‘Stop the Coup’: president’s loyalists camp in Kyiv
(Kyiv, UKR) – Elderly women bearing icons file past, a speaker rails against the West from a concert stage and tough-looking young men in tracksuits wander around: this is the pro-government protest camp in Kyiv.
A stone’s throw away from the opposition camp on Independence Square — the Maidan — khaki tents have been set up in a city park with flags from President Viktor Yanukovych’s ruling Regions Party.
Lines of riot police separate the two sides, manning barriers of trucks parked across the streets around the park near the Verkhovna Rada parliament building where lawmakers meet to try and resolve the crisis.
“We don’t want to turn into the next Syria or Yugoslavia,” said Andriy Kucher, 27, the organiser of the camp, speaking outside a tent marked “headquarters” as pop music blared from the stage.
Kucher said that Yanukovych had already made enough concessions to the opposition and it was time for the protest leaders to meet him halfway.
“The president dismissed the government! What more do they want?” he asked.
The camp is commonly referred to as the “Anti-Maidan”, but organisers prefer the more positive-sounding “Unification Square”.
Thousands of people could be seen there this week, and organisers strolled past with official-looking identification badges reading: “Stop the Coup”.
“We’re for a peaceful solution to the crisis,” said Kucher, adding the camp was supported by private donations — in contrast to the anti-government settlement, which is “financed by the West”, he said.
Many of the government supporters have come from traditionally pro-Yanukovych eastern Ukraine, such as the coal mining region of Donetsk.
‘They have their heroes, I have mine’
One young man reeking of vodka at the rally shouted “Donetsk Rules!”
Oleksandr Melnichenko, a builder from near Kyiv, said it was time to restore “order” in Ukraine.
“I’m tired of revolutions,” he said — a reference to the 2004 “Orange Revolution”, which brought the opposition to power after a successful uprising against an election fraudulently won by Yanukovych.
The 27-year-old said people like him were referred to as “titushki” by anti-government protesters — an ominous reference to hired goons allegedly paid by the government to beat up the opposition.
“I haven’t seen anyone here with a baseball bat. What’s wrong with not drinking, not smoking and doing some sport?” he said.
Kucher said that the opposition “call ‘titushki’ people who think differently from them”.
Melnichenko also said there was a problem of different mentalities between fellow Ukrainians.
“Why did they have to tear down the Lenin statue? We have so much Soviet stuff around,” he said.
Referring to the nationalist slogan “Glory to the heroes!” that rings out on the Maidan, he said: “They have their heroes and I have mine”.
Melnichenko said he had time off to attend pro-government rallies because his small carpentry business was doing badly in a dire economic situation that has been hit further by the protests.
“There’s not much building going on,” he said.
But he said he was confident that lawmakers could resolve their differences and end the standoff, which has dragged on for more than two months and claimed at least four lives.
“Reasonable people can always find an agreement. They should lock them in there and not let them out like they do for the election of a pope!”