Kiev, Ukraine, June 22, 2014

Sunday - a day of leisure and church time in Kiev. On the way to the Ukrainian National History museum (which we didn't find)  we passed the large and very ornate golden domed Orthodox monastery Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the one we had extensively visited the day before. The grounds and churches of the monastery (which is like a town in its own right) were full of very devout believers. 

Outside the solid walls of the monastery fierce looking and heavily armed riot police, some on horseback, were deployed. They were tasked to contain a rally of masked nationalist and mostly young Ukrainians, perhaps 100 or 150 of them. Two local young women who had been praying in the monastery described these demonstrators as "satanists" and "heretics" and advised us to leave the area but we decided to stay on nevertheless. The somewhat disorganized demonstrators started shouting some nationalist slogans but didn't do much else. 

These (pro-European) nationalists wanted to disrupt a rally of pro-Russian demonstrators who had descended on the monastery to hold their own rally; the ultra-conservative monastery is under the jurisdiction of the Moscow patriarchy. At times the situation looked very dangerous but the police clearly outnumbered the rioters on both sides. Some orthodox priests suddenly marched right up to the riot police, holding their religious banners high up in the air, and attempted to enter the monastery grounds. They began to intone religious chants and got involved in heated arguments with some of the police officers. Lots of excited shouting went on, including some loud arguments among the people watching the spectacle. 

In the end everyone dispersed without any stones or worse having been thrown. However, having failed to gain admittance to the monastery some of the nationalist demonstrators attacked some Russian owned banks and the homes of Russian diplomats we later heard.

This is how the UK Daily Mail reported afterwards:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2665209/Riot-police-deployed-Kiev-hundreds-masked-pro-Ukraine-activists-march-monastery-stop-pro-Russians-holding-rally.html

Bizzarely, a short while later we came across a large number of old WWII-veterans proudly wearing their Red Army medals; some were in uniform. Later we found out that we had just missed a speech by President Porochenko and his PM to a large crowd of veterans. The occasion was a day of mourning for the millions of victims of the Second World War. On June 22 the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 (Operation Barbarossa) is commemorated. The new President used the opportunity to attempt to bolster the morale of the Ukrainian armed forces who are under heavy attack by pro-Russian forces in the east of the country (Donetsk etc mostly).

On the whole, however, Kiev does not give the impression of being the capital of a country that is involved in a war situation with a big power just across the border. While clearly instability and unpredictability may be just around the corner in Kiev, it all still looks very normal and very western. Donetsk is only some 8 hours drive away but it seems to be a different world in Kiev. And the inhabitants of the capital appear to be much less concerned about the developments in the East than I would have thought possible. Perhaps a comparison with Ireland during the Troubles is not entirely out of place. Developments in the north of Ireland were initially ignored by the people in the south, unless they were deeply involved in politics and/or deeply nationalistic themselves.

4.30pm - bus to Odessa. A five and a half hour journey across the nice, pleasant and somewhat boring and very flat Ukrainian countryside. The countryside was full of wheat fields but otherwise largely undisturbed, as far as I could make out through the bus windows.

11pm - arrival in Odessa: great hotel. And what a pleasant city. An almost fully pedestrianized cobble stoned city center which caters much more for western (and cruise) tourists than Kiev for example. One of the local drinking holes called itself "Hausbrauerei." I briefly ended up in an Irish bar, however, to sample some local beer.