In early 2014 I was sent this letter when Maidan was winding down. It was a young Russian woman in Kiev who wrote exactly what was going on. NO ONE would publish it that first year. It wasn't until 2015, a year later, I finally was able to publish it here. It will make a lot more sense now that the threat of fascism and a coup is real and upon you. Her identity had to be scrubbed. It is authentic and compelling on its own. It reads like Anne Frank.
A Simple Letter from a Girl
"Unfortunately, I had to close all posts in my VK(VKontakte) about Maidan (they aren't erased, but now are visible only to me) because after the Maidan "victory" in Kiev the real nightmare began. About that, people prefer not to speak because they are very much afraid. There are militants everywhere.
My co-worker was beat in front of the entrance to her apartment for writing anti-maidan posts in her VK page. How did they find her? No one knows. She is intensive care and at the first mention of that event, you can't appease her tears.
At school the other day, my neighbor's boy called his parents on a break by the mobile phone and spoke with them in Russian. His schoolmates took away his phone and broke it. They broke his bag, tore all his textbooks and note-books, and then beat the child. They demanded he speak only Ukrainian or "for the rest of his life be afraid because they will find and will cripple him". This is the 7th grade class.
From time to time on the streets it is possible to see this picture; As a person is approaching a group of people, the group asks questions: "Were you on Maidan? Do you support Maidan? " If both answers are "no" the group cruelly beats them and kicks them.
In Kiev now the majority of Russians and Russian-speaking people, initially and after Maida that did not support Maidan are compelled to remember the Soviet period when "even walls have ears" and to keep mum. Because we, unlike different regions have no chance of detaching from Ukraine.
In Kiev now, as many as speak in whispers at personal meetings are doomed. Here its already a totalitarian mode and probably will only get worse.
Everything is getting aggravated with that. For some reason a lot Russians, and Russian-speaking people were at Maidan and in every possible way helped Maidan's people.
Kiev is completely split. Here associating with Russians is impossible. They are now enemies in addition to Yanukovych. Its awful that this war( the gun battles that ended Maidan) is here. Such cruelty beating on absolutely peaceful people. Their only crime is that they dared to be against vandals and cheap swindlers of people.
Please, don't mention my nickname in context with this information. If people find and cripple people already for posts in VK, that truth very much frightens us, "especially women and mothers".
I asked for permission to publish the letter without mention of authorship and received the answer:
"If you publish, state objectively that externally Kiev leads a quiet, quiet life". But it is only a matter of visibility. Those who are joyful and complacent are for Maidan. Now it is their time.
All others are guarded and careful even with people they think they know. Russian and Russian-speaking people that haven't faced an atrocity as opponents of the Maidan simply try to be silent in public places. They try to not attract the aggression of madmen.
And those who already suffered from them or at least as much as I know about real cases, try hard to save their families and to be silent, silent, silent.
Therefore the "picture" of Kiev is quite safe, spring comes, and so on. Actually part (and not a small part!) of the city is in silent horror.
You cannot leave everything: Your work, your house, the proof you had a life- you can't throw it all away.
People hang on by the skin of their teeth. After all that has happened, they hope for any miracle. Though it is difficult even to assume now that anything can save the Russians in Kiev.
It is impossible to be silent. But the inhabitants of Kiev, which are Antimaidan, and faced atrocity won't write about it openly. Its the self-preservation instinct.
Those who aren't aware yet are in a kind of dark hope that somehow everything will be fine. I try to be very careful. Only here I decided to write this to you for some reason. Probably, because of trust and you are after all very far away""
Response from another person in Kiev during Maidan
"I read "The letter from Kiev". Everything is true" The author correctly wrote you can't drop everything and leave in one day. You won't get a new house and a new job in one day. It is necessary to simply hide. This is an absolutely awful feeling.
It is necessary not only to remember that the walls have ears, but you have to remind yourself to look like you are in a good mood. Rejoice that the spring sun is shining for example. After Maidan it is unhealthy to do otherwise. People are watching and looking for those that did not support Maidan. Laws no longer work here. The people are absolutely defenseless and left to the mercy of fate.
This was a fascist revolution. The most amazing and simply unreal thing is that people supported radicals and welcomed the created state of affairs. Here it is full of lawlessness. Intolerance to any point of view, intolerance on a racial, national, religious, and political convictions not in line with Maidan is a crime.
They started closing publishing houses such as"Ejenedelnik 2000" weekly, which never sympathized with Maidan, not in 2004(Orange revolution), and not now. There is the whole list of journalists, political scientists, sociologists who became persona non grata in Ukraine's information space.
The most ridiculous organization"stop censorship" first struggled with the dictator Yanukovych. Afterward they wanted every publisher that didn't agree with Maidan closed. No human rights activists or even "the reporters without borders" ever mentioned this, not one. I am feeling that is a dreadful dream the events."
Here openly I put it. It is fascism, ordinary fascism.