How Maidan defended his

Back in mid -February in Kyiv, I prepared material about those who did not stand on the barricades and did not perform from the stage. But their participation in the events was no less significant. They protected people. Many told me that truly Maidan began with protection. Cruel stripping in November led hundreds of thousands into the street. Since then, they began to protect their own in all ways. I think this sense of support and security has played an important role in the outcome. If not the main one. I did not have time to publish the material - the events rushed dizzying, and another became relevant. But I still want to talk about it. And show people who did this business. They haven't gone anywhere. They work, fight, write in social networks. They are a noticeable part of the Maidan and today's Ukraine.

Euromaidan SOS

The story of his appearance is funny. In November, a seminar for young human rights activists was held in Kyiv. The organizers were going to offer the participants some practical task. At night on November 30, the first cruel overclock of Euromaidan students took place, many were beaten and detained. The task was born by itself: to provide people with legal protection. Events developed, and the workshop turned into the current structure .

"SOS" works around the clock, shifts for 8 hours, all members of the team are volunteers. During this time, more than 100 people participated in the work: students, journalists, lawyers, assistants to people's deputies, up to the director of the beauty salon. Someone comes only occasionally, someone almost settled here. For two and a half months, about 35,000 calls were accepted. On the hottest days, it reached 2000. The Sosovites collected all the information on the detained, beaten and stolen. At the disposal of volunteers, about 500 lawyers and lawyers from all over Ukraine who are ready to give consultations for free or completely take legal support. They call here for any reason: they ask how to help Maidan, where to deliver food and medicines, offer transport and other help. All walls are hung with phones of various services and structures of the Maidan, to which they are transported by calling.

Conversation with the attendants of one of the shifts. Vitaly and Maria

Euromaidan SOS

Lawyers

They really worked for free. Yes, there were complaints that some of the lawyers tried to "pull" money from the relatives of the victims. But still, the majority remained volunteers. Dmitry Yovdiy, Avtomaydana Lawyer:

“I have served small and medium -sized businesses. Over the past two or three years, it became simply impossible to breathe business: continuous checks, you are constantly distributing bribes. There used to be at least some unspoken rules: I gave a bribe - work calmly, I have agreed on a rollback. Now there are rules. Now there are no rules. Small and medium -sized businesses are just dying. More and more often criminal cases are used as a business pushing tool.

The task of the lawyer is no longer consulting, the search for some schemes, legal positions, but extinguishing a fire. Betting checks, participation in interrogations. There has always been corruption in the courts. But now without a bribe it is simply impossible. Even to make a legal decision, you need to pay money. If you do not pay in the lower instances, you will pay more the highest. The system is arranged so that it will not release you.

From a commercial point of view, this could personally arrange me: there is always a demand for lawyers who can “solve issues”, but I can. But I just have other priorities: the normal development of the country, when people can receive deserts and abilities. The authorities have already been to blame for this situation, which allowed the unlimited controls. I am an apolitical person and was not going to climb into all this, I used to go down to the Maidan before, I was just too lazy (his office was a three -minute walk from the Maidan. - D.B.). But after what happened on November 29, when everyone showed that people just had to shut up their mouths, I was outraged.

Lawyers began to consult what to do in networks. First, ten people gathered, then, as part of the Center for Legal Protection, online conference with the participation of Lviv, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov. Now, if we take those who are constantly engaged in this, then this is a hundred people. There are many those who take one thing. Someone just distributes information on social networks.

It so happened that from the very beginning I took up an automatic car. At first, we advised them, how to do not violate the rules of the road during shares, wrote instructions on Facebook. Then interrogations began, criminal cases of blocking public buildings appeared. Then the leaders began to be called by riots. At some point, I took up Bulatov (the Euromaidan activist Dmitry Bulatov was kidnapped and tortured. - Ed.): He was interrogated on two criminal cases, personal accounts were arrested, the accounts of his public organization, through which he collected donations for automatic ears, broke his car, then he disappeared. Until we raised a terrible buch, no one was looking for him. And when they began to look, then, as it turned out, not to save, but to be charged.

On the night of January 22 to 23, the authorities decided to work in relation to the vehicles by lawlessness. The police frankly attacked them, beaten, there are videos and testimonies of witnesses. But things are being started on the victims, the materials are ignored, people are immediately placed in prison, although each suspect has guarantees from the Verkhovna Rada deputies. That is, with the political component of the case, the role of a lawyer comes down to zero. "

Dmitry Yovdiy, Lawyer "Avtomaydana"

"Sick leave" ("Varta in Licarni")

Beatered by the "golden eagle" were delivered to hospitals. There the police were waiting for them. In order to, having arrested, take to prison. Or return to closed guarded chambers. So "Varta" arose. People began to be on duty in hospitals.

Julia, coordinator "Varta"

The slender beauty Julia asked her not to shoot. In the Central Hospital of the ambulance, she was engaged in purely medical matters for 12 hours a day: she made sure that the help of the beaten was beaten on time and qualified to have enough drugs. And she also talked constantly with people injured physically and sincerely, "so that they would not yearn":

“I said that soups are wonderful if it were a dining room. But here, first of all, heavily suffered. After three weeks of continuous work, my book was clogged with the contacts of beautiful people who were ready to help in everything. We took out rare medicines. When a reaction to the drugs arose, they got others. They were bad. There was a guy with a heavy fracture of his jaw, now he was taken to lions, but in poor condition. - He was losing consciousness from some medicine, because he has a heavy concussion from other clinics “Help of the victims” said: if I take at least one hryvnia, I will grow up in my arms! But you also see literally gold people. There is everything in this world, and thank God, because you always have a choice. "

Nikolai, coordinator "Varta"

"Hospital Patrol" of the Maidan

It is difficult for me to imagine this, but all this time the doors of the guarded chambers were guarded by the police and volunteers of the Varta. The team also had strong guys who did not get into the frame. In hot days, when the police came to the hospital, trying to pick up the victims to prison, he had to literally beat them off. More than once they announced "mobilization" - people massively came to the hospital. The guy who was torn off the hand was taken literally from under the nose of the police under a stranger, now he is in Lviv. At the disposal of the Maidan, there was even a reanimobile from a private clinic. The doctors often showed themselves with dignity. To the 15-year-old guy who got to the children's hospital, they simply did not let a dozen policemen who came for him.

There was another important force: opposition deputies of the Rada. Having the right to freely enter any rooms, they almost around the clock were on duty in hospitals, ATS and pre -trial detention center. Both lawyers and volunteers of Euromaidan SOS told me about the deputies. Almost each of the arrested received a guarantee of one of the deputies. The courts neglected this, but still. How many deputies helped really? The Euromaidan SOS says that the main asset (those who themselves were constantly in the hottest places) are 15 people. About 50 more were ready to respond at any time. Well, about 50 more - "Reserve".

Feminist "Women's Hundred"

I specifically make a reservation, which one. Because the journalists were very popular with cadres of masculine ladies in armor and helmets in the barricade. Indeed, there were combat women on the Maidan. But the first to create a “female hundred” were the fragile girls by no means the right sector. Offended by the patriarchal tradition that has developed on the Maidan, according to which a woman can only do “canapes” (sandwiches), they threw a cry on the Internet and received an unexpectedly mass response. As a result, their team began to coordinate many women who offered the most different assistance of the revolution.

Ksenia Prokonova and Nina Potherskaya talk about "female hundred"

Women's a hundred Maidan

Psychological assistance service

I heard that psychologists are working on the Maidan. But at the session of the psychological service, he was accidental. He took place in the hall of the first floor of the "Ukrainian House", where another organization usually worked - "Free University of Maidan." Thirty people gathered around five psychologists and simply talked about their feelings, often complex and contradictory. Most often - about fear. Before violence - and not only in relation to oneself, but also possible for their part. Before the future. About the difficulties of communicating with such different people who gathered on the Maidan. About everyone. I threw some remark, and the woman-doctor sitting next to me convinced me to speak. And I talked about my experience. The fact that, working in hot spots, I was also afraid. About how painful the misunderstanding of others was when the Russian protest was just beginning and most treated activists with contempt. And now everything is a little better. About the uncertainty and doubts of Russians who have entered the protest in recent years. About what the participants of the dispersed rally on Bolotnaya told me. About how important the feeling of a neighbor’s elbow is. I did not expect to listen to me with such attention. This turned out to be very important: people have to overcome similar difficulties everywhere, and you can learn from each other how to transfer it and how to live with it. And most importantly - you can understand each other.