This year's Christmas-New Year's tree was one of the symbols of the EuroMaidan Revolution, which toppled former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22. Finally, on Aug. 15, the remains of the metal tree were dismantled on Kyiv's Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti).
Installation of the tree was a pretext cited by police for the brutal dispersal of an overnight students’ demonstration on Kyiv’s main square on Nov. 30, fueling the revolutionary flames.
Police said they had to forcibly break up a tent city of several
hundred protesters because the activists were preventing municipal authorities from erecting a New Year’s tree. The next day, Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti was filled with hundreds thousands of people in angry response to the police brutality. The tree was later used for barricades and its carcass was
decorated with Ukraine’s flags and anti-government banners.
A week ago,, municipal workers as well as numerous volunteers participated in a joint
cleaning of Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv, collecting garbage
and pushing the remaining protesters out of their tents.
