The maidan welcomes the people's president (01/30/05)

The maidan welcomes the people's president

by Yana Sedova
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - For the first time in the modern history of Ukraine, the country's president took a civic oath on Independence Square, beginning a new tradition in the inauguration ceremony. Viktor Yushchenko, who is known as the people's president, pledged "to change Ukrainian life" before hundreds of thousands of Ukraine's citizens - many of whom demonstrated for their rights and freedoms over the course of several weeks during the 2004 presidential election.

The swearing-in ceremony was originally expected to take place on January 22, Ukraine's Unity Day, but was scheduled for January 23, mainly because of the large number of foreign guests. The inauguration ceremony consisted of two parts: an official oath of office administered in the Parliament and the main inaugural address delivered in the capital's main square.

During the past week Kyivans saw the new president's message on hundreds of billboards. "Peace to you!" was written on an orange background bearing the now familiar exclamation point and horseshoe, the latter a symbol of Kozak fortune - the emblems of the Yushchenko camp. A few days before inauguration day, the National Conservatory building and Hotel Ukraina were decorated with orange bunting and national flags.

From early Sunday morning hundreds of buses from all over Ukraine moved into Kyiv; their license plates revealed their origins to be places such as Kharkiv, Rivne, Lviv, Ternopil, Poltava and other regions of Ukraine.

Columns of people dressed in orange and armed with cameras and flags walked to the heart of the capital - Independence Square. Many former "revolutionaries" came back to Kyiv as they promised to celebrate victory with Ukraine's new president.

From 9 a.m. the Khreschatyk was in a bustle, with happy faces and cheers of "Yushchenko!" everywhere. By 11 a.m., all the best positions in front of the stage were taken.

Mr. Yushchenko was going to deliver his speech under Kyiv's monument to independence - the figure atop a pedestal in the city's main square. Former president Leonid Kuchma once stated that by erecting this monument "Ukraine said 'no' to the totalitarian epoch and its attributes." On January 23 his words rang true.

After the official part of the inauguration ceremony in the Verkhovna Rada, most national deputies accepted the new president's invitation to go to the maidan. As they walked down Institutska Street to Independence Square, crowds of people lining the curbs greeted the deputies and guests. Russian politicians Anatolii Chubais and Boris Nemtsov also received a rousing welcome.

Mr. Nemtsov, who had been to Kyiv at the time of the Orange Revolution, said after the official inauguration that it was a historic day for Ukraine and for the Slavic world. He expressed hoped that the new government would be honest. "If Ukraine manages to do its best, so will Russia some day," he said.

A special welcome was accorded to the most fiery revolutionaries, the leader of the band Okean Elzy, Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, and the "Orange Princess," Yulia Tymoshenko. Many held holding placards with inscriptions such as "Yulia is our prime minister."

The president's family, too, was on the square. Mr. Yushchenko's two little daughters, Khrystynka and Sofiyka, were running among the politicians and showing off their clothes to Ms. Tymoshenko. While awaiting the president's arrival, they all seemed to be one happy family.

Approximately 500,000 people were on the square and on the Khreschatyk that day. Big TV screens and 44 cameras were set up to record the action; all TV channels provided live broadcasts.

People flooded the center, and more and more kept arriving. The square was filled to capacity. There were many parents with their children, many of the kids sat up high on their fathers' shoulders to get a better view of the scene. Young men climbed onto telephone boxes and photographed the event from above. Others watched the crowd through shop windows.

As President Yushchenko arrived, the people began to chant "Yushchenko!" - as they had done so many times before. The waves of the chant created an echo that was heard far away.

The president's speech on maidan, unlike the one in the Verkhovna Rada, was longer and more informative. Hundreds of thousands of listeners were crammed together to hear his each and every word.

"Today I want to speak to you, looking directly into your eyes," Mr. Yushchenko said. "My victory is the victory of all the Ukrainian people."

The newly inaugurated president also had a message for the supporters of his rival Viktor Yanukovych: "Everyone has the right to search for his vision of his country's path. Everyone has the right to choose those political colors that are dearest to him. But, my dear friends, dear Ukrainians, our common choice are the colors of the Ukrainian flag. They unite all of us."

Addressing the people of Ukraine, he promised to put an end to corruption, to separate business from government. He compared the events of the Orange Revolution with the fall of the Berlin Wall, adding, "Ukraine is discovering itself in the history of Europe in the third millennium. We are no longer on the periphery of Europe. We find ourselves in the center of Europe."

"We are beginning a new chapter in Ukrainian history. It will be a wonderful chapter. It will describe our unity, our courage, our readiness to help one another," he continued.

At the conclusion of the address, the song "Ukraino," one of the anthems of the Orange Revolution, but one that actually predated the events of 2004, was sung by the well-known musician/songwriter Taras Petrynenko. The people on the maidan, and the new president sang along, many with tears in their eyes as they pledged love and loyalty to Ukraine.

A little girl in the crowd pointed at the stage and clapped her hands, saying "Look! Look!" At that moment, thousands of orange balloons in the form of a horseshoe flew into the sky.

Though not all of people gathered on or near Independence Square had the opportunity to see the president with their own eyes, most expressed their joy at being present during the ceremony.

"I couldn't miss it," said Volodymyr, a former resident of the tent city on the Khreschatyk who hails from Rivne. "It was an astonishing event, the biggest story of the century."

"There were two main events in my life: the first is the birth of my daughter and the second - our revolution," said Maria who lives in Kyiv.

Ukraine's postal authorities released a stamp dedicated to the inauguration of the president of Ukraine. The stamp is composed of a photo depicting the Orange Revolution by UNIAN photographer Viktor Pobedinsky and the words "Independence Square, November-December 2004." The 45-kopiyka stamp was issued in an edition of 500,000; special cancellations were available on inauguration day.

"If you'd only seen what was going on here," said Olena, who works in the Main Post Office. "There were too many customers and not enough stamps and envelopes with the symbolic orange. Throngs of people occupied the post office from the early morning."

In the evening the president attended a celebratory one-hour concert in the Ukraina Palace concert hall. At the very beginning a small boy ran out onto the stage, played the melody "Together we are many; we cannot be defeated" on the piano, and presented an orange scarf to the orchestra's conductor. It was the only "revolutionary" song of the concert. All other selections were classic compositions, some of them in modern arrangements.

The masses, meanwhile, went to an open-air concert on Independence Square to listen to "orange songs." In the late evening there was a huge fireworks show. Disk jockeys said on the air that the countdown of Ukraine's new history had begun.

* * *

The last military tents of the now famous tent city in Kyiv were dismantled on Tuesday night, and the last revolutionaries, who saw their mission through to the end, went back home.

During his inauguration speech President Yushchenko observed that "Ukraine's collective heart beat here on the square. Free people all over the world, as well as our countrymen scattered throughout distant lands, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us. Here, on Independence Square, Ukrainians became, in the eyes of the world, a modern Ukrainian nation."

The only physical remnant of these recent events is an orange flag atop the pedestal of Kyiv's independence monument. The flag continues to wave in the breeze above the square as the people of Ukraine look ahead to a new future.

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