What Ukraina Has Become – The Diary Of A Kiev Resident

Dear Readers:

Well, I reckon it’s “Ukraine Week” here at the Avalanche.  Following my 2-parter on the Malorossiya Founding Document, this piece from the Komsomolka actually fits in nicely as a sort of coda; one could even call it the Russian version of the American slogan “Why we Fight”.  The piece was published on the same day as Zakharchenko made his announcement of the Malorossiya project, which aims to do away with Banderite Ukraine once and for all.

Also recall that Zakharchenko’s project aims to move the capital of the new entity, Malorossiya, from Kiev to Donetsk.  Rather as symbolic punishment of the former; and inevitably, after a period of time, I reckon the capital would move back to Kiev; but not before Kiev has stood in the corner and really thought about what it has done.

“New” Ukrainians celebrate pathological murderer, Roman Shukhevych.

The Komsomolka reporter, Polina Orlovskaya, writes about the full-on Nazification process going on in Kiev, as Rump Ukraine morphs into a totalitarian state where only one political view is tolerated — namely, the pro-Shukyevych point of view.   Well, Nazis plus Gay Pride parades, and there you have our modern “European” and utterly revanchiste Ukraina.

Even more disheartening are Polina’s anecdotes of what has happened to the people of Kiev.  Nobody expected them to rise up and resist, that’s neither feasible nor realistic, given that the pro-EU Nazis control the government, the army and the police.  Still, one would hope that the majority of people would maintain a rational attitude, a thinking mind, some common sense, and a silent mode of dissidence.  Attributes which are very difficult to measure.

Here is my translation of Polina’s piece:

Let me explain to those who don’t get it

why there will be, after all, a Shukhevych  Prospekt [Avenue] in Kiev.  People can say what they like, that there is the possibility of a change in the situation, but this won’t help.  I know, because in 1941 the grandfather and grandmother of native Kievan Zoya, were handed over to the politsai (Ukrainian police serving the Nazi occupation) for the sake of a bottle of vegetable oil.  The pair were subsequenly sent [to be shot] at Babiy Yar.  Go ahead and try to disprove my thesis.  Two days ago the socialists attempted to organize a flashmob to protest the renaming of Vatutin Avenue to Shukhevych Avenue, and were severely beaten for their efforts.  There were only around 250 of them [the socialists], but the “Azov” militants beat young and old alike — so severely that several of them had to be hospitalized.  Then we learned from social media that the doctors [in the hospital] were even unwilling to provide medical assistance to the victims of the beatings.  The police didn’t intervene [in the fracas] and retained a neutral attitude towards the Radicals.

Bogdan Chervak, leader of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

O Europe!  The leader of the Ukrainian nationalists, Bogdan Chervak, who is, at the same time, both a (Parliamentary) Deputy and also the Assistant to the head of State Radio, has declared that Shukhevych Avenue WILL BE, and that anybody who doesn’t agree with this is free to emigrate to Moscow or Jerusalem.  Old men, heroes of the Great Patriotic War, and even simple Ukrainians who consider themselves to be pro-Russian, find themselves in a situation far worse than being gay:  They can be beaten, threatened, mocked and humiliated.  The 3,000 participants of the Gay Pride Parade were guarded by 5,000 policemen in Kiev!  And the gays were protected by the police, so that the LGTB March actually took place relatively peacefully, despite all the threats and fuss surrounding this event.  Whereas people to whom the St. George Ribbon and Vatutin Avenue are more important than the rainbow ribbons [of Gay Pride] — are considered outlaws.  They can be beaten with impunity.  Not only that, but the new Ukrainian government will seriously punish them with fines and even criminal liability.

“We would have been drinking Bavarian beer…”

Once I happened to overhear, not far from my house, two men chatting, they were around my age, just a little over 50.  The weather was grey and windy, cloudy.  There were quite a lot of people drinking and getting drunk.  This conversation of the two men was accompanied by beer-drinking, it was a brief conversation but highly emotional, and concerned the war that occurred 75 years ago.

German troops on parade in Kiev

“My old man [=my dad], in the year 1980, burned all his war literature, because he didn’t believe anything that was being written then, in the USSR.  In 1941 he was just a boy, and [his family] lived in Kiev.  He had tons of such books:  about his hero, Georgiy Zhukov, about Vatutin, his bookcase was stuffed full with war memoirs.  When the Germans marched into Kiev, they didn’t touch anyone, they were very polite and cultured people, they didn’t bother anybody and they restored order everywhere.  Well, the streets were renamed into Strasse, but still…”

“They brought discipline,” the [other] middle-aged Kievan offered his version of history.

“That’s right,” the other agreed.  “My aunt worked at a canning factory, she was 15 years old us, and she would recount how the Germans left out for them tons of food to eat after work, and how nobody was forced to work too hard.  She even learned to speak decent Germany over the course of 4 years.  She would Sprechen “How are you today?”  [In those days] nobody would bother the people of Kiev, nobody beat them, nobody punished them, and everybody worked they way they were supposed to.”

“Just so.  If only Stalin hadn’t driven them out, then we would be living like them now, probably.”

“Probably.  Who knows?” his friend agreed with him.  “We’d all be drinking Bavarian beer.  Yup…  It turns out that Ukraine wanted to be a European country, even back in 1941.  That’s something I just realized recently…”

The Anti-Nazi Professor

It has to be said, that Kievans are still agitated by such conversations regarding historical events of the most horrible war in human history.  Recently I heard from friends who went to march in the “Immortal Regiment” on May 9 at the “Park of Glory”.  They told me that a man from Donetsk who participated in the event, and who ripped up one of the Right Sektor flags, has been fired from his job [in Kiev].  He was a professor, and the Nationalists came to the faculty where he taught, and started to threaten his management, demanding that they fire the man from his job.  The professor [subsequently] wrote a resignation letter of his own will, leaving his job as Dean of the Faculty.  When a gang of “patriots” in masks bursts into an institution of higher education, waving clubs, then the “cadre problem” resolves itself instantaneously.  In today’s Kiev it is possible to fire a person for his “incorrect views” just based on somebody’s routine denunciation.

Most Russians despise the “stukach”, or stool-pigeon type.

“Yes, it has become common among us to “stool-pigeon” each other [denounce to the authorities],” one of my acquaintances complained.  “But isn’t it true that people stool-pigeoned and wrote denunciations back in 1937?  In Germany people also denounce each other to the police.  It’s easier than simply confronting other people in public [and talking things out].  I can’t say that it is a nice thing to do, but it’s something that we need to get used to.  After all, we live in Europe now.”

Well, you can’t argue with that.  Ukrainians have been accustomed to denouncing each other, they do it with gusto, and excuses are always found.  A man in Dnipropetrovsk [taking the bus] saw another man sitting on the next seat, immersed in his iPhone, and that he was using “VKontakte” [=the Russian version of Facebook].  The man called the police and demanded that they ticket [the other man] and send him to the SBU [=Ukrainian Security Service, successor to the Soviet KGB].

It so happened that the police released this user of the Russian social media site, which is banned here [in the Ukraine].  But meanwhile, Ukrainians continue to snoop on each other while, in the center of the city, local Nazi groups roam the streets; and also foreign Nazis in their black baseball caps with eagles and swastikas, with shaven skulls; and also in red-black caps.  These [foreign Nazis] speak English among themselves, and nobody stops them or questions them.  After all, they do not wear the forbidden St. George ribbon!