KHARKIV — A high level of ecological awareness is a trait found in advanced democracies. US defenders of the rare mahogany species form human chains to stop timber truckloads. Some of them make their names by spending months living in trees scheduled to be cut down to make room for construction sites. A week ago, Kharkiv, rather than faraway California, found itself in a similar situation when the local authorities set about building a highway, allegedly to help ease the burden on downtown traffic and its daily gridlocks.
After members of the construction team tasked with destroying the green array beat one of Kharkiv’s nature-lovers black and blue (this team, it should be noted, had no permit for chopping down of trees), between 100 and 150 environmental activists and other concerned residents would gather every morning to man the forest barricades.
On May 25, the confrontation between the protesters and militia riot squads (matching them numerically) turned into a battle. Now it was clear that the success of this resistance effort depended on the protesters’ staunch public stand. Oleh Viatkin of the Pechenihi (Pechenegs) environmental group said that the following day about two hundred activists were prepared to confront the militia riot squads, which had also been reinforced in the past 24 hours. In fact, the protesters had to fight on two fronts, as the tree-cutting vehicles were moving toward each other, from Sumska St. to Novhorodska St. When asked how they had managed to organize so many people, Viatkin’s colleague Oleh Perehon had this to say:
“Those people came of their own accord. We may have 150 persons involved, but the number varies, as some come and stay for half an hour, others are there for lunch, still others come to spend the night, The Day, and there are also people who live nearby. What makes me happy is that all these people are acting like this because they believe this is the right thing to do.”
Lviv is set to be another scene of such violent confrontation. The gradual, inexorable process of building a civil society in Ukraine (something The Day has been supporting) is having its effect. The Kharkiv protesters were aware of this. When asked whether this kind of picketing could evolve into a nationwide environmental movement, Oleh Viatkin confidently replied in the affirmative: “Our project has spread over Ukrainian and Russian cities. Today our boys picketed the Ministry of the Interior Affairs in Kyiv, to protest against police brutality. We know that [like-minded] Russian organizations are picketing the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow. There are unconfirmed reports that the Ukrainian embassy in Canada will be picketed tomorrow. [Den carried this feature on May 26, 2010. — Ed.]
In fact, what happened in Gorky Park [in Kharkiv] isn’t the first instance of serving someone’s mercantile interest at nature’s cost, under the guise of carrying out a socially important mission. Not so long ago, large forested areas were cleared in Kharkiv’s Piatykhatky residential district, allegedly to expand the local golf club’s course. The chopping down of trees was stopped because of heavy public pressure.
Kharkiv’s representation of the Ostroh Club is all out in support of the Gorky Park protesters. The Ostroh Club members hope that a message addressing the populace’s environmental sentiments will trigger a strong and united effort aimed against attempts to violate the law, against the local bureaucrats and their cynically visible unlawful practices, who think nothing of destroying Ukraine’s natural wealth.
