As the Maidan won

The special corner The New Times restored the picture of decisive events in Kyiv. The main conclusion: the fratricidal massacre unleashed power

Nobody expected such a development of events on that decisive day for the Ukrainian Revolution on February 20th. Neither the protesters themselves, nor the police, nor Klitschko, nor Tyagnibok, nor Yatsenyuk, nor Parubiy (Maidan commandant - The New Times) and other leaders of the Maidan, nor the leaders of the power structures, are not happy. And even more so, Viktor Yanukovych did not expect.

Flight and first blood

It seems that everything happened by itself. One event caught on another, all this for the third, the ball spun and now the protesters, hiding behind the shields, storm the institute, the sniper shoots at them - one killed, second, third .. And neither those nor others yet understand how everything happened. It is unlikely that conspiracyology, which appeared later in many versions, was involved here. There was no cunning plan here. It happens. Actually, this is exactly what happens most often.

The right flank of the defenders decided to drive away the police from the roof of the Globus shopping center on the Maidan, from where they threw the barricades with the Molotov cocktail and poured water from the Brandspoyt. The attack was prepared. First, massive shelling began with stones and bottles, then the protesters went forward. They only wanted to drive away the police. But then something happened that no one expected - the police ran.

Following his left flank, now exposed, the police in the center also ran. The protesters ran after them.

The center and the left flank of the barricades, seeing that everything was set in motion, went on the attack towards European Square. There were only a hundred soldiers of the internal troops. They ran too. The crowd ran after them. The police, who were sitting on the barricade above Grushevsky, seeing that the waverists were running, and the crowd was running after them, also ran and went up to the Cabinet building. Protesters occupied their barricade, from where they were driven away a few days ago. And - stopped.

Wounded police officers remained in the Ukrainian house. The police colonel went down, asked to give his opportunity to withdraw his own. He was given such an opportunity. On this on Grushevsky, everything ended.

But it did not end at the institute, where a small part of the advancing went. Everything developed there according to the same scheme - seeing that the police flee, those who stood above the slope in the second echelon ran. And retreated behind the concrete barricade built earlier.

But, leaving, they opened fire on the advancing, which were few - two hundred people, probably. And about forty of them - they killed.

The twelve dead were brought to the Ukraina hotel. Ten more lay on the asphalt from the other end of the Maidan in front of the Cossack hotel. And eight on Khreshchatyk, near KMD (Kyiv Goradmnistration - The New Times). All with gunshot wounds. Most of the dead - in the head. Who could, tried to identify on the spot. Then they were taken to the Mikhailovsky Monastery, which became the rear, the lasaret, and the Maidan Morg.

On the "neutral strip"

The new alignment of forces and the changed situation became clear and realized only after a couple of hours. Then a certain pause came. The police moved to the intersection of Institutskaya and Bankova, leaving pickets at concrete blocks. And the protesters began to build a barricade again - under fire, a sniper worked periodically on them - and set the smoke curtain. All of the same tires.

Doctors equipped their post at the corner of the Ukraine Hotel, on the wall of which are holes from bullets. But at the level of the ground, the already dead zone, here does not get. It is quite possible to move bent.

A neutral strip formed - fifty meters wide, with another, erected once protesting and left by the barricade in the middle. Someone periodically tried to get to her. And someone, several people, clamped under her in the morning, tried to get out of there under the cover of a smoke curtain. (The author of these lines, it turns out, also reached this neutral strip there. Although it was not possible to restore the chronology of events in memory. If it weren’t for a few crooked photographs, he wouldn’t even know what was there. But - when, with whom? ...

Somehow I remember only two points. How he hid behind a tree and photographed two guys - vaguely, but I remember. From them to the place where people were killed, there were two wood. From me - three. And I also remember how the guy in a black jacket, leaning his back to the barricade, suddenly jumped up and started back to the institute. On the left flank. Twenty meters there. And then you have to dive behind the curb. And everyone shouted to him: "Lie down, fool!" And then a sniper began to work - on it. Three or four times. But the boy managed. I ran. Dived. Smoke was still not strong at all, but still saved him.

I don’t remember anything else. What else was there, how he went back, when, with whom, what a medic in my photographs is nothing left.

I only know that on this Piglet during this day the sniper shot four more. One in the stomach. Everyone survived).

The night was on duty at the barricade with a doctors brigade.

Zhenya, thirty -two years, a traumatologist. From Dnepropetrovsk. On a white medical vest with a red cross, he wrote a marker his data - address, phone. To make it easier to identify the body.

He told how he pulled out and bandaged people under fire. As five people died in his arms. How he had to make a choice between the two wounded - to those whom he bandaged, already realizing that he was dying and helping him with anything, and those who were dragged a little later and he could still survive. And how he left the dying man and took up the second. As he bandaged the wounded policeman and realized that he still could not kill him, although the idea that it was only necessary to inject two adrenaline syringes - and no one would know anything almost brought to madness. As this morning, he almost completely accepted the thought that he would not return alive home.

• Why are you here?

• For children. You see, this will still have to be done. And if we do not do this now, this will have to do this in twenty years of our children. But it will be much more difficult.

This thought - “if not us, then our children will have for us” - I heard from many.

Emptiness

And in the morning ... In the morning it turned out that the city was empty. There are no more troops in the city. They moved away. Dissolved in an unknown direction. And the police are no longer there, with the exception of small detachments, the Rada and near the administration (president). And the authorities in the city are not there anymore.

And what to do next became completely incomprehensible. Protesters were preparing for a new battle and the assault on the government quarter - and the assault was already serious, already a real war - and it turned out that there was no one to fight with, the government quarter was empty.

The troops left. Institutskaya, Grushevsky, Shevkovka are completely empty. There are no people. Only burned equipment at intersections. Only occasionally lonely passers -by come across. An elderly woman of an intelligent look, who came out of the entrance, asks if it is possible to walk along the street. I say what is possible. She goes, looping between the burned "KamAZ".

The sun shines. Warm. The breeze smells in the spring. The feeling of the post -war city is complete. Well, like a formidable after the assault.

Near Rada, a cordon from the Wesashniks. Boys. Continuities. Tired, grimy, but - funny. Satisfied. Quite friendly. They ask to photograph them "for television."

There is also a vodomet. Its mercups are not very much at all. “Molotov” is good against the armored personnel carrier - the power compartment has openly, one bottle of the tower and the car burns like a haystack. Vodomet is sealed - the incendiary mixture does not take it.

He walked along Grushevsky, along the institute. He reached the place where people were killed. About thirty meters in total from the place where I sat yesterday. But they could not go.

Everything is chosen by the sniper. Trees, cabinet. It can be seen how he killed them, how they hid behind this cabinet, how he picks this cabinet, and how he got it, how they dragged them, how they dragged the painkillers, how they then dragged out of the wall, as they then pulled it to the rear ... everything is read.

Blood has not yet been absorbed. Liquid earth with blood. This is not a metaphor.

And - a hat with clots. And yet - a boot. Near the cabinet.

That one of the ten covered sheets of the dead, which was lying yesterday on the Maidan, was without one boot.

This is his boot.

For some reason, it turned out to be very important.

Here is this boot.

For what?

And here, trying not to step on the liquid land, you twist your head, look at this blue house, in which this sniper sat yesterday and where he killed these people - a hundred meters, no more, almost at point -blank - you look at the sun, at this warm veterus, smelling already in the spring, on the street, open now for the passage, and you don’t understand ...

For what? After all, only thirty meters. And these thirty meters have already passed the protesters themselves, who also began to crawl out of the barricades. Here they are, stand with their shields, batons and helmets in this very place. Silent. Look at the liquid brown earth. For what? For what? What did you want to achieve? Well, all the same: we are here. Here we are standing. Well, then people killed people then?

They shot almost point blank. Meters from a hundred. For a sniper, this is not a distance.

The psychology of such people was always interesting to me. What did this man think, killing unarmed people trying to hide from his fire? After all, he saw that they were unarmed. I could not help but see. What did he think, shooting at them? What did you imagine? Who were these people killed for him? Just targets? Goals? Or an enemy - a real, reference enemy who needs to be killed in any condition?

Did he really hate them, or simply did his work, clicking one after another? Did he believe that he would save his homeland, did he remain faithful to the oath and order, or vice versa, he happily stepped over that line familiar to any soldier, using his chance to kill a person who had fallen to him when nothing would be for it? Have you saved my life already?

And yes, to immediately close the topic of weapons. It was on the Maidan. The protesters had it. This is not a harmless coat in the pen with balls - in three months the Maidan turned into a full -fledged real revolution, with a set purpose - the overthrow of the thieves' illegitimate usurpathic power. Everyone is adults, everything understands everything.

How many? I think more than a hundred units. It is unlikely that thousands, and most likely more than dozens. More precisely, it is unlikely that anyone will say. They never got them out of the panting.

Was it used? Yes. Single cases of use were. Once again I will repeat - despite the certain number of trunks in the camp, units were used from them. There was no mass application. The Maidan to the last restrained from opening fire. And he took up the weapon only in the last two days. But if it lasted longer, it is clear that there would be a full -fledged war.

I can definitely say exactly about two cases. One on the barricades, on the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, when a man shot from Saiga from the barricades. Yes, by the police. And one more - according to the water interference. From rifled. Apparently, then.

The remaining two or three cases are recorded on the cells of journalists.

I saw this vodomet near Rada when the police had already gone away. Five bullet holes. Caliber - at least 7.62. Rifled. It can be assumed that they shot from the hunting carbine "Tiger". One to the front in the center of the cab, one on the door of the driver at a level of legs and three on the body. Another waterette, also KAMAZ, fired at twice - also in the center of the cab and to the upper right corner of the windshield, under the headlight -seeker. And a couple of holes in the Urals.

By nature, holes can be assumed that the shooter had no goal. He beat the legs - the center of the cab and the door - and the headlight (windshield).

This protesters then stole this vodutet from the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Now he stands on the Maidan. You can go see.

The second vodomet was also stolen. Then two “Urals”. In the Mariinsky Park, from where the titles brought there fled the first, they found a large number of prepared flags of the “Party of Regions”. Now protesters drive on the Urals along the streets of Kyiv and chant the victory. And behind the cars are tied to dozens of “pr” flags - they sweep the streets with them.

Truha

It’s just amazing how everything sprinkled in one day. Over the night. All this colossus with hegemony of the “Party of Regions” in the Rada, with the “Golden Eagle” and the titles, with the vvshniki and the gangster system, with usurped power and gangsters in the field - everything sprinkled and turned into dust, in one night.

From the “Party of Regions” the deputies ran massively, the “Golden Eagle” sat fifty buses and with the words “Zakharchenko betrayed us, you went to hell” with a screech of tires took off to Simferopol, Yanukovych jumped on the plane and circled for a long time, until he settled in Kharkov, “dopa” and “Hepa” (Governor of Kharkov Region Mikhail Dobkin And the mayor of Kharkov Gennady Kernes - The New Times) held a congress and fled to Russia. The Kiev Golden Eagle locked at his base was sitting behind the fence and was once again afraid to sneeze, until he was allocated a corridor and under escort to be torn on the streets, they were not sent to the airport.

And according to the residence in the Mezhigorye and at the palace of the Prosecutor General of the Pshonka, excursions are now going on:

• Find, people - here they are, our pennies.

Change of contingent

The editorial office sets the author’s task: to write a bother the right -wing protester - that very young from the “Right Sector”. And I walk the streets, on the barricades, and I understand that writing is no longer about whom .... In general, here is a portrait of right -wing radicals: they are no more. They are all either in lasaretes in Mikhailovsky or in the morgues. Runned.

Now the composition of the protesters has changed dramatically. You will no longer meet loud chanting youngsters with flags Una-UNSO. They were replaced by men of adulthood. Dreamed, grimy, with hoarse, silent "accept". And next to them, shoulder to shoulder are well -dressed people with higher education. One was especially remembered - he talked in English with an American correspondent. He showed him his photos - how he hid behind the corpses under fire. Then he gave him his business card. On the barricade. Under the disturbing fire of a sniper. Thirty meters from the place where ten people were killed yesterday.

One of the colleagues said well: no matter what a “Bandera”, then with a higher education.

But they warned. After all, they said: “We will put the soul for our freedom. And we will prove that we, Brother, Kozatskoy's family. ”

And they kept their promise. Put their soul and body. For your freedom. With sticks and plywood shields, going on machine guns.

And proved. That they are a Cossack family.

I don’t know why these dead hooked me so. We have a bastard profession, and cynicism is a mandatory component. Without this, no way. Otherwise, it is impossible. But these dead hooked very strongly. How long ago they did not catch the death of people. But I did not even see them. I do not know either their persons, nor their names or surname, never intersected with them. I did not see the expression of the eyes. I didn’t even see how they died - it happened without me, not before my eyes. Then why?

Maybe because they died for what they are ready to die and I myself? Because I understand their ideals and their craving for freedom? Because I am the same as they are? And also ready - for their children. Because if not we, then our children will have to rake. Already much heavier, and much longer. But still, it will have to.

All roads are open

What next? All roads are open, by which Ukrainians will go and live. Now it depends only on them which country they will build. Ultronalist, moderate, democratic. Will there be a gap between the East and the West or will they still learn to coexist together.

The near future will be, of course, not the most pleasant. Greed for power, European integration-anti-European integration, the adoption of strange laws, the abolition of previously adopted, the struggle for the Russian language, the struggle against the Russian language, and so on. This, apparently, is inevitable. Ultras, of course, will declare their rights to win - and, admittedly, completely deservedly.

... After the victory in one of the restaurants nearby, doctors gathered. Drank. Celebrated their survival. It was not a holiday. It was bitterness. All the very young guys and girls - at all, students, many are not even twenty. They raised a toast behind the Maidan doctors. And then the whole restaurant - all local visitors, all journalists, Ukrainian and foreign, waiters, all who were there - stood up and applauded to them. Standing.

Everything will be in order.