“Go to Kyiv. Just do it!”

People tend to evaluate everything that happens around them from the perspective of their own life experience. What experience of civic life did the older and middle-aged generations of today’s Ukrainian society have? Simply put: none. What did one-sixth of the world’s population know about life in other countries, in particular about modern-day democracy (from Greek demokratia, government by the people)? They knew only two things. First, they knew that the Soviet regime was the world’s only genuine democracy and, second, that all the “so-called Western democracies” were fictitious, bogus, and oppressive for most people. As a result, many came to the logical conclusion that Western democracy was even worse than ours and that democracy was most likely a figment of the ancient Greeks’ imagination, a fairy tale concocted by the talented storytellers Solon, Aristotle, et al, because in the USSR nobody had the slightest possibility to influence what was happening around him. After all, elections at all levels, meticulously held at certain intervals, were so obviously, bitterly, and meaninglessly farcical. Meanwhile, the early 1990s did not raise the level of civil awareness in Ukrainian society. Otherwise, there would be completely different people occupying the top posts in our country. But all of a sudden we are having rallies on Independence Square, a godsend that has overturned Ukrainians’ ideas of who they are. How quickly everything has changed!

People who never took an interest in politics have taken to the streets: the old and young, the rich and poor, blue-collars and intellectuals, the healthy and ailing, pensioners and bureaucrats, students and schoolchildren, and foreigners who reside in Ukraine. What happened? What does one call it — a crisis, an uprising, a celebration of freedom and self — confidence, an accelerated formation of a civil society, or fraternization among different social strata-maybe all of the above. I get the impression that not only the active part of society but also most of its citizens have shed the shackles of silence and humility and have broken free from the stupor that all the previous regimes painstakingly cultivated in us at the genetic level throughout the centuries.

Just take a walk through the streets of Kyiv and listen to what the doormen, janitors, and old, impoverished ladies are saying outside their apartment buildings! Take a look at how many people are trying to make a contribution to what is happening, if only the most trifling act. An elderly woman brought a woolen cardigan to the center collecting warm clothing at the Ukrainian House and apologized shyly because the cardigan was not new, “but still very warm!” Next in line was a man with a pair of boots in his hands: “This is a change of footwear to keep your feet warm. I patched them up and replaced the soles. They’ll come in handy for some young fellow.”

As I was going down Shovkovychna Street, I passed two small businesses: “Phyto-Bar” and “Beauty Parlor,” whose employees had placed a small table on the pavement facing their storefronts. Two slender, fashionably dressed, smiling ladies were offering free cookies, tea, and broth to passersby. The same was happening in a small park outside one of the buildings on Pecherska Street, where three elderly ladies were treating students to sandwiches and hot tea. The first was running back and forth to fill two- liter thermoses with tea, the second, her luxurious fur coat unbuttoned despite the biting wind, was making sandwiches on a stool, while the third was pouring out tea. I witnessed similar scenes in Liuteranska Street. By the way, the Saturday and Sunday before last the entrance to Bankova Street from Liuteranska Street was still blocked by trucks loaded with sand. That was a sight! The massive trucks with gigantic tires and towering cabs were festooned with orange ribbons, bows, and slogans. Atop the sand heaps stood cameramen, children, amateur photographers, and other people getting a kick out of the scenes unfolding before them. The cops and drivers kept their cool, pretending they had everything under control.

There was one more thing. The Saturday before last, when parliament convened an extraordinary session, hundreds of people gathered in the streets around private cars whose owners had turned them into makeshift radios broadcasting the parliamentary session. There were small cars and large, long cars, and each one had its doors wide open, their radios turned all the way up, with their owners showing utter respect for the listeners standing on the sidewalk and streets.

For me the symbol of this blessed cataclysm is the numerous makeshift drums that beat rhythmically from morning till night in all the strategic locations throughout the capital. It’s a shame that every rally in Independence Square and every important event doesn’t start with these drums. This is exactly how the gigantic tulumbases mustered Cossacks to their councils. Now something similar is happening: as soon as a group begins a drum concert, hundreds of people flock to the sound. These entrancing primeval sounds are awakening our historic memory and former bravery. Listening, the people stand up straight and hold their heads high.

There is another beautiful and cheerful touch amid the tension: all the bronze statues on the streets of Kyiv have been coquettishly adorned with orange ribbons. The Parisian hat of Mr. Horodetsky is accented with an orange ribbon. The shoulders of slender Maria Zankovetska are wrapped in an orange scarf. A cheerful, bright kerchief is tied around the wrinkled neck of the Kyivan Panikovsky, who famously said on the pages of The Golden Calf by Ilf and Petrov: “Go to Kyiv. Just do it!”

Meanwhile, today everyone is living with incredible tension: how will all this end? Many of us have grown accustomed to losing so much that, despite themselves, they find it hard to expect a happy ending, especially if such an ending means significant and immediate changes in our life, society, and in our own moral and behavior. But no matter how it ends, Ukrainians will no longer be a people with only two strategies of behavior: either “keeping mum” or “remaining silent with horror.”