Ukrainians are happy to find more evidence that their country has become fashionable—a very pleasant and unfamiliar feeling, they say. Most of the signs are noticeable in Lviv. Previously, only nostalgic Poles met there, but now the city was populated by students and tramp tourists from all over Europe—Germans, Scandinavians, French—in stretched T-shirts and with huge backpacks on their backs.

The crowd of thousands rushed from side to side, expecting that the soldiers jumping out of the armored personnel carrier would begin to shoot again. But they simply surrounded the area around the perimeter. The crowd pressed me first to the burned wall of the Chulpon cinema meters from the square. Then she threw it right on the cordon. “Do not be afraid, we don’t shoot at unarmed,” one of the fighters said quietly. They looked at this joker with horror.