ukraine diaries first chapter

7/21/2019 Ukraine Diaries First Chapter

1/13

UKRAINE DIARIES


2/13

Also by Andrey Kurkov

Death and the PenguinThe Case of the Generals Thumb

Penguin Lost

A Matter of Death and Life

The Presidents Last Love

The Good Angel of Death

The Milkman in the Night

The Gardener from Ochakov


3/13

Andrey Kurkov

UKRAINE DIARIESDispatches from Kiev

Translated by Sam Taylor with an afterwordtranslated by Amanda Love Darragh

H a r v i l l S e c k e r


4/13

Published by Harvill Secker 2014

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Copyright Andrey Kurkov and Haymon Verlag, Innsbruck-Wien 2014English translation copyright Sam Taylor 2014

Afterword copyright Andrey Kurkov 2014Afterword English translation copyright Amanda Love Darragh 2014

Diaries translated from the French edition, Journal de Maidan ditions LianaLevi, Paris, 2014, translated by Paul Lesquesne

Andrey Kurkov has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and PatentsAct 1988 to be identied as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of tradeor otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without thepublishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

which it is published and without a similar condition including thiscondition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published with the title Ukrainisches Tagebuch in 2014by Haymon Verlag, Innsbruck-Wien

First published in Great Britain in 2014 byHARVILL SECKER

20 Vauxhall Bridge RoadLondon SW1V 2SA

A Penguin Random House Company

www.vintage-books.co.uk

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781846559471 (paperback)ISBN 9781473520479 (ebook)

Penguin Random House supports the Forest StewardshipCouncil (FSC ), the leading international forest-certication organisation.

Our books carrying the FSC label are printed on FSC -certied paper.FSC is the only forest-certication scheme supported by the leading

environmental organisations, including Greenpeace.Our paper procurement policy can be found at:

www.randomhouse.co.uk/environment

Typeset in Scala by SX Composing DTP, Rayleigh Essex

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY


5/13

v

Publishers Note

Ukraine became independent from the USSR in August 1991.Reports of vote-rigging in the 2004 presidential election, alleg-edly won by Viktor Yanukovych, led to the Orange Revolution, andViktor Yushchenko became president. Yanukovych was, however,victorious in the 2010 elections. Owing to a lack of growth miredby corruption in Ukraine, Yanukovych sought economic ties with

both Russia and the European Union.On 21 November 2013, the Ukrainian government suspended

negotiations on the EU Association Agreement. This agreementcalled for closer trade links, political and economic reform, and therelease of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was impris-oned in 2011 on charges believed to be politically biased. Russiaopposed the agreement, and threatened to impose harsh trade

restrictions on Ukraine and to increase gas prices if it were signed.Kiev, central and western Ukraine are more pro-European; the

east is predominantly pro-Russian. The south is a mix of pro-European and pro-Russian. The Maidan protests, described in thesepages, involve a diverse group of anti-government protesters;political parties of the opposition; and later self-defence groups setup to protect protesters from pro-government mercenaries.

The main opposition parties are Batkivshchyna (centre-right;Tymoshenkos party, led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk); UDAR (centrist, ledby Vitaliy Klichko); Svoboda (right-wing, led by Oleh Tyahnybok);and groups which emerged during the revolution, such as PravySektor (far-right nationalist, led by Dmytro Yarosh).

Yanukovychs party, the Party of Regions the ruling party asthese diaries begin is made up of various groups with different

ideological and political views, ranging from centrist to pro-Russian.


6/13

Province CapitalProvince Border

Country Capital

MOLDOVA

R O M A N I A

HUNGARY

SLOVAKIA

P O L A N D

B E L A R U S

U K R A

B l a

B u g

V i s t u l a

S a n

D n i e s t e r

P r u t

D a n u be

Da n u b e

D n

i e s t e r

S o u

t h e r n B u h

P r i p y a t

D n i e

p e r

KIEV

LutskRivne

Zhytomyr

Lviv

Uzhhorod Ivano-Frankivsk

Chernivtsi

Odessa

Mezhigorye

Lazarevka

VinnytsiaKhmelnytskyi

Ternopil


7/13

200 km10050 1500

150 mi100 12550 75250

R U S S I A

I N E

CRIMEAN

PENINSULA

S e a o f A z o v

c k S e a

D o

n

D o n e t s

D o n

K u b a n

D n i e p e r

Chernihiv

Sumy

Kharkiv

Luhansk

Donetsk

Dnipropetrovsk

Poltava

Mykolaiv

Zaporizhia

Kherson

Simferopol

Yalta

Sevastopol

Cherkasy

Kirovohrad

D e s na


8/13

5 0 0 m

1 0 0

2 0 0

3 0 0

4 0 0

0

K h r e s h c h a t y k

S t r e e

t

B a n

k o v a

S t r e e

t

H r u s h e v s k o

h o

S t r e e

t

S h e v c h e n

k o B o u

l e v a r d

S h e l

k o v i c h n a y a

S t r e e

t

L y u

t e r a n

k s a

S t r e e

t

P r o r e z n a y a

S t r e e

t

V l a d i m i r s k a y a

S t r e e

t

M i k h a i l o v s

k a y a

S t r e e

t

R e i

t a r s k a y a

S t r e e

t

S a d o v a y a

S t r e e

t

I n s t

i t u t s k a y a

S t r e e

t

S t r e l e t s k a y a

S t r e e

t

V e l y k a

Z h y t o m y r s k a

S t r e e

t

I M P O R T A

N T S T R E E T S

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0

1 1

1 2

1 3

1 4

M A I N M A P

I n d e p e n

d e n c e

S q u a r e

( t h e

M a i

d a n

)

I n d e p e n

d e n c e

S q u a r e

( t h e

M a i

d a n

)

E u r o p e a n

S q u a r e

T a r a s

S h e v c h e n

k o

N a t

i o n a l

U n

i v e r s i

t y

o f K i e v

T a r a s

S h e v c h e n

k o

m o n u m e n

t

M a r

i y i n s k y

P a l a c e

B e s s a r a b s k y i

S q u a r e

S t S o p

h i a

S q u a r e

S t M i c h a e

l s

S q u a r e

T r a d e

U n

i o n s

B u

i l d i n g

P a r

l i a m e n

t

( R a d a

)

C a b

i n e t

B u

i l d i n g

H i d r o p a r

k

P e c

h e r s

k

L a v r a

H o

t e l

U k r a i n e

G o

l d e n

G a t e

C

i t y

H a l

l

U k r a i n e

H o u s e

O c t o

b e r

P a l a c e

P r e s

i d e n

t i a l

A d m

i n i s t r a t

i o n

1

2

3 4

5

6

7

8

9

1 0

1 2

1 4

1 3

1 1

D n

i e p

e r

R i

v e r

D n

i e

p e

r R

i v e

r

K I E V


9/13

1

Preface

When nothing in particular happens in the life of a man and hiscountry, the man might believe his existence to be stable and eter-nal. In fact, that life where time is measured in career changes,

in the purchases of new houses or cars, in family gatherings, inweddings and divorces truly is stable. The man who lives in oneof the worlds hot spots, or who simply lives next to an activevolcano, has a different view of time. The worth of each day, eachhour experienced, proves innitely greater than that of a peacefulweek. When you live next to a volcano, real or metaphorical, theday is lled with so many events that it proves physically impos-

sible to remember them all. These events inevitably end up in thehistory books, sometimes comprising only a few lines, sometimesone or two pages.

I now understand why, when I was at school, I much preferredreading the private diaries of writers or politicians who hadwitnessed history to reading actual history books. I rememberthe diary of the great Russian poet Alexander Blok, covering the

years 191718. I remember Franz Kafkas diary, and I remember inparticular the diary which I read recently in its complete version of the famous Ukrainian lm-maker Alexander Dovzhenko, inwhich he would sing the praises of Stalin or revile the Jews andthe Ukrainians, just in case he was arrested and the KGB readhis notebooks, so he would be able to point out these passages asproof of his loyalty to the Soviet regime.

I have kept diaries for more than thirty years. Several times,


10/13

2

my Ukrainian editors have asked to publish them, even if onlyfragments of them, but until now I have never been able to forcemyself to extract from these private writings anything I was readyto share with readers.

And then, having been led on more than one occasion intothe path of a whirlwind of history, I found myself the witnessto the dramatic events that arose in November 2013 in Ukraine,events of which we have not yet seen the end. I do not know whatwill happen next, or what lies in store for me and my family. I onlyhope that everything will be all right.

I am not leaving. I am not shying away from reality. I live each

day in the very centre of reality. All ve of us myself, my wifeElizabeth, and our children Gabriela, Theo and Anton continueto live in the same apartment, in the heart of Kiev, ve hundredyards from the Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Ukraines IndependenceSquare. From our balcony we have seen smoke rise from blazingbarricades, we have heard the explosions of grenades and gunshots.Life goes on, throughout all of this; not once has it stopped. And

I have recorded this life almost every day, so that I can attempt,now, to recount it to you in detail. A life in times of revolution, alife spent waiting for war. A war that, as I write these words, seemsterribly close, closer than ever.


11/13

3

Thursday 21 November 2013

Tonight, around midnight, a meteorite fell on Sevastopol. Whythere in particular? Pure chance, probably. But still, that it shouldchoose to land on the most Russian city in Ukraine, whose pictur-

esque bays are home to Russias Black Sea Fleet!I would not have paid any attention to this nocturnal event,

had there not appeared today a declaration by the prime minister,Mykola Azarov, announcing the suspension of preparations tosign the Association Agreement with the European Union. Inone of my novels I described a secret factory, hidden away in theUral Mountains, which produced articial meteorites. The dream

of the Soviet militarys high command: bombarding the UnitedStates with articial meteorites, while making people believe theywere real ones. So I wondered if this meteorite was really a naturalevent, or if it had not been a way of proclaiming to the most Russiancity in Ukraine that negotiations between Viktor Yanukovych andVladimir Putin over the renunciation of our countrys AssociationAgreement with Europe had ended successfully (for Putin).

Closer ties with Europe have been abandoned. Now, we aregoing to love Russia again.

Europe is apparently in a state of shock. Me too. Did Yanukovychreally have to spend six months announcing that we are walkingtowards Europe? Did he really have to gather his parliamentarygroup in September at the regional party headquarters, traditionallyinstalled in the Zoryany cinema, to ask each person there to walk

with him, in an orderly fashion, carefully keeping pace, and to


12/13

4

suggest to all those who refused to follow him that they shouldleave the group and the party?

We did not have to wait long for the peoples reaction to Azarovsannouncement. This evening a crowd began to gather in the

Maidan. * In the meantime, there had been more news: the ForeignMinistry joyously declared that it was no longer dangerous forUkrainians to go on holiday in Egypt. In other words, any of you whowere thinking of going to Europe, catch a plane to Egypt instead, andwho cares if you get massacred, accidentally or on purpose, by localIslamists or other revolutionaries. This makes me feel sick.

That said, the way this is being staged is absolutely classic:

Azarov announces the decision not to sign the treaty on a daywhen Yanukovych is out of the country. He is in Austria, wherehe is already busy reassuring Europe: Well sign the agreementwith you, just not right now. And he adds that he has no intentionof liberating Yulia Tymoshenko. 1 If Yanukovych were a three-headed dragon, at this moment each of the three heads would betravelling separately but acting in perfect sync. If one of them were

in Moscow, the Muscovite Yanukovych head would be giving acompletely different speech, one that did not even mention Europe.

This afternoon, abandoning the next chapter of my Lithuaniannovel, I went to the Yaroslavna and ordered a coffee. Five orsix minutes later, I added 50ml of Zakarpatsky cognac to it. Itdidnt make me feel any better. There was no one in the cafe Irecognised. Customers came in, looking gloomy, and I was

tempted to think that they too knew that Europe was now nolonger going to enlighten Ukraine. But maybe they were worriedby altogether different problems, their own private problems, offar less importance.

* The Maidan, a word of Persian origin, was originally the square in east-ern cities where the market was held. In Kiev it was renamed Independence

Square in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union.


13/13

5

Back at home, I went on Facebook. People were calling for agathering in the Maidan to demand that the treaty be signed. Theyadvised to take warm clothes, rugs, a ask of tea and a supply offood for the night. I simply didnt have the strength to go. I didnt

feel like it either. I dont feel like anything any more. Not onlythat, but the television screen showed Putin grinning from earto ear while the speaker declared in a somewhat strange voicethat Russia is delighted to develop its collaboration with Ukraine.What collaboration? A three-year trade war, with embargoes onthe export of, rst, cheese, then meat, then Ukrainian beer, andso on? Not to mention the constantly postponed co-production of

Antonov aeroplanes.The world seems to have gone mad this morning. In Alchevsk,

blue water ran from the taps. A Swiss tourist entered Georgia,perched atop a camel, an animal from which he has not beenseparated for more than thirty years. His name is Roland Veron,and in Tbilisi he was given an award for the most original traveller.I wonder if they gave the camel anything.

Here, everything is simpler and sadder. We have, once again,had our future taken away from us.

ukraine diaries first chapter

Documents