The Maidan is waiting

Disputes on the Maidan always went. They argued about everything: about power, about the opposition, about victory and defeat. And now they began to argue about the snow. The protesters who had fallen in the capital were happy in the capital as if they had seen him for the first time. The fact is that snow is the main building material for barricades. Fressed in the ice with thousands of legs, it is chopped from the ground, loaded into bags and dragged to fortifications, which become higher. And they argue about what barricades need to be dragged on - around the Maidan, where every day they expect a storm, or on Grushevsky, where in the last days fierce battles with special forces of the Berkut Ministry of Internal Affairs were going on.

However, Thursday was declared a truce day. One of the opposition leaders Vitaly Klitschko asked for this to try to find a way out of the conflict in negotiations with President Viktor Yanukovych. The protesters attacked a three -meter strip of fire from burning tires, separating them from the “Golden Eagle”, and began to wait for the solution. However, no one particularly believed in the success of negotiations, therefore, the extraction of frozen water on an industrial scale began in the vicinity of the Maidan and European square.

The work was organized clearly. With scraps, shovels and even sledgehammers, they crush ice. A two -meter ambal, drawn into camouflage, is adjacent to a student in a fashionable coat. Other activists load chopped ice in bags and drag on the barricade.

“Grandfather, well, where else do you need this bag, you’ll break,” the guy with a crowbar makes fun of some elderly man who can’t abandon the bag on his shoulder. However, immediately one of the passers-by picks up the load and helps to raise it on his back.

“Yes, I can also bear you from above,” my grandfather grunts, but does not look like it is difficult for him, and goes towards the barricades.

After him, they shout that he was not going to the barricade that they actually strengthen Grushevsky, not the Maidan, and then wave their hand and continue to hammer the ice. At this moment, a woman with a small two -wheeled cart passes by, on which a snow bag is immersed. According to activists, she just goes in the right direction, she is nodding approvingly.

About the place of Grushevsky Street, where there were mass clashes with the “golden eagle”, during which three people were already killed, there is no consensus in the protest. Some believe that the confrontation is pointless there, since it will not be possible to break through to the Verkhovna Rada, as it was originally planned. Others, meanwhile, dragged hundreds of tires and bags with snow on Grushevsky to strengthen the defense.

The tires, like snow, became another weapon of the protesters - the previous attack of the special forces was repelled, building a huge conflagration of the used tires in front of it, the smoke from which was visible even from the outskirts. The last two days, Kyivians massively carry tires on Grushevsky. Activists are talking that one has to carry one at a time, since the police check the trunk, and if he finds a pile of tires, the driver is delayed.

Snow is the main building material for barricades. Fressed in the ice by thousands of legs, it is constrained from the ground, loaded into bags and dragged to fortifications.

The day of hard work is not in vain - several rows of barricades grow on Grushevsky Street. Two closest to the Berkut are powerful fortifications with two human heights. Freeded bags with snow on top were also watered with water, so in a deciduous frost the structure is not inferior to concrete in strength. On the barricades calmly. Everyone is waiting for the results of negotiations between the leaders of the opposition with the president, and when in the evening Vitaly Klitschko and Oleg Tyagnybk finally appear on Grushevsky, several hundred people are surrounded by politicians. Oppositionists warn that there are no good news, and offer activists to go to the Maidan who is located literally around the corner to listen to the results of the meeting with the president and decide on further actions. But no one wants to leave the barricades. Unstrous chanting supporters of the opposition “On the Maidan! On the Maidan! " He sinks in a displeased hum.

- Well, as usual, they will perform there - and home, in warm beds. At least once we spent the night with us on the barricades, at least once!

- The tractic, you called for a revolution all your life, so here it is, where are you running?!

- And Klitschko turned out to be the same! Such a terrible boxer was - and such a reference is a politician!

The crowd around politicians is seething. Someone continues to chant about the Maidan, others, on the contrary, are threatened not to let them out from the barricades. Among the mass of people, then there is a corridor for the departure of the opposition, then it closes again. Finally, they hardly breaking their way among the indignant crowd and go to the Maidan. People on Grushevsky instantly scatter into groups and warmly discuss what will happen next. In disputes, mainly supporters of the fact that the battle will begin again here will win.

I go to the front line. Here, negotiations have not been crowned with special successes, they do not know yet. People are warming around burning barrels, in three-meter barricades, silhouettes are visible in some places that look out for the “golden eagle” somewhere there, higher along Grushevsky Street. The surrounding houses and colonnades of the Dynamo stadium blazing here were covered with soot. The snow is black, here and there, broken glass from Molotov cocktails comes across.

Two doctors are facing a man who was closing on a pile of tires in camouflage.

- But I did not like Odessa. It seems like a good city, the pearl by the sea, of course, but not mine, not mine ... - his lazy speech comes to me.

I go to two harsh looks to the guys near the barrel. I check myself as a messenger bringing bad news.

- Well, guys, the opposition said that negotiations did not end. What will happen now?

- What, nothing at all?! Five hours talked with this "zek" - and to no avail?! If only Klitschko killed him there with his bare hands!

- What will happen, what will happen. Now P ** dez is all here to us, that's what will happen, - the second guy sums up. Both pick up the wooden shields standing nearby and go towards the barricade closest to the special forces.

I'm going to move after them, but some man intercepts me.

- Listen, friend, here now most likely the whole gimp will begin, you are without a helmet, it is better to leave here.

- And what will you do, since the negotiations failed?

- And what remains for us? Just stand here to the end. Otherwise they will be transferred one by one.

I go out with the advanced, now and then dodging the bags of snow, which are carrying towards. The barricades undertook to strengthen with renewed vigor.

“And today we won’t do anything?! Let’s take a Ukrainian house at least. ”

Meanwhile, on the Maidan, one and a half thousand people chant: “Decision, decision!” The opposition leaders Vitaly Klitschko, Arseny Yatsenyuk and Oleg Tyagnybk are entering the stage. The first is the ex-champion of the world in heavyweight.

“What I say, you will not like it,” he warns on the move and says that Viktor Yanukovych refused to resign and did not want to dissolve the cabinet of ministers. According to Klitschko, the only thing the president agrees to is to release all detained activists.

Maidan meets these words with a dissatisfied hum. Activists clearly expected much more from five -hour negotiations. Many do not listen, unfold and go to Grushevsky.

“The president is ready to release all the detainees and stop power pressure if the buffer zone appears on Grushevsky and the confrontation ends,” continues Vitaly Klitschko.

“Well, Yanukovych took the hostages and is traded, everything is clear,” they formulate in the crowd.

Klitschko from the stage says that for Viktor Yanukovych, Thursday events in a number of regional centers were an unpleasant surprise, where the protesters captured the buildings of the regional administrations.

- And today we will not do anything?! Let’s take the Ukrainian house at least, ”someone from the crowd shouts. The Ukrainian house is a multifunctional exhibition center on the European Square, approximately in the middle between the Maidan and the barricades on Grushevsky. During the Orange Revolution, the headquarters of Viktor Yushchenko was located there.

“That you shut up, now you like people, and then there will be blood on your conscience,” his neighbor pulls him.

- Vitalik, already the last round! He said, you will go under the bullets with us!

Vitaly Klitschko completes the speech under the chant "Ganba" and conveys the word to Oleg Tyagnybok.

“The first thing I would like to say ...” he begins.

-Bitch, frost is minus 14, and he will tell us something here on the points! - shout from the crowd.

Meanwhile, the traction warns that to several dozens of already detained activists in the coming days, according to the president, another thousand may join. As a result, he moves on to direct democracy and is interested in the Maidan, what to do next. Raising the protesters vote for leaving the negotiations with Viktor Yanukovych and further struggle. Oleg Tyagnybk warns that since this is true from people. The people agree.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, speaking, clearly managed to understand the mood of people who require at least some real achievements, and gives people a small, but victory.

- I declare the Grushevsky territory of the Maidan! And I ask the commandant of the Maidan Andrei Parubiy to expand our territory to Olginskaya Street, ”Arseniy Yatsenyuk belligerently calls.

The square is buzzing approvingly. Only in some places dissatisfied voices are heard: “Why are you happy? Grushevsky was ours, and Olginskaya - this, fifty meters up from here, is also an expansion to me. ” Politicians leave the stage, and an active movement begins on the Maidan. Many go to the Grushevsky barricades in anticipation of an attack by special forces, but most are in a hurry to their collection points to receive instructions.

Meanwhile, everything is ready for the assault on Grushevsky. I see several groups of people who drag on the advanced boxes with Molotov’s already prepared cocktails. But even before the threat of the next onset of Berkut, people continue to argue.

- At this very place, three of our guys were flying, and your tractous then goes to the president, presses his hand and also bow. This is not a shame?! -Almost screams some grandfather at the People’s Deputy from the nationalist “freedom” of Tyagnybok-Valery Chernyakov.

- Why are you saying nonsense, he did not bow.

- I am nonsense?! Yes, your traction and Jews bows!

The discussion goes on the topic of the World Jewish Conspiracy, and I return to the Maidan. The assault on Grushevsky at night will not wait.

Meanwhile, the discipline spoke about the party leaders about the Maidan is really evident. Near the exit leading towards Olginskaya Street, declared by the new goal of the protesters, dozens of columns of 30-50 people each. The coordinators lead them up the street, stop at one of the exits from the Khreshchatyk metro station and announce: “We are building a barricade here!” Some of the activists immediately take the ice, others get the bags and begin to collect it.

- Snow, look what is here, completely white. Not like Grushevsky, where everything is black, workers are talking.

- The main thing is that he would not be red here either.