Ukraine: a 1st hand look

Nick Stokes, a native of southwestern Kentucky and a graduate of Vanderbilt University with some degree in being an amazing language guru, is currently serving with the Peace Corps in Ukraine. He sent these emails out to me and the rest of his friends who enjoy hearing about his various Ukrainian exploits. Nick requests that, as a disclaimer, I add that his views are his own and do not represent those of Peace Corps Ukraine or the US government.

Nov 25th:

so, as i know many of you by now know from some of the emails that i've received, the recent second round ukrainian presidential election is now a major focal point in world politics. for those for are still unaware, i'll break it down quickly: first round of elections were oct 31, and that was between 24 candidates. after neither of the top 2 candidates cleared the required 50% of the vote, a second round was set for nov 21 between those remaining--viktor yushchenko and viktor yanukovych. aside from sharing the name "viktor" and wanting to be president, the two men basically have nothing in common. yushchenko seeks to put an end to corruption and form ties with the west, eventually hoping to join NATO and the EU; yanukovych is wishes to make russian the second official language of ukraine (since independence after the fall of communism it's been ukrainian) and form closer ties with russia and belarus, eventually paving the way for dual ukrainian/russian citizenship. polar opposites. in the second round yanukovych was yesterday declared the winner by a count of 49%-46%. the citizens of ukraine, however, claim that there is massive voting fraud (you can find more news on the specifics anywhere on the web) and have chosen to basically shut the country down in protest. in kyiv, the capital, nearly one million protesters are peacefully demonstrating at maidan nezalezhnosti (which you might find in the news at 'independence square') now for the fourth consecutive day, camped out and sleeping in the snow and below-freezing temperature. one by one, oblast (or state) capitals are joining in. right now i'm in ternopil, in the heart of deeply nationalist western ukraine, which you will also probably read about. the streets in surrounding areas like lviv and ivano-frankivsk are also filled with yushchenko supporters.

the supporters are easy to spot (aside from the fact that it seems to be every single person you see); they're all adorned in orange. right now around me in the internet cafe are people, ranging from middle-schoolers to adults, wearing orange scarves, headbands, armbands, etc. people are congregating in the street wrapped in ukrainian flags. everything is entirely peaceful though. there has been a call for non-violence by all sides involved. universities are all shut down, some transport has shut down, even the schools in my town have shut down until at least monday. so i'm off of school on this white, white thanksgiving day (by the way, happy thanksgiving everyone).

all of this is amazing to witness--the outpour of patriotism and concern over the future of the country. before my school declared the strike my 13 year old students explained what this meant to them, some of them fighting back tears as they proved to me just how politically involved even middle-schoolers can be. at the meeting to decide that my school was backing yushchenko by letting out classes so that everyone could be part of the demonstrations and so forth, my best friend's dad (the local history teacher) gave a stirring speach that brought adults to tears. the hardest part of this all, however, comes from the fact that as a volunteer/representative of the united states government, i'm basically forbidden from discussing my views on the occurrences around me. it's like being trapped in a little bubble. of course, it's made even harder by the fact that every single person that i know (and anyone who finds out that i'm american) never fails to ask who i'm supporting. the best (and vaguest) answer that i can give is that i love and care about ukraine and want the result that best suits the country and its people. that seems to be working so far.

as for the world community, colin powel and the US government have denounced the results. jose barroso, heading the EU, has denounced the results. pretty much everyone around the world has denounced the results, save for russia and belarus. putin, russia's president has been the only world leader to call and congratulate mr yanukovych, whom he adamantly supports. i could go into russian and belorussian "politics" and discuss putin and lukashenko, but that's another story.

one of you asked "what's the local sentiment?" basically, it's one of support for a new, democratic ukraine, and outrage at the election results. everyone seems to be cool with me at the moment, and peace corps HQ in kyiv is calling every volunteer daily to update us on the situation (oh yeah, yanukovych supporters control all the television media, so we don't really get any news on what's happening unless someone calls from abroad or we can get on the internet and go to cnn or bbc); if anything bad were to happen or there were any threat to us being here we would be evacuated. if i'm not mistaken, peace corps was not evacuated from georgia last year after "the rose rebellion" in which protesters peacefully overthrew the corrupt government of shevardnadzhe, so we're basically just waiting to see what happens. at present there are no talks of evacuation, just a hightened sense of one's surroundings.

alright, that's about it from here. i hope everyone has a good holiday and that we see some kind of results in the very near future. speaking of the near future, in a month from now i'll be stateside and am still planning on being in nashville for new years with raejean and hanging out with whoever's there, so email me and let me know what's going on. keep watching the news and i'll try to send any updates from the inside when i get the chance. i don't know how much longer this will go on, but next friday i'll be in kyiv, which could be extremely interesting if things haven't changed. talk to you later,

December 3rd:

30 minutes ago, after a week of elaborate and intense investigation of over 11,000 claims, the ukrainian supreme court ruled that the results of the nov 21 presidential election were marred by "massive fraud" and were thereby invalid (the ukrainian parliment came to a similar decision last week, although the final decision rested with the court). for instance, after the polls closed more than 2 million votes (over 10% of the voting population) were cast for yanukovych, who came ahead in the final polls by a few hundred thousand votes. as a result, a new election is slated to take place in the next 30 weeks, once again between yanukovych (prime-minister) and yushchenko (opposition), which the entire political world will be closely scrutinizing. the city of kyiv is blanketed in orange tonight (the color of yushchenko's party), and as i type this there are literally hundreds of thousands of ukrainians--from all reaches of the country--assembling around the corner to celebrate the court's decision. it should be another interesting month. i leave you with a small ukrainian lesson, taken from the most popular slogan and chant of the times: nas bahato, i nas ne podolaty--we are many, and will not be overcome.