" Вогонь і дим - він ходить скрізь за мною,
і попіл втрат не дасть мені спокою..."

Галина Кожушко

2014. At times I thought it was the saddest February in my life with the blackest trees I had ever seen before. I had a feeling they would never turn green...
Though I knew that the Revolution of Dignity had achieved its main goal and Yanukovych fled Ukraine, I still could not forget how terribly high the price had been.
Actually, I hadn't missed a single Sunday "Viche" – mass protest actions in downtown Kyiv – since November 24, 2013, when 150,000 people gathered on European Square to protest against the government's unexpected refusal from pursuing the Eurointegration course. After the November 30 cruel beating of students by the riot police, huge Sunday rallies were regularly held on Maidan, and I felt it my duty to be a part of them.
It was winter then, but no one was cold because of the warm atmosphere reigning around us. Everyone felt like a tiny drop in a vast ocean, happy to become a part of something very important – sweeping away the old corrupt system of running the country and helping to create a new, more democratic and just order.
Everyone was ready to help in any possible way, from bringing food and pouring out tea into paper cups to distributing information flyers or carrying out the night watch. Everyone was friendly, smiling, and compassionate. And… everyone was still alive then. Like, for instance, Oleksandr Kapinos, a young farmer from the center of Ukraine, whom I remember since the time of 2012 “language” Maidan. He went then on a hunger strike against the law discriminative of the Ukrainian language. Sashko endured to the end then, back in 2012, together with my friend Oksana Nezhyvenko, a PhD student at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy at that time.
He also endured to the very end on December 20, when he gave his life defending the Maidan from riot police attacks.
And Oleh Ushnevych from Drohobych in the west of Ukraine was alive too. I met him near the makeshift chapel that was put up on the Maidan, where people could pray for their victory and warm themselves a little during that winter…
So many losses, so many sacrifices… So many wonderful people perished in this battle… Now it is our responsibility to carry on, lest their sacrifice be not in vain. I feel that way. And I will never forget.

У березні 2014 року директор попросив мене написати статтю для блогу "Democracy Speaks" про свій досвід участі в Революції Гідності, але я відчула, що не можу писати про свої враження від Майдану - надто свіжими були рани. Так і пояснила свою відмову. Але знайшла недавно чернетку з початком цієї спроби щось написати і вирішила завершити тепер цей короткий начерк.