Paweł Pieniążek - Greetings from Novorossiya - Eyewitness to the War in Ukraine

When in April 2014 I was going to the press conference organized by the self-proclaimed mayor of Slovyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, I ended up by chance in a taxi with local journalists. All of them were grumbling about the present situation. There was an elderly woman next to the driver. It turned out during the conference that she had placed herself on the stage, instead of sitting together with the journalists, and nobody knew why. A man who was sitting next to me in the backseat would be recording the faces of all the participants on his phone, just in case, just to know whom you are dealing with. When he hasn’t liked a question from a Western journalist, he will laugh loudly so the entire audience can hear him. He will energetically react to Ponomarev’s every word.

For the time being, however, we are sitting in the taxi. My travel companions reflect on how it was before and how it is now. “In the past we lived in a big country and what is it now? Industry has been declining for many years and there are no jobs. A ‘worker’—this word used to carry pride and now it is despised,” a man in the backseat is almost shouting. It is not only people over fifty who miss the Soviet Union and trust Putin as they used to trust Stalin.

Not far away, in Kramatorsk, I talk to Vladimir. He is over thirty and comes from the Donetsk region. He used to serve in the army and now is a militant of the Donetsk People’s Republic. He came from Slovyansk to take over a police station because the residents “called” for help. Who exactly? We don’t know. A small group occupying the City Council building had not enjoyed great popularity. In this respect, Kramatorsk is very different from Slovyansk. Nevertheless, Vladimir is convinced that it is they who will save people from the “bloody junta” and its geopolitical yearning. “There is no place for me in the European Union. Our culture and mentality are closer to Russia. In my heart I am a Soviet man,” he says. Although he couldn’t have been in the Soviet army, his military jacket is decorated with a red star.

During the referendum in Donetsk I meet twenty-year-old Ira and her boyfriend. They are dressed in fashionable clothes. You can meet a couple like them in any European city. They have just left one of the very few polling stations where voting was taking place. “Have we voted? Sure thing,” declares Ira in a firm voice. They certainly voted for independence. The opponents of the illegal referendum didn’t participate. Staring at her smartphone screen, she says that life is better in Russia, with a real president, not like here. Putin is the epitome of goodness and a leader who takes care of his people. For her, the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic is a step toward a better future, toward Russia.

The subject of the European Union pops up in many conversations. The Union is something incomprehensible, distant and hostile. That’s why they don’t want it. They are afraid that it will bring poverty to Ukraine.

“How are you doing in that Union? Very badly?” asks a taxi driver who was taking me around Slovyansk.

A series of questions follows: about prices, apartments, cars, gasoline, corruption, and life in general.

“Here it won’t work anyway. A different mentality,” the driver cuts it short.

First of all, Donbas feels it is ignored. Its residents are complaining that nobody cares about their problems and the politicians in power don’t represent them. They are not convinced by the argument that from 2010 to the beginning of 2014 Ukraine was actually ruled by a Donetsk clan.

Viktor Yanukovych was born in Yenakiieve, sixty kilometers northeast of Donetsk, and he was attached to this region all his life. In the 2010 elections his mass support came from Donbas. In the first round in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions 76 percent and 71 percent of voters respectively chose him. In the second round, when he faced Yulia Tymoshenko, his results were even better—90 percent and 89 percent. The minute he took over he started supporting his own entourage. Those who were close to the “family,” in other words the group of young businessmen connected to Yanukovych’s son, Oleksandr, quickly received a lot of tasty morsels. Their wealth was growing enormously. Oleksandr Yanukovych himself is the best example. Since the beginning of 2010, in only two and a half years, the value of his bank’s assets went up by 1240 percent. The corporation he owns won an infinite number of bids organized by the state. Oleksandr Yanukovych, an unimportant businessman, began to be among the most influential.

On his estate of three hundred hectares in Mezhyhirya, Viktor Yanukovych has collected almost everything a human being can think of, and a few other things that nobody but he would imagine: antelopes, a breadloaf made of pure gold, and a restaurant in the form of a ship.

“They want ‘their own’? Nobody has ever robbed us like our own,” Valentina comments on the so-called federalists’ demands. For her and for many Ukrainian residents, the name Yanukovych still brings bad memories. For others he wasn’t that bad, because there was order under his rule. “He could have simply dispersed this entire Maidan, so we would be left alone,” explains Sasha, a young man from Kurakhove, several kilometers from Donetsk. He doesn’t support the separatists, but he doesn’t like the war either because prices are going up. “Look at the gas stations and the exchange rate for the hryvnia. Where should we get money for this? Yanukovych did a lot of bad things, but also some good things. When he was in power, I was earning money. Now I sometimes have nothing in the fridge.”

“Even if there weren’t any war, the economy would collapse anyway,” I try to convince him.

“Maybe,” he replies, but I can see that he hasn’t changed his opinion. So we change the subject to talk about the furrowed roads that even without the war look like they have been hit by missiles. On top of that, they were recently damaged by tanks. “You haven’t seen anything like that,” he says with a smile when we are hitting the bumps and bouncing.

For those who keep shouting about “hearing” what Donbas is saying, Yanukovych is a taboo subject. “What does Yanukovych have to do with this? ‘They’ are the ones who are in power,” says a man in Donetsk. I respond that they have been in power for a few months, and they have to deal with the war. How is it possible under such circumstances to stabilize the situation? “They should have thought about it before the Maidan,” he concludes.

It was the “voice of Donbas” that turned into the breeding ground for the so-called federalists. “We want the governors and the regional authorities to be elected by us,” says seventy-five-year-old Natalya from Donetsk. Gathering momentum, she throws in the judges. “We know these people better, so we know if they will be fit for the job. In Kiev they don’t have any idea about it,” she remarks. For several years who got named to power in Kiev was decided by representatives from Donbas, but she hardly pays any attention to this.

The myth that it is Donbas that feeds and supports Ukraine, that if it weren’t for them all the people would starve to death, makes this outrage even greater. Somehow, no one is asking what Ukrainians have been eating in recent months, when in many places in Donbas the harvest was impossible, transport was stalled, and the majority of the companies were closed by the separatists.

“Federalism” has become a slogan that somehow stuck to the residents, but nobody knew what was behind it. Usually, it was associated with Russia. “I am for federalization, that is—for Russia,” one man tells me, standing in front of the administration building in Donetsk. Others have seen a social question in it. Still others don’t know what to see in it, so they simply shouted. Yevhen Nasadyuk, a Donetsk journalist and theater director, tells me that during a pro-Russian demonstration in front of the administration building, some skirmishing with the police took place. The crowd started chanting: “Those in power have to respond” ( Vłast k otvietu ). The first time, the second time. By the third time it sounded like “Power to the cutlet” ( Vłast kotletu ). With smiles on their faces, the crowd kept chanting, unaware that they have just created one of the most interesting political slogans of the Russian Spring.