A Farewell on Mykhailivska Square

So we said good-bye to the president of the United States. No matter how often one may say that his visit to Kyiv was of a somewhat ritual nature and that nothing has seriously changed in the practical plane, the main point was not so much Bill Clinton’s negotiations with Leonid Kuchma as the appearance of the U.S. president on Mykhailivska Square. The fact that Ukraine was the last destination on Mr. Clinton’s European tour and the most suitable place for mass-scale street extravaganzas speaks volumes. I would say so: Mr. Clinton said good-bye to us exactly the way he used to greet us. While he was president, the Americans hoped for something all the time, but nothing ever happened. But they kept on hoping, being aware that the support of Ukrainian statehood is important, above all, with due account of American and European interests... We continued to be ill, while Mr. Clinton would speak to us optimistically, as if he were a cheerful saxophone-playing uncle invited to visit a sick disobedient child — let him at least cheer up if he’s not destined to recover!

But in Moscow everything was as always: the same forced smiles and the same tense atmosphere as during all the previous meetings of the last superpower’s leader with his counterpart who still tries to believe, contrary to reality, that his poor and debilitated country is also a superpower...This Russian imperial inferiority complex was best of all expressed by a listener of Moscow’s Echo radio, who bluntly asked Mr. Clinton: “Do you consider Russia a third-world state?” ‘Oh, no, by no means!” the U.S. president began to deny energetically.

I often picture Vladimir Putin asking his guest during the U.S.-Russian summit: “Mr. President, do you consider Russia a third-world state?” “Oh no, my colleague! For I helped you join the G8, I have always believed in reforms...”

In any case, we, the citizens of Ukraine, never ask the U.S. president a question like this. We just gather on a city square, sing, dance, and applaud. What a cheerful nation! “When are you going to start doing things?” the U.S. president perhaps wants to ask us, but still restrains himself: he must look dignified on his farewell tour and remind us again about the importance of democratic values...