Looking Forward

A woman getting off a plane in front of me is complaining by phone about the smell of burning tires, which she cannot wash off from her clothes — the clothes she was wearing while manning the barricades in February. She is dressed all in Burberry. Now it’s May, and we have just landed in Kiev — the capital of a recent revolution.

An hour later I can start worrying about my clothes as well. I'm on Maidan, and the smell of burning tires is still filling the air — along with poplar fuzz, which gathers in snowdrifts beside the curbs. In some places the square resembles a trash dumb, in others — European downtowns. The Kievers can be easily recognized by camouflage uniform and tired faces. Many of them are hiding from the heat in military tents, which are still put up right on the square. Some of the men in khaki pass out of sight behind the doors of a former cafe with a handmade DO NOT ENTER sign. The outside walls of all the buildings are covered with children’s drawings, which have the Ukrainian flag as the most popular depicted object, and with faded notices on missing teenagers. Keeping their eyes glued on the walls, a line of tourists is passing by with a speed of idle museum visitors. After a dozen meters they stop — everyone takes a photo of bullet scars on a rusty lamppost. Not far from there two unknown assailants in shabby animal costumes — a panda and a lion, the guys who will try to persuade me into taking our joint picture ten minutes later — are holding a young woman, refusing to let her go unless she gives them 20 hryvnias. The girl is bawling, then trying to haggle, then bawling again. The procession makes another stop — and starts to scatter. The legendary heart of the newborn Ukrainian revolution finishes by a normal empty street.

We are awfully far from the first Lumière screenings, during which the audience were rushing asunder in fear of an approaching train. Today the screen frame closes in on heroes of the news like an aquarium in the zoo. It’s difficult to imagine all those people being flesh and blood. But the day I was on Maidan everything that I could only see in TV reports two weeks before became tangible. Though not too friendly — no one was welcoming me there. What is more, I arrived from the so called invader country. But never had I felt such unity with the people who made their history in the very place where I was standing — the people who were at that moment probably sitting in front of their tents with a begging bowl.