The authorities intend to return to work on Monday but they are afraid of the Maidan activists. Offices of some officials will be moved from the Kiev State Council to the house of the National Guard.
The officials avoid coming to the Kiev Council. Here they risk finding themselves at gun point. Although the new authorities promise to leave the Council and to make there repairs, the activists are not going to leave the building. Those who live there now have divided into two groups. The first one is ‘sotni’ (or ‘hundreds’ – squads of armed activists) of Self-defence, the other one is various unions like Voiny Narnii, who do not obey Self-defence. To put it mildly, it results in misunderstanding. Aleksey Davidenko, an MP of the Kiev Council from the UDAR party, wrote about members of the commission for ecology and the commission for the youth and sports in a social network. “They threatened me with a Kalashnikov gun in my office, promised to shoot down because I wondered where my computer was and tried to take the books I wrote myself. Perking with submachines into my face they called me a ‘bitch’ and said that ‘I twaddle idly’,” quoted Davidenko one of the women. Her colleague told the Vesti news programme: “I was working in the occupied office since December to the middle of February but had no conflicts with these people. Now we live in two parallel worlds. On the one hand, we have ‘sotni’ which are quite normal. On the other hand, there are ‘khloptsy’ who have guns and wear masks even in front of each other. After I took portraits of Churchill and Einstein, and the diploma of the European Council from my own office they detained me as a looter for more than two hours. They quarreled badly at that time and argued who took part in battles and who burnt down an APC. Some of them are honest and rational people but some are slobs and fanatics.”
Bogdan Dubas, appointed recently deputy secretary of the Kiev State Council, told us that they were to leave floors 8 and 9 on Thursday. “We want directors of the departments to come back to their offices, feel free, restore communication, phones, the Internet and alarm systems. We hope they will return to work on Monday. People who live here meet them halfway. We are seeking for a new building for them (the Ukrainian House and the October Palace are considered – author’s note). They are our fellows who fought for the country and won. They realize that Kiev residents have supported the Euromaidan more than anyone else and the community has to maintain the city, roads and facilities. We meet delegates of activists every day at 6 p.m. We negotiate behind closed doors. They passed through hurdles and many are excessively nervous. Nevertheless, we make decisions only when all support them,” says he.
Yesterday people could enter the Council freely, although the day before it had been a difficult task. Some activists are preparing now to join the National Guard. “It is time to return to a peaceful life. A number of young men who are real patriots will go to a training base. Some have already left for home, about 150 activists stay here permanently,” says Igor Ivanovich.
In fact, not all upper floors have been left yet, as the new authorities promised. On floor 9 we met a young man from Drogobych. “We are not going to leave until the elections and de-escalation the situation in the Crimea. The war has not been finished yet.
The residents of floor 8 have already prepared for the training camp. “Yes, we are moving to the house of the National Guard. And our neighbours from the ‘iron sotnia’ stay here,” says one man. One of the floors is being tided up, women here are scrubbing and dusting. Somebody has carefully gathered all the flowers in one office and waters them.
One woman catches up with me on stairs and says, “My husband and me come from the Vinnytsia Region. I do not know actually why we are here. But I understand these guys who were on the barricades. Many of them are stressed and have mental traumas as their friends died. Sometimes they start running to and fro crying out that there will be an assault. But it is high time to end it,” the woman says.
