St. Michael's Square in Kyiv has been filling with people all day, with thousands the grand space and side streets. The Kyiv Post talked to people at the rally and asked how they think the nation should react to the violent night events at Maidan Nezalezhnosti this morning? And what can happen to the country next if people do not come out to the streets?
Nadiya Zakharchenko,
pensioner
“We should stay here to the end. The only thing we can do. I am here with my heart and soul as long as my health lets me. I am 82, but I am here and will be here. Criminals act as criminals, you see what happened overnight to our children! Not in the day, but at night. They hide behind the back of Bandiukovych (a pun that combines “bandit” and “Viktor Yanukovych” – Editor’s note) and if we do not stop it now, no one knows how it can end.”
Iryna Tsilyk,
theater director
“The question ‘what should we do’ is still unanswered. And it starts smelling with lynching, our blood boils and who can blame us for that. But in fact we have no one to lead us. The opposition can’t take the responsibility for sending people to some radical moves. But staying at home these days is a betrayal of yourself. Hard to say what’s happening: either this country is turning into a dictatorship that we can even imagine or there is some cunning plan we don’t know about or maybe both. The fact is that we have no right to swallow this.”
Lesya Lepetun,
journalist
“I am here and my two kids are here. And I am sure if people like us, people with kids and Kyivans who have problems with taking their asses off the couches, won’t come out now, we will all stay in the same shit. And I am sure that we should be here to the end, otherwise we will lose Ukraine again like we did many times already. I don’t believe that people will stay indifferent. Just do not believe that. People are already coming out. There is no other way.”
Nataliya Shevchenko,
scientist
“The nation should respond with the weighted actions, consolidation and the absence of emotion. I am not a politician and not an economist, hard to say where it will lead us. I only remember the Soviet Union. I don’t think it will be like that, but, taking into account night events, it will be a dictatorship for sure.”
Leonid Knyazhytr]skyi,
student
“I think people should do what was many times repeated from Maidan stage – consolidate, form public groups that would work with current opposition leaders, form new opposition forces. In other words – to stay united by all means.”
Olga Yermak,
PR manager
“I am here because what happened last night was brutal. They have beaten not only those at Maidan, but every one of us. I think that we should organize an interim government, make other countries recognize it. Maybe this interim government could coordinate people, give smart orders and hold people together. It is scary, but we should do that. Because if we don’t, then the fact that we are sold to Russia will just be opened and no one will save us then. We thought that we are different than Belarus, but we are not. We are worse. We will be slaves and this is not just a romantic comparison. That is exactly what will happen.”
Oksana Yutovets,
student
“Now we need consolidation. We need to support each other and support people who stayed at Maidan this night. If we aren’t united – we’ll end up in a totalitarian regime, like in Russia and Belarus.”
Oleksandr Ganiushkin,
mathematician
We should make them (authorities) respond to us for what happened overnight. We should stay here till they do, no matter how long it takes. If we don’t all this will end up badly, very badly.
Liudmyla Sivukhina,
civic activist
“The whole society should respond now. We won’t forgive them what happened tonight. Never. Today, tomorrow and these day we will give them our response. And to Yanukovych I should say just one thing, from the whole Ukrainian nation: take the rope and hang yourself on that Christmas tree. Let it be your Christmas present for us. This EuroMaidan would probably end itself in a couple of days, but what they did will now make millions rise. And they are going to regret. And there is no chance that people won’t come out. They will. I have talked to many people, many were indifferent earlier, but now they are shocked and they are coming.”
