“The Maidan occurred under extreme circumstances when people had to take the fate of the country in their own hands. It was like a fever, a sign that the body was fighting the disease,” Larysa Ivshyna wrote in the preface to the photo album People of the Maidan. A Chronicle, which was published by this newspaper in 2014. Of course, this phenomenon still needs fresh reflection. Has our society found answers to questions about the causes of what happened four years ago? Or is it, on the contrary, approaching the coming anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity in a disoriented condition once again? We are still sorely lacking a holistic vision of the future and, ultimately, a recognition that while Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown, achieving a genuine regime change has turned out to be a much harder task.
However, the fact remains that the Euromaidan brought new Ukrainian faces and characters to the forefront of Ukrainian and world history. These are people who started speaking boldly, with full voice about the choice of the path and our novel way of experiencing freedom, responsibility, self-sacrifice, and self-organization. On the eve of the Day of Dignity and Freedom, The Day had a conversation with the head of the Family of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes NGO Volodymyr Bondarchuk, and also asked relatives of the fallen Roman Senyk and Yevhen Kotliar what kind of people were they, the ones who made the ultimate sacrifice to give Ukraine a chance to change.
“MY FATHER JUST COULD NOT STAY ON THE SIDELINES”
Mr. Bondarchuk, you assumed the burden of responsibility by coming to lead the Family of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes NGO. It has united the majority of families who lost their relatives during the Maidan. Your father died there as well. To start our conversation, I would like to ask you about him: what kind of a person was he?
“He was extraordinary. My father was a physics teacher at Starokostiantyniv City Gymnasium, Khmelnytskyi oblast. However, the children called him ‘the teacher of everything in the world.’ He loved children greatly, introduced many innovative practices in his teaching, and educated several winners of the science competitions. On the one hand, he devoted a lot of time to his school, but at the same time he was always an active citizen, took part in the community life of his hometown and Ukraine. He was a party to almost all major civic protests, including the Orange Revolution, the Tax Maidan, the Language Maidan, chaired the city branch of the Svoboda party, was a Cossack, and had unquenchable interest for history. In the first days after the assault on students in Kyiv, he just could not stay on the sidelines, as many of his former students went on to study in the capital. Together with my mother, he became one of the leaders of the Maidan in the city of Starokostiantyniv.
On December 2, 2013, he delivered a speech urging people to go to Kyiv and went there himself. He repeatedly kept watch there, spent weekends doing it, took time off work, including at his own expense. He came back again on February 16, and already on the 18th, he learned that the Palace of Liberty (then the October Palace) was taken by the regime forces, which had long been the base of the Khmelnytskyi Svoboda Hundred, and that several lads from Starokostiantyniv were hurt during a peaceful procession to the Verkhovna Rada. And he just could not stay on the sidelines, so he set out for Kyiv very early on February 19. That evening, we agreed to meet in Independence Square at 10:30 a.m. on February 20. Next morning, I went to work to ask for some time off, and on connecting to Internet, saw that a massacre was taking place... I immediately went to the square, phoned my father every half hour, but he no longer answered the phone... When I ran into the Maidan camp and re-dialed father’s number again, I got an answer. It was a lieutenant colonel of the police who said that my father was dead. I initially did not believe it. I ran to the police station, where I was told that the ambulance with the body had already left for the morgue. Identification was delayed and took place only in the evening. On the fifth day after the killing or thereabouts, I saw a video record in the media which showed my father’s body being carried away... After that, I started my personal investigation, I began to look for photos, videos, witnesses on social networks. I have already collected a lot of extremely important evidence with the help of other victims’ relatives. I remember how I first came to the Prosecutor General’s Office three months after the ‘black Thursday.’ At that point, they had effectively no evidence linked to the death of my father, apart from an investigator’s crime scene report compiled in the location established by looking for the place where people had glued my father’s photo. It was wrongly identified, in fact.”
“PUNISHING THE PERPETRATORS REMAINS OUR PRINCIPAL OBJECTIVE”
Why are hearings of this case so troubled?
“Speaking of such cases in general, we were faced at the end of 2016 and earlier this year with delays in court hearings on various pretexts, like the change of jurisdiction in the courts, when cases were not sent from one court to another for months, and then returned again to the court in which hearings had begun in the first place, judges being challenged and recusing themselves, court hearings being scheduled once a month and even less frequently, postponing hearings very frequently and without good cause. One can describe it as effective judicial sabotage. And it is crime victims who come from the provinces who become hostages of this situation, first and foremost, because it negatively affects their ability to attend hearings, since most of their appearances come to nothing. On the other hand, in my opinion, the same strategy is being employed by the accused’s defense teams, as they play for time in various ways and fail to appear at court hearings. Speaking about the events of February 20, when the massacre took place, now five defendants are in the dock. The investigation has been completed, and the case has been in court for almost two and a half years. The case is really huge. It includes 187 volumes, and representatives of 48 dead as well as 80 wounded victims have to testify. There are hundreds of witnesses and 500 GB of video evidence which the court needs to examine. The second point is technical support. The court asked for a re-examination of bullets, but to make it possible, the government needs to purchase an expensive microscope created on the basis of the latest technology. The government provided six million hryvnias for this purchase, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for some reason sent this microscope not to the Kharkiv Institute, which was tasked by the court with the examination, but to another one in Kyiv. And now the government has again provided funds, a tender procedure is in progress, and the microscope will finally get to Kharkiv. In addition, the court has ruled to repeat investigative experiments in all episodes. Consequently, due to the scale of the case, resistance on part of the defense and obstacles on the part of the MIA, the trial is unfolding at a snail’s pace. Even so, this trial is the best we have seen in terms of upholding the rule of law during the proceedings. It is so because in other cases, court proceedings generally did not begin at all for a long time. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the judicial system is still unreformed and unpurged, such developments are taking place. Punishing the perpetrators remains our principal objective.”
“BY ESTABLISHING THESE AWARDS, WE ARE REALIZING THE DREAMS OF THE HEAVENLY HUNDRED HEROES”
What tasks have you set yourselves for the next year?
“For us, the most important task is to remind the society of the values of the Maidan, to tell people how cheerful and courageous were our heroes, to speak about their faith in Ukraine, love for people, and devotion. This is probably especially important in our time. Therefore, in order to commemorate the memory of the heroes, we founded the Awards of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes Platform. Later, with the support of the Renaissance Foundation, we created awards honoring the youngest heroes. For instance, we, in partnership with the Shared Opportunities NGO, created a competition of initiatives that promote sports for disabled people in memory of the young Paralympic athlete Dmytro Maksymov. He was a Paralympian and Deaflympian, took a serious interest in judo. On February 18, he protected other people with his own body, and had his hand torn off by a grenade. To honor other hero, Bohdan Solchanyk, we, together with the Cambridge Community of Ukraine, created a travel grant that helps young researchers who want to participate in academic conferences in Oxford or Cambridge. The first of those who represented this country at conferences in the UK thanks to this grant are already ready to implement the ideas of the British educational system here. A big charity event will be held in December to fund the grant. In honor of the youngest of the heroes, Nazar Voitovych, who was fond of art, we, with the support of the Congress of Culture Activists NGO, founded an artistic residence in his native village in Ternopil Region in which young artists from all over the world will work. The creation of such a venue gave an impetus for the development of the village, it has had a road built to it, but the project of such, in fact, world-class level needs a lot of attention, first of all, from businesspeople of Ternopil Region. We need media support to find partners, including in the cities where the heroes lived, to create awards honoring all of them. We would very much like to establish more awards before February 2019, when the fifth anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity will be celebrated. Therefore, please send us your thoughts and suggestions via the Facebook page of the Family of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes.”
“ROMAN’S EXAMPLE ‘ELEVATED’ OUR ENTIRE FAMILY”
Lesia LYSAK, the sister of the Hero of Ukraine Roman Senyk:
“My brother was a Man with a capital letter. Always in a hurry to live and do good, he was able of truly enjoying life as well. He took no offense to anything and tried to do good not only for himself. At the same time, he never expected reciprocity, never asked: ‘Why should I do this?’ I will never forget his phone calls when he was on the Maidan. Roman always called late in the evening, when he started his watch guarding the Maidan, and said: ‘Get up, stop sleeping. Are you sleeping again? Listen how we are singing the anthem of Ukraine. Listen how we are crying: ‘Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!’ I remember how he proudly said: ‘I have been entrusted with a national flag, and I am not going anywhere without it.’ Early on the last day, when I finally reached him by phone, he proudly said: ‘I have got my first combat injury.’ I was so scared, I was shocked, but he was proud to defend his nation and justice. And whenever I scolded him, told him it was dangerous and he needed to go home, he replied: ‘There are children here. I have to be here.’
“He was always that way. When he was just eight years old, he saved a girl from drowning as he pulled her out of icy water. We, children, were going downhill on sledges, and there was a river a little distance away. And one of the girls got strongly pushed and fell into the river. There were a lot of older children among us, but everyone was frightened and confused, we screamed or ran home. Meanwhile, Roman evaluated the situation at once, calculated the flow’s direction, caught the girl and pulled her out. I only remembered this case from my childhood when I was carrying Roman’s body home from Kyiv.
“In 1989, when Ukraine was just entering the struggle for independence, he was the first resident of our village to raise a Ukrainian flag. At that time it was still dangerous. He was then summoned to the police station for questioning, they asked him who had given him such a task, and where he had got the flag. But he did not repent and believed that he had done the right thing. Then he became a soldier, served as a peacekeeper in Yugoslavia during their first tour of duty. He went there because he believed that he had to be there. He was the flag-bearer there as well. He brought a photo from there which shows him supposedly standing on guard with an assault rifle in his hands, and a large rose covering the rifle from above... He was a true peacekeeper. Now that Roman is in heaven, we pray for all the soldiers who defend our land. We understand how hard it is to resolve to go and serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) now, and those who have done so are true heroes. Our family has assumed a certain responsibility for the defense of Ukraine, my son has completed his service and has just returned from eastern regions. Meanwhile, my husband, who had been in retirement for 10 years, returned to the UAF last year. I am sure that the Maidan has awakened our people. Maybe not all of them, but people have realized that one should not keep silent anymore. It has become clear that in order to gain a better future for our children and this country, we must fight and work hard. I would like to call on Ukrainians – stop idling at home, act, build up your own state, for nobody will give it to us as a gift.”
“THOSE WHO CAME TO THE MAIDAN BELONGED TO A NEW GENERATION”
Mykola KOTLIAR, the father of the Hero Yevhen Kotliar, Kharkiv:
“Yevhen graduated from the Institute of Radioelectronics, later mastered the difficult job of industrial climber. When the city authorities, motivated by their business interests and not bothering with any permits or public hearings whatsoever, started cutting down trees in the center of Kharkiv, he was one of the first to come and protect the park. Almost four years before the start of the Maidan, we witnessed several weeks of running fights with thugs hired by the authorities. The force ratio was too unequal, one of the extreme techniques was to fasten oneself to the top of a tree in the hope that they would not cut it down then... However, many media published photos which show how a cutdown tree falls with Yevhen still on it. He miraculously survived, but was back there the next morning. Despite being the camp commandant and one of the founders of the Green Front, he never sought a leadership position or a platform for speaking, he simply always tried to do what he thought he needed to do.
“We have a lot of people eagerly criticizing the current state of affairs and discussing politics in their kitchens. Similarly, most people blamed Yanukovych’s regime for their woes, but were afraid to go and protest, to do something on their own, change something. Those who came to the Maidan were courageous enough to do all these things, as they belonged to a new generation. The heroes of the Heavenly Hundred proved by their actions that they were prepared to do anything to change the fate of Ukraine. Facebook has preserved his reply to an acquaintance after the assault on students: ‘You can, of course, keep sitting down and watching your mind-numbing TV, but I have already bought a ticket to Kyiv!’ He spent on the barricades almost his entire time there, and when, after arriving for a brief respite in Kharkiv, he saw the news on the morning of February 18, he immediately called his Kyiv friends: ‘I am ashamed that I am not there. I will come!’ And he arrived on the Maidan that evening. He simply could not stay on the sidelines, and this is the shared quality of the Heavenly Hundred and all those who overcame fear and laziness and came to the Maidan. These people are Ukraine’s hope for a better future.
“Kharkiv has changed a lot after the Maidan. Many people have become civilian volunteers, the Ukrainian creative community has become more active. I would very much like to see more places in Kharkiv where people would feel free, as the Maidan protesters dreamed they would. This city has a huge potential to become the ‘driver’ of the national progress. We, the heroes’ family members, live by faith in the bright future for all of Ukraine.”
