The truth of a Donbas patriot

Olena Stepova recently came to the capital from Sverdlovsk, Luhansk oblast. I will say frankly that she is a heroic woman. And she deserves this definition, which the reader will come to know from the following interview. I had been in contact with Olena online in the past six months, and when we personally met in Kyiv, we began to recollect what should perhaps have been forgotten forever. Olena has done quite a lot for Ukraine and the Donbas, especially for its residents, and, although it is common to view the Donbas as a pro-Russian region with a Soviet mentality, she could find a common language with them. By all accounts, it is humanness – a quality that the Ukrainians lack so much in their own land. For the Kremlin’s chief weapon is discord inside our country. I hope this interview will give somebody answers to some questions – particularly about what caused the Donbas events.

Olena Stepova invites us to visit the launching of her book Long Live Ukraine, or Steppe Stories from the ATO Zone on December 6, 2014, at 2 p.m. in the Museum of the Ukrainian Icon “Spiritual Treasures of Ukraine.” “The hall houses 350 people,” Olena says. “Admission is free. There will be a book. Bring letters to the Donbas people! Letters to Donbas children and old people. I promised them to bring some. They are waiting!?

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Olena, what do you feel after the time you spent deep inside the ATO zone?

“I myself am still perplexed about what is going on. For I rarely visit Kyiv. I live in a village, and it is quiet there. Big cities are not what I like. I came to Kharkiv, walked down the street with some girls and suddenly saw it was six  o’clock. I was panic-stricken – it is curfew time but we are still on the street. An inadequate reaction indeed… A stony silence… Birds are chirping. And a child suddenly comes running and says in rapture: ‘Mum, they’re shooting at last!” It was a hunter’s shot in the woods.”

This means you need adrenaline.

“Yes, it is too quiet here. Naturally, reaction to everything has changed after all these events. Take, for example, reaction to the military. I may not notice some around me but hear them speaking, and my glance immediately becomes sterner, as if it were a scanner. Yes, I must identify in a second what arm of the service and which band they belong to. Here, too, whenever I see our military, my suspicious brain automatically filters the situation – I must find out the place they are going to, the danger they represent, and the likely concentration of troops in the city.”

What do you think helped you survive there?

“The ability to balance. My husband helped me because my first reaction was typical of a woman. By contrast, he showed a panic-free and tough approach, and cold calculation. It is difficult for me to adapt because everybody feels relaxed here. The music plays, people walk around calmly, but I feel constant tension. I still need to scan people and process information all the time  – who, why, what for, on whose side. This has not yet vanished, it is still inside me. It is like being hungry. If you have ever experienced hunger, the fear of it will always haunt you.”

Maybe, this is even useful in our situation. Do you think the capital is too relaxed?

“Yes. There’s no sensation of war here and even in Kharkiv. The first elderly woman we came across in the metro saw that we were migrants and began to lament that we were so miserable and Ukraine must be cursed for unleashing this war. That was a shock – we are in Kharkiv and the first one we run into is a jingo! It’s so strange. Sometimes I    meet here the people I’ve never seen in the flesh before, but I still recognize them thanks to a certain type of the news reports we have accustomed to in past six months or so. There are McDonald’s all around, kids are being presented with balloons, but, looking at them, you still recollect coffins, infantry fighting vehicles, APCs, multiple rocket launchers, and other very terrible things. You recall having a photo taken against the backdrop of an Iskander missile. In other words, you talk to them about the war as if it were a routine thing that does not worry you much.”

How did your children go through this whole story?

“My children are accustomed to their mum being a revolutionary. In general, they are accustomed to many things. This is not the first revolution for them, not the first time they ran out of the house and were brought up in the condition of secrecy – prohibitions to do this or that, passwords, safe houses… My family had had its share even before. We came to this war from another one.”

Which war do you exactly mean?

“Ukraine did not see or know much about that war. The current war broke out in the Donbas with the coming of the Russian troops and separatists, the so-called militia. But there was also a war when the Party of Regions and the local authorities harassed dissidents for the attempts to find out where the central budget’s 15 million had gone, to have the city budget revised, and to ask how the national programs were being carried out on the local level. I did this. So, this war is for me a stage of another war. Simply, there was no fire exchange in that war, but I was taken from there in a car boot. There was terror  – yet without assault rifles. That was under Yanukovych. I was a public activist, and when I raised the question of quite large funds received and squandered by the local government, I began to face problems. I also raised the questions of Rinat Akhmetov’s investments in the city, concession contracts, and environmental programs. At a certain stage, the city government was caught embezzling the budgetary money, when DTEK companies had to spend enormous funds to patch up the holes. There was war and danger in the air. I, as well as my children, was receiving threats. I was always hidden because some hired people were constantly breaking into my house.”

Strange as this question may seem, when was it more dangerous for you – then or now?

“Frankly, I don’t know. At the time, we fought against the authorities. I was interrogated at the security service and at a prosecution office. They attempted to open a criminal case against me. I would sit for 12 hours at interrogations. At last I gave up and said I would call in journalists. Those who were in power at the time are gun-wielding bandits now. But, you know, when the authorities, the uniformed people, are pressing you, you are absolutely defenseless and all that can save you is publicity. They are afraid of this. But things are different with the gun-wielding people. What is important here is that some of these armed people are locals and some are outsiders. It is one thing when you are standing before your own people whom you defended in all your lifetime, helped them earn pensions, when you know their families, and their maladies. You lived together with them in this city, you cared for this city, and now you are facing them, armed with assault rifles, because they’ve taken a different stand, but still even this stand contains a wish to make the city better. Yes, they are mistaken, they’ve taken a pro-Russian attitude, but they are telling you that they will achieve their goal some day and make this city cleaner and free of oligarchs. This is a tangle of the imposed symbols and the personal perception of a city. They inspire no fear. Moreover, even though I conflicted and disputed with them, we sometimes managed to find points of contact. But I was really afraid of the military and Cossacks who came from Russia. Everybody, even local militiamen, is afraid of them. It does not matter to them, outsiders, who to kill.”

Which of them are more in number now?

“The situation radically changed in late July. There are much more outsiders now. Among the locals, there are only the amnestied convicts and those who have remained in the militia not for an idea but in pursuit of easy profit. What we may call the first wave of the militia, which took a clear-cut position, have either been killed in action or turned into guerillas that are fighting the unwelcome ‘Russian guests.’ Those who have survived in the slaughter are now the most rabid fighters against the Cossacks, against the riffraff that have come to their land. They see now that they used to fight for misinterpreted ideas. At first, all these protests looked naive. Regionnaire- and communist-minded old women marched wailing about the ‘Russian World’ and that Putin will save us. There were even rallies. All this did attract people very much because those rallies were not constructive. Nobody could answer the burning questions. Then we saw what I think was the result of very good psychologists’ work. The city remained calm. There were no high pro-Russian sentiments in the city. Then enterprises began to stage rallies, and a coal mine manager says in a fit of temper: ‘You guys are heroes for me! Glory to miners’ labor! Everybody will get a reward! Applause! I will nominate you for awards and pay you bonuses! I’ve bought you a pig and two crates of vodka! I love you all! But there is a trouble, guys. Look what’s going on in Kyiv – the Maidan, the junta, bandits bursting to grab power. We know, of course, that there are also people there who cannot find work. They, western Ukrainians, are poor and barefooted, while we are rich and strong. But what do they want? They want to take our mines and jobs away from us! They want to come here. They want to close our mines. Kolomoisky is forming teams that will come here to kill us and seize enterprises. Guys, I am sorry for you, for I am burning to keep this mine intact! There’s only one way out. Let’s form self-defense units. We are ready to pay for this. We must protect our enterprise.’ This is the way the first coal mine self-defense units formed.

They were based on local problems, on the wish to defend our land from the fictitious ‘Banderaites.’ The guys would set up roadblocks after work and were braced for engaging the much-awed Right Sector which never managed to reach the city. Then a pro-Russian campaign was launched against this background. Here’s an example. No matter how hard they were shaking the city, there was no result. And there was the story of the Lenin monument which the visiting ‘Right Sector men’ allegedly wanted to mine. Everybody went to rescue the Lenin statue and found there a mob of camouflage-clad people who were drinking vodka and, pardon the expression, taking a leak on this monument. Nobody had ever done so in our city. Coal miners also drink – but not to this extent. That’s why all the ‘visitors’ were soundly beaten up with all that the miners could lay a hand on. A drunken camouflaged fellow who has desecrated Lenin is precisely the imposed image of a ‘Right Sector man.’ Those people were driven out of the city. The miners celebrated a victory. They beat the ‘Right Sector!’ As it turned out later, those were Cossacks. They went to settle in Rovenky. A couple of weeks later, the now sober Cossacks came to attend a rally and said: we are your defenders, we have come to protect your Lenin monument which the Right Sector intended to mine, but your own ‘Right Sector’ beat us up! Just fancy the Right Sector complaining to the Right Sector that the Right Sector beat them.”

A tragicomedy indeed...

“Then passions were whipped up – particularly by the city’s media, including the Luhansk Oblast TV Company. Newspapers published messages like this one: ‘As Ukraine is running up billions-worth debt, the government has decided to cancel pensions and social benefits.’ As for the official information, it was published in very small characters only. There is famine in Kyiv, the government has sold all the grain abroad, the government is drawing up a program to remove organs from people without their consent… Can you imagine headlines like these? Facts were twisted, inventions were imposed, and panic was being whipped up all the way. And what is a small miners’ town? If an article like this comes out in Kyiv now, this may trigger anything, but we were always supplied with this kind of information. And nobody was held responsible for it and there were no checks, for we have the freedom of speech. ‘The Maidan is full of the drunk and drugged-out rabble which rapes and kills. A half of Kyiv has been burnt down with tires. What’s the use of this Maidan?” The Regionnaires were thus carrying out their program at full blast. As a result of misunderstanding the Maidan, I had some very bitter clashes with militiamen. I managed to keep up to the mark and remain alive for the simple reason that we all agreed in the very beginning that the city should develop and be free of corruption. The local authorities are corrupt, it is time to sweep the DTEK away, Akhmetov is a thief  – in other words, we spoke of the same. The difference was that I was saying that the Maidan was aimed at eradicating these evils, while they claimed that the Maidan aimed to have them robbed of their mines. It was difficult to break stereotypes and change thinking. Militiamen incredibly asked me whether the Maidan had also come out against the oligarchs. I had the media’s ironclad arguments against me. Yet when we spoke about Yanukovych and analyzed his actions, including those with respect to miners who were not always satisfied with him, people began to scratch the back of their head and understand. Does this mean that we and they are fighting for the same? Why then are they shooting at us? A sheer absurdity… Guys, why are you shooting at them? Because they attacked us! Who attacked you? Who seized the SBU office? Who brought weapons on a semi? What do you mean who? The Russians helped us! They gave us weapons! There is a morbid chaos in the heads. A miner has just called me. He says that while his team was earlier 50 to 50 for Russia and Ukraine, now another 30 percent have joined those who were for Ukraine. And, you know, they are saying that if the ‘Ukrs’ and ‘Nazis’ come, they know where the militia’s caches are and they will side with our ‘Ukrs.’ We will rout them quickly. Like this. It is a miner who says so. I also like Antratsit, where the militia has shot the Cossacks down. I know that it is the militia that is supplying very much information now on the location of Cossack troops and arms caches. These caches are being relocated and handed over to guerilla detachments. A very strong protest movement is on the rise. Yet people continue to stick to the same positions. You really get upset to hear someone say that he or she doesn’t know why Ukraine is fighting against them. The phrase is: we just wanted the ‘LNR’ to be part of Ukraine. Their heads are in a muddle! The people receive no informational support from Ukraine. They can only hear Russia TV day by day. The city is divided into closed clans. There is no unity. We have been so much intimidated all this time that we are now afraid to say a word of support to each other.”

What about education in Sverdlovsk?

“Some schoolteachers wore embroidered shirts on September 1. Are they separatists? Yes, the principal pressured them, so they quit. But they did not work for the ‘LNR’ in September, they taught children. Whenever my daughter came to school, she was addressed in no other way than ‘Hi, nazi,’ ‘Hi, bandit,’ and ‘Hi, Ukrop.’ The child answered: ‘Hi, Novorossians.’ Teachers were explaining to children that we did not have ‘Banderaites’ but we had the ‘living humans.’ Teachers were in fact easing the children’s emotional tension. When some of them quit, daughter stopped going to school. The principal once said to her: ‘Your mother is a nazi and has brought you up as a nazi.’ The child answered: ‘I am a nationalist, not a nazi. Long live Ukraine!’ She was given a bad mark and came home beaming.”

Have we acquired anything in this war?

“Many are aware now of having a fatherland. Before this day, some considered the apartment and others the Soviet Union as their fatherland.”

There is a popular phrase: you are to blame yourself. Is the Donbas to blame for this trouble?

“What is the fault of my female cousin who is raising a child without a husband? What is the fault of my male cousin who went under fire to a mine to pump out water because the mine was flooded? For them, the mine is their family, their fatherland. They went to salvage the mine even though they are pensioners. At the same time, Youtube is full of comments by Antratsit district administration chairman Oleksandr Tymoshenko, the mayors of Rovenky, Sverdlovsk and their deputies, Communist city councilors, and the Party of Regions MP Koval who sang praises of the Cossacks, saying that the ‘Russian World’ will save us. Our school’s principal held a ‘referendum:’ he dismissed all the pro-Ukrainian teachers. During that ‘referendum,’ the mayor of Sverdlovsk sat in the same corridor next to the militiamen, while the Flag of Ukraine over the city was lowered. There were a lot of crimes. But why put the blame on all the Donbas residents, when not a single criminal case has been opened against the officials who allowed and promoted those actions? Why did many of them moved to other parts of Ukraine and continue to draw salary and enjoy privileges there? Eyes were just being shut at the misdeeds of true criminals. So, why is the blame being put on those who have stayed behind and are openly saying: it is our land, and if we are to be killed, let them kill us here? They have no political views, but is this not patriotism?”

Is there an impression that the central government is pursuing a wrong policy toward the Donbas?

“Kyiv’s attitude to the Donbas is not clear. Is it or is it not our land? Those humiliating resolutions on the nonpayment of pensions to those who refused to migrate… Let us say frankly that the required certificate costs 300 hryvnias. The principal of our school went to Kharkiv, received a certificate there, and is drawing a pension at the place where he lives. But does a poor lonely old woman have the same opportunity? Why should people be insulted with the phrase ‘pension tourism’? The situation is that while separatists, who are stained with blood up to their elbows or even throats, are freely traveling across Ukraine, ordinary residents of the Donbas are barely making both ends meet, are helpless and deprived of rights. Ukraine is only now becoming Ukraine. We have lost and reconsidered very much. The Donbas will never be the same again. What are we to do further on? How can we live on with the people who have been spitting into your back and beating you with rifle butts since May and are saying now: please save us, for we are tired of fighting?”