on Maidan: roughly 6.100 US$. They also received US$ 8.000 from Maidan organizations abroad. The expenses are US$ 7.879 for food, US$ 5.669 for fuel, US$ 4.611 financial support for the camp, US$ 1.277 for medication and US$ 2.563 for hygiene products, communication and transport cost On a good day, Maidan needs 300 loafs of bread.[5]

Lipton tea? Not so sure. Funny? Very much.

Shop owners donate as well. Food and money wise, Maidan is also carried by small enterprises. Myron Spolsky, who owns Vezuvio pizza promised on December 5th to make 100 “Embassy” pizzas with added tomatoes, to feed EuroMaidan protesters. Small enterprises are among the victims of the mafia system, they are loosing out. So they give. As many others do. There is a stall collecting old warm clothes for those defending the barricades. In February I was told that they had enough socks but desperately needed underwear. Near the barricades there is a cardboard box with a sign: “give cigarettes for the guards.” Sometimes Maidans hospitality gets a bit ridiculous when young volunteers carry tea and sandwiches to the main stage and distribute to the audience.

Kyiv Post photojournalist Anastasia Vlasova describes solidarity in the night: “I’ve never been extremely patriotic but I sang the national anthem at least three times during the night with my hoarse voice and sore throat. People I’ve never met before became my friends. That’s the EuroMaidan effect. At once, an unfamiliar guy standing next to me offers me some cheese, another one gives me gum saying it’s just because he “also wants to give me something. I treat them with tea from my thermos. Suddenly a group of people shows up and offers us some cognac to add to the tea. In a few minutes I get caught by a massive roundelay and keep dancing until my legs are exhausted.”[6]

Anastasias night ends: “Deeper into the night, fewer and fewer people stay near the stage to dance and sing. Several dozen people sleep, sitting covered with blankets near the barrels with fire, some of them sleep embracing each other. Surprisingly, there are still around 70 people dancing and chanting at 4 a.m. in the morning. An hour later the hostess at the stage offers to clean up Maidan from the mess after the night. Without any doubt, the protesters start collecting garbage from the ground and putting it into garbage bags. Somebody cleverly puts on ‘Wake up, my darling, wake up’ song by Okean Elzy. Murmuring the lyrics, people are lining up to get their breakfast of hot coffee and cookies, or making for the metro to catch the first train home, to come back the next night.”

Food for the masses. People sleep in tents like these (although on the other side of the street)

But where do all the people sleep? There are by far not enough tents on Maidan to host 5.000 activists. 19-year old Darya Mykhailova knows it. She is a volunteer in a converted souvenir stand. She helps out-of-towners to find a bed. Sometimes 500 per night, sometimes 1.000. On weekends thousands are hosted in an exhibition centre on the outskirts of Kyiv. The Catholic Cathredral can take up to 2.000. She says that actually there are more beds available than people needing them for most of the nights.[7]

Nobody could tell me who provided the stage and the sound system. There is program 24/7. At every hour they sing the national anthem. Every speaker addresses the audience with “glory to Ukraine” and is answered with “to the heroes glory”. There are a variety of people giving speeches, the three opposition politicians Oleh Tyahnibok, Vitaly Klitschko and Arseniy Yatseniuk come out on weekends and occasionally in the weekday evenings. Sunday is the day where Maidan does a “viche” which means addressing the nation and presenting demands to the government. Of course they rarely tell something new: “Fight”. “Revolution”. “The Government must go”. “We stay till the end”. They have their roles. Ultra-nationalist Tyanibok is the fiercest of the three, if someone can rally an audience to take up arms, then it is him. Yatseniuk is the cool, intellectual technocrat who is better learning to become a good orator with every speech. Something that former boxing world champion Vitaly Klitschko will probably never master. If you put it positively, then he is reasonable but you could also call him timid. His speech is wooden, his command of the Ukrainian language far from perfect.

An ocean of flags usually means that there is a political party rally near.

Their parties are one backbone of Maidan. They are ever present with manpower and party flags. Tyahniboks people are said to be responsible for taking city hall and tearing down the Lenin monument. Their presence gives them the right to address the crowds and even speak for Maidan. But their support is minimal. Hardcore Maidan defenders despise them and accuse them of selling out the movement. The regular protesters just distrust them. They are part of the political establishment after all. If Maidan allows the people to dream then they dream of a Ukraine with entirely new faces.

The orthodox church of the Kyiv patriarch has also sided with Maidan. They pray on stage with the people. The long 24 hours of the day are filled with concerts. Maidan forces musicians to choose sides. If you are famous and have not performed on this stage, you have sided against the people. “Every band that comes here shows the openness of their hearts and we would be glad to hear whoever comes,” said Volodymyr Bondar a Kyiv student.[8] Many musicians have a social and political conscience. “I am being blown away by all this! I am just so happy to be here,” Serhiy Fomenko, lead singer of famous band Mandry exclaims, out of breath, trembling with excitement after his bands show. The bands most famous song: “Ne spi, moya ridna zemlya” — Don’t sleep, my native land. Click the beautiful Maidan rendition of the song here:

In the very front row stands Ruslana Lyzhychko, 41-year old singer turned activist. She had won the European Song Contest in 2004 and took part in the Orange Revolution in the same year. She is more than a singer, a social activist, a heroine of Maidan. Popular band Antytila even released a song titled “Independent” dedicated to the rallies. “This is how we want to support the European initiative of Ukrainian people,” said Taras Topolya, the band’s lead singer.

The most famous Western Ukrainian band Okean Elzy performs the most striking concert on December 14 on Maidan. Singer Svatoslav Vakarchuk only wears a T-shirt and a thin vest while his breath freezes. He is visible amazed by the audience, of course they sing along the famous songs, especially “Rise” and “Wall”. He says that this is their most important concert. The square is packed, people hold their phones in the air and take part in a choreography of light. There is a video of the concert on youtube. Even more amazing is a clip that uses one of the songs, it shows a video taken by a drone that starts on the ground and is moving upwards, further and further away, showing the square and the thousands of lights from the mobile phones. It is so beautiful that everybody with a heart must believe in the righteousness of the peoples struggle. The most powerful propaganda is the one that is true.

There will be lots of Russian sponsored (mis-)information in the following weeks and months, showing the same footage that pro-Maidan or neutral broadcasters use. There is a technical difference, they show only parts that can be interpreted as negative towards Maidan. Usually there is a voice-over explaining the situation. Propaganda always works but it can’t fool everybody. Especially when it is negative. The films or clips that Maidan activists produced are real because the people believe in it.

The concerts are some sort of glue that ties the audience together. There is a really old grandmother with only two teeth left, standing in the first row at the fence and she is cheering to the music, waving her hands over her head covered in a cloth. I have seen her in this spot in December when Artisto sang Revolution Ukraine. I saw her in February before the killings and afterwards during the mourning ceremonies. She must have been there every day.

Anna, Slava and Alla prepare for going on stage.

I hope she can take some of Maidans food reserves home. There are quite a few elderly on the square and enjoy free food and tea. They have too, they can’t be choosers. Otherwise they’d stand in the streets with wilted flowers or with a small bucket of mulberries, both picked from the roadside and sell it for a few Hrivnas.

Their fate, Annas fate, the fate of the many hindered small business-people, students without perspective, the many employees who regularily don’t get paid: it makes people angry. They have been angry for the past 20 years. They also have lived with this for so long, they have coped. Now the anger spills. It spills raw with some. Just like the veterans, older guys in military parade uniforms who have their own tent and their own fire-ton. They stand around it day in, day out. Another evening, another night. Some say: “We stay here till the end. We wait until the tourists are gone. Then we strike. Hard.”

But others have a more refined way to act out their anger. If Ukrainians have nothing else, they still have a lot of humor. Introducing Mykola Yanovich Azarov, prime minister of the country in 2013. He is half Estonian and half Russian, came to Donetsk 30 years ago and moved up the political ladder always one step below Yanukovych. He was in the centre of corruption scandals, but who wasn’t? In 2010 he was appointed prime minister, his job is to run the government. The catch with Azarov is his inability to speak the national language correctly. Once he was publicly asked to clarify the reasons for this. He actually promised to improve. One of the differences between Russian and Ukrainian languate is that the latter quite often uses the character “i” instead of “o”. The city of Lviv is written and pronounced Lvov in Russian. So it is quite ridiculous that Azarov often seems to speak Russian and just throws in “I”’s in a random fashion hoping that sometimes it is correct. Not a good picture for a statesman. But very good for ridicule. On Maidan he was just called “Azirov” instead of “Azarov”. You could buy stickers saying “S’novim gidom” instead of of “snovy godom” (happy new year). There is this joke: Azarov secretly calls the police. He says: “There is a bimb on the metro stition.” The police officer asks: “Is that you Mykola Yanovych?” Azarov answers: “No, this is aninym.”

The three main opponents of this revolution, Yanukovych, Azarov and Putin are targets of many drawings, jokes and grafitis. Graphic artists create what they call strike placards that are quite striking. They use the picture of the game “angry birds”, color it in yellow and blue and name it “angry Ukrainians.” There is a beautiful poster series called “I am a drop in the ocean” with a yellow drop in the blue ocean. These are distributed in social media but also on Maidan. People write letters and poems and put them on the square so that everybody can read and join by pasting another text to it.

Some of the protesters signs read: “No Putin No Cry.”, “Wanting to join the Eurasian Union is a sexual perversion”, “Don’t steal Christmas tree toys, you are not Yanukovych.”[9]

At one point in December an employee from a museum is scrounging relevant revolutionary items from the protesters. No one can say that todays museums deal with the past only.

Maidan poster art: 1: Information — our safety. 2: Twitter Hashtag. 3: A drop in the ocean. 4: Yanukovych the clown

One of many symbols in a symbolic revolution is the orange hard hat usually found on building sites. Together with surgical masks (later replaced by gas masks) the hard hat is the best defence against the batons and tear gas of the police. Having too much time on their hand some volunteers create stunning paintings on the hats. When they are not in use, they are on display. At one point in December an employee from a museum is scrounging relevant revolutionary items from the protesters. No one can say that todays museums deal with the past only.

That’s the spirit of the revolution. Voice your anger, voice your ideas, discuss it. There isn’t so much you can do. So you start discussing. Next to the scaffold for the huge Christmas tree there are home made ovens, built from closed barrels with metal chimney pipes. People sit around it, sip tea and talk about politics, about Maidan and the revolution. That might not look very special to somebody who grew up in the West. But it is something relatively new in Ukraine. During Soviet times one would never openly discuss politics with strangers. In the previous 20 years people were to busy with survival and still afraid. Only two years ago, I met a former journalist who toned down her voice to a near whisper when talking about the mafia run state. Maidan gives the people security.

Since Maidan started as a student movement, some want to bring their studies to the square. They build a second stage at the far end of the square and call it “Open University”. The best minds of the country are invited to give speeches, everybody gets an hour including lively discussions. A former member of the previous government offers a three part lecture in the trade union building with the topic: “new approaches for Ukrainan budget”.

In six hours he explains the interested audience where the problem is and how to solve it. In simple terms: the problem is that Ukraine has a centralized structure. Taxes are paid to the government in Kyiv who hands it down to the districts, the cities and the towns.

Here comes the visual of the stream, the hands and the remaining trickle. The solution: do it like the French. Decentralize and send the money upwards. Pay the regional authorities high wages so that they don’t need bribes. There is even a plan. A swiss organization has drawn it up and published a series of documents in Ukrainan language. It is freely available and handed to members of parliament. But they don’t read it, the former advisor says. “And that includes you two!” he shouts and addresses two MPs from Klichkos UDAR and Yatseniuks Fatherland party who are having a chat in an aisle nearby and ignore the lecture. Why is the plan not likely to be implemented in Ukraine? Because there are too many hands that benefit from the stream. Many of those people will remain when a new government comes to power. Catch 22. The discussions after the lecture is heated and results in a shouting match within the audience. It resembles the parliament where fists are occasionally swung.

Again this has to be put into perspective. In Ukraine nobody explains anything. How is the government run? What does it do? How does the state function? Who is in power? What are your choices? Politicians don’t see the need to communicate to voters, they just buy them (200 Hryvnas a pop). Even after the interim government was sworn-in in March 2014 they kept silent. They should know better but political culture is obviously hard to change. This budget lecture gives proof that some people are aware of the problem and that there are solutions that have worked elsewhere before. It is a signal that nobody can say: it can’t be done, we don’t know how, it will never work. Knowledge is revolutionary because only having it allows people to make informed demands. It is revolutionary because the Ukrainian establishment wants to keep the electorate in the dark. If you don’t know your rights you can’t fight for them. If you don’t know your options, you can’t demand them.

Not everyone follows the lecture. Revolutionary haircut anyone?

There is still more to be found on Maidan to resemble a society in small size. “When I saw that Ukrainian House had been seized I thought it was a good idea to begin thinking about culture,” says Viktor Bisovetski, takes his wife, packs a few boxes with books and drives from their hown town Dnipropetrovsk 500km to Maidan. They set up a library in a corner of Ukrainian House and put the books on shelves donated by a friend. The library has detective stories, philosophy texts, National Geographic magazines, a few English language and childrens books on offer. Each book is stamped with “Maidan library.” When users return a book, they get a piece of candy. “We needed some incentive,” says Bisovetski.[10]

The most popular books are Agatha Christie novels, adds Ms. Bisovetskyi. “We have these [protesters] in their military uniforms with dirty faces, dirty hands and they were reading, and reading very different books.”

The author in front taking a rest in hijacked City Hall after a long day out in the cold. Photo by Alla Orlova.

At the end of January, the Ukrainian house also offers sleeping quarters, a place for legal advice, a travel agency for getting to and from Maidan, psychological help, a chapel manned by two priests, a cafeteria and a drugstore, all operating on donations and free of charge.

On a less successful note Maidan suffers the pitfalls of basic democracy. There are too many voices, too many politicians and organizations from too many different spheres. They are incompatible. Political Maidan meetings are stalled by the dispute of who is allowed to attend and hindered from making decisions by the constant quarrelling about opposing agendas. During the whole three months Maidan will never speak with one voice. It takes four full weeks to create a Maidan organization. In end of December there is a line of people at an info stand next to the main stage. Where there is a line, we will stand. A man distributes a membership application. You can enter your name and address, you give date and signature. You tick a box saying that you agree with the values and objectives of the organization. There are no objectives and values listed on the paper. My partner asks what values and what objectives. The man says: “There aren’t any yet.” She says: “But what am I signing then?” The man answers: “If you don’t want to, then give me back the application.”

The organization is called “Maidan People’s Union” and is founded by the main opposition parties. Arseniy Yatseniuk was quoted that “it will be a little like the Solidarity movement in Poland.”[11] But just a little.

Further on the visual tour on the ground. Behind the stage there is backstage, entry prohibited except with special permission. This is handled just like any other concert. The bands and the speakers wait in a tent heated by an electrical device. It is so humid that it is foggy inside. There are cookies on a table, musicians squat on a matress and have tea. More tea. The really important people, the managers of the stage have a mini caravan to themselves. Backstage is fenced in. As is a row of tents in the very centre of the square. Reserved for the veterans of Maidan. Around it are small passage ways, more tents, more tea stands, more barrels, more barricades. It’s a very small maze and many people seem to be on a day long walk, strolling down the aisles, passing by stage, seeing if there is something new on Institutskaya street, grabbing a tea somewhere, walking back to the Open University. We are given the good advice to take breaks from Maidan. We do it in a McDonalds or another Café. Only then one feels the burning eyes, the cold face, the absence of bacon smell and the quiet.

Artisto in infamous backstage tent. Vips only.

Yes, the quiet. Noise level is incredible. The music, the second stage, the shouting and chanting. In the evenings the square is packed, kids sit on fathers shoulders, speakers call for the masses to jump, everybody jumps. A sea of flags, party flags, Ukrainian flags with the city-names of those who carry them written on it. Then suddenly a huge Ukrainian flag, maybe 20 by 10 meters long appears and is dragged over the heads of the people. Somebody puts a strong light below to illuminate it. Slava Ukraine! Geroim Slava!

Maidan is everything to everybody, a greek Agora, the grounds for a revolution, a carnival of attractions and music, its both liberating and it is confined. Who doesn’t go there will not catch the virus. Who stays too long will be frustrated by the growing superficiality. Already after the last clashes on December 12 some people leave Maidan claiming that the revolution has sold out. There will be many more waves of people coming and leaving. Maidan is ever changing.

But after a long days walk one realizes that there is something missing. Where is the police? They are not on the square. Maidan is guarded by volunteers and this works well. Alcohol is prohibited. When single drunk guys enter the square it takes a minute until guards politely accompany them to beyond the barricades. At the barricades that surround Maidan are no police either.

Barricades between Maidan and Institutskaya Street. December 2013

You have to walk up Instituskaya Street or around the corner to Hrushevskoho Street to finally find a couple dozens of young conscripted police boys to guard… nothing in particular. It appears as if they just made sure that Maidan doesn’t spread. It seems as if the authorities have enough control over the situation. There will be New Years eve and Christmas on January 6th. Maybe Maidan will go home after all.

All photos not directed credited are done, owned and copyrighted by the author Marcell Nimfuehr. No use or reprint of any kind without previous contact.

Sources

[1] Facebook, account journalist Lydia Wolynska, 12/12/13

[2] https://www.kyivpost.com/content/business/euromaidan-needs-businesspeople-to-keep-it-operating-334027.html

[3] http://www.rferl.org/content/euromaidan/25208628.html

[4] https://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv/euromaidan-activists-clean-mariyinsky-park-after-yanukovych-supporters-rally-334178.html

[5] Faebook, 14/01/15, retrieved 14/09/19, https://www.facebook.com/Myhailivskyi

[6] https://www.kyivpost.com/guide/about-kyiv/my-friendly-cold-night-on-maidan-332608.html

[7] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/the-people-running-ukraines-newest-town/2013/12/13/53c5b04e-6336-11e3-af0d-4bb80d704888_story.html

[8] https://www.kyivpost.com/guide/about-kyiv/musicians-liven-up-euromaidan-stage-332611.html

[9] https://www.kyivpost.com/content/lifestyle/smart-and-funny-euromaidan-posters-334231.html

[10] The Globe and Mail, 14/01/29, retrieved 14/09/24 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/the-globe-in-kiev-ukrainian-opposition-movement-has-its-own-library/article16599200/

[11] http://www.euronews.com/2013/12/22/new-association-born-in-ukraine-on-fifth-sunday-of-protests/