Maidan Community Sector, Lviv: Dear friends! Lviv at war So many, so fresh In western Ukraine the war seems distant, apart from the funerals THE church, out past the railway station on the edge of Lviv, is packed with men and women in winter coats singing vichnaya pamyat (eternal memory). Whats going on? I live round the corner and heard the choir, asks a girl in a fur-lined hood. Soldier, Donbas, died on Saturday, come the murmured responses. The deceased was a 27-year-old soldier in the Aidar battalion, one of the volunteer units Ukraine has been incorporating into its army to fight pro-Russian separatists in the east. Lviv, some 1,000 km west of the Donbas region, is a hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism, and was among the first cities to join the pro-European Maidan protests that began a year ago, on November 21st, 2013. Now the mounting casualties among the soldiers the city sends east are testing its resolve. This is a tragedy not just for Lviv, but for all Ukraine, intones the priest, who belongs to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic church, a regional denomination deeply tied up with Ukraines historical identity. He implores the city council and the mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, to summon a new Maidan here against [Russian president Vladimir] Putin. In the crowd, Mr Sadovyi, hands locked together in prayer, barely glances up. Todays victim will be the 18th soldier from Lviv buried in the citys Lychakiv cemetery (pictured). Not all the news from the east has been bad for Lviv. Six hundred National Guard fighters returned safely this week; one promptly fell to his knees and proposed to his girlfriend. Indeed, the city, famed for its Habsburg architecture and Viennese-style cafes, shows few signs of stress apart from the funerals. The problem in Lviv is you almost cant feel the war here, says Oleksiy Skrypnyk, who was elected to parliament last monthon the ticket of the reformist Samopomich (Self-Reliance) party, which Mr Sadovyi heads. Like many local businessmen, Mr Skrypnyk has been doing his part for the war effort. The software company he headed until his election developed a security system for Ukraines drones, and he says it was the war that prompted him to run for parliament. For others in Lviv, the course of politics over the past year has been more discouraging. Many who took part in the protests feel alienated from the politicians who rode them to prominence. Otar Dovzhenko, a young lecturer at the Ukrainian Catholic University, was among the first of those who gathered by Lvivs statue of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraines national poet, during Lvivs Maidan protests a year ago. On the anniversary, he said he would return to the protest site, to sit on our Maidan with my students, drink tea and remember how it was. But he planned to steer clear of rallies and speeches; politicians, he says, took advantage of the protests to promote themselves. Others have been disappointed by what they consider the Wests tepid reaction to Russian aggression. But this has done nothing to dissuade the locals from the belief that their future lies in increasing integration with the European Union. (Asking people in Lviv whether Ukraines future lies in Europe is like asking a four-year-old whether he would like a sweet, Mr Skrypnyk says laughingly.) If anything, in the safety of Lviv, the mounting casualties of the Donbas conflict only seem to have increased the locals willingness to fight. Isnt there anyone who could send [Mr Putin] to the other world? wonders a shopkeeper in a kiosk outside the Lychakiv cemetery, as the funeral procession moves past. A mourner gasps at the soldiers graves: So many of them, and so fresh! In all likelihood, more are on the way. P.S.: Please spread this appeal as much as possible.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 19:58:43 +0000
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