Turning the pages back... December 26, 2004 (12/25/05)

Turning the pages back...

December 26, 2004

One year ago, The Ukrainian Weekly Editor Andrew Nynka, then assigned to the Kyiv Press Bureau, wrote about a procession of approximately 50 cars - dubbed the "Friendship Train" - that drove throughout Ukraine's southern and eastern regions. The organizers hoped to "spread a spirit of democracy and freedom" to places they said had seen little of either, Mr. Nynka wrote. Along the route, however, the group encountered a number of antagonistic roadblocks and setbacks. Following are excerpts from Mr. Nynka's story.

With their cars covered in presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko's trademark orange campaign color, organizers of the procession - who spoke with The Ukrainian Weekly via mobile phone during their trip - said the goal was not political.

"We are not supporting any one specific candidate," claimed Vasyl Khudariavets, one of several people who worked to arrange the approximately 2,300-mile trip.

Mr. Khudariavets was among the thousands who camped out in the tent city on Ukraine's Independence Square in the aftermath of the November 21 run-off election. He said his time there inspired him and other organizers of the Friendship Train to plan their trip. The group has shown video footage and pictures of the demonstrations that took place throughout Kyiv last month to Ukrainians in areas considered to favor Mr. Yanukovych.

"We wanted to help carry the democratic spirit throughout Ukraine," said Mr. Khudariavets, 34, a native of Lviv. "This is not a political action. We found there were many other people who also wanted to help us carry this spirit to regions of Ukraine that we thought needed to know about this."

The procession, which left Kyiv on December 14, stopped in the industrial city of Zaporizhia on December 20 and passed through the city of Dnipropetrovsk the following day, before driving toward Ukraine's Donbas region, Mr. Yanukovych's largely Russian-speaking political bastion.

But the procession encountered several roadblocks put up by Mr. Yanukovych's supporters. On December 19 organizers canceled their visit to the Crimean city of Sevastopol, fearing incidents with more than 200 of Mr. Yanukovych's supporters who blocked the city's main square in the morning.

Local media reported that Mr. Yanukovych's supporters damaged several cars decorated with Mr. Yushchenko's orange campaign color on December 19 in Sevastopol. One woman was slightly injured when a pro-Yanukovych crowd threw bottles and attempted to overturn a vehicle.

Participants in the tour included approximately 180 artists, musicians, journalists and political activists. Damian Kolodiy, a Ukrainian American from New Jersey who was traveling with Mr. Khudariavets, said on December 21 that the group was stopped on the outskirts of Donetsk, considered hostile territory by the group and a political stronghold of the prime minister.

Various Ukrainian media reports confirmed that the group had made it to the outskirts of Donetsk, but would not travel to the city center, where several thousand of Mr. Yanukovych's supporters had gathered to burn life-sized effigies of Viktor Yushchenko, Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko.

The Interfax news agency later confirmed that a rally of some 5,000 Yanukovych supporters burned full-size dolls made to represent the three members of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada in the town's central square.

"We can't let the orange horde into Donetsk," one Yanukovych backer, Andriy Koloiko, told the Associated Press on December 22.

Source: "Pro-democracy 'Friendship Train' encounters antagonism, roadblocks," by Andrew Nynka, Kyiv Press Bureau, The Ukrainian Weekly, December 26, 2004, Vol. LXXII, No. 52.

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