This piece was supposed to be called “How Kyiv Post made me decamp to Asia,” setting a slightly different tone than stories from my former colleagues in celebration of the newspaper’s 20th anniversary.
But then I changed my mind.
I did move to Asia after almost three and a half years of working there.
The timing could have been better.
My Kyiv Post journey ended just months before so much begun in Ukraine when then President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted by an uprising and big changes ignited in the country.
I was to watch live streams from Maidan from Malaysia, where I have been based. Teary-eyed from emotions and exhausted from the six-hour time difference, I almost could not believe what I was seeing. This was not Ukraine that I left just months before.
Looking back, I see now that the storm was building up for many years and being part of it was amazing. Since joining the Kyiv Post in 2010, I covered several elections, the imprisonment of then-opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and the persecution of others critical to the regime, anti-government rallies and, finally, trade and gas war with Russia.
Emulating Putin, Yanukovych was spreading absolute control over all spheres of the country, directing flows of black money to the pockets of his family and close circle. But despite growing dissatisfaction, polls showed that very few Ukrainians are ready to take to the street, probably still disappointed by the outcome of the 2004 uprising known as the Orange revolution.
This was a very sobering time to be a journalist. No matter what you reported and discovered, it would have little if any impact on the situation. At best, the police or the prosecutor would reluctantly start investigation only to quietly sweep it under the rug later. But working for the Kyiv Post meant that, at least, your conscience was clean.
The newspaper was one of the very few remaining free media in the country, resisting all attempts to pressure it into being more regime-friendly. Having come from working in other newsrooms before Kyiv Post, I also appreciated owner’s position of no editorial interference. We were seeking the truth and then turning around to tell it to the audience, just what journalists are supposed to do.
Human stories that I loved to cover, were rarely less depressing than political ones. I wrote about police brutality resulting in many deaths in detention, attacks on lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community, when people would be beaten on the streets because they were gay, foreign students and even tourists attacked because of their skin color.
Other topics offered a relief.
One of those memorable events was joining Vitali Klitschko on a campaign trail during parliament elections. A famed heavyweight world boxing champion, he was often mocked for lack of political experience but was absolutely adored by the crowd. He was not pleased when asked about his relations with Dmytro Firtash, an infamous Ukrainian oligarch. Come to think of it now, it was probably not my tough questioning skills that got him, but the fact that we were packed into a huge SUV car which seemed tiny when he was in it, bending his head and unable to even stretch his legs.
Nothing could be further from politics than what I do now. Set to try myself in areas other than journalism, I work for I Love Asia, a tourist company specializing in group backpacker style trips to 19 Asian countries. I also help run friend’s hostel in Malaysia.
Having survived and preserved its objectivity under authoritarian regime, Kyiv Post ought to thrive now. As the world gets interested in Ukraine, again, the world’s English-language window on the country is exactly what it needs, especially given anti-Ukraine propaganda pouring from Kremlin mouthpieces.
But what the Kyiv Post people are doing at home is equally important.
Their new project, the Media Development Foundation, focuses on teaching journalists from Ukraine’s regions.
The level of journalism in Ukraine is criticized by many for a good reason and Kyiv Post people have been a refreshing exception. It almost makes you smarter just breathing the same air with them, but I am sure they have other tricks up their sleeves to teach journalists about professional standards.
After all, this is one of the ways to ensure that, as a nation, we never repeat mistakes of the past.
