Mam arrived in Russia and we raced out of Moscow on an overnight train to Voronezh, where I lived at the time. That evening we’d dinner in one of our pubs, and on tv watched news roll in from Ukraine. Having ousted the elected President from office earlier in the year, the crazies were in full control of most of the country. They had been killing or locking up anyone who disagreed. Laws were being pushed through to ban Russian-language as a national language, oh, and Tatar, Hungarian, Romany, Polish and Romanian. Voronezh, on the border with Ukraine, was receiving refugees since February whose houses were burned out or who decided to go to Russia until it all calmed down.
That night, on April 30th, we watched the protest in Odessa. Odessa has always been one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Ukraine. Russian-speaking and outward looking, the locals are lovely, friendly and rather soft-natured. To see them protesting against Kiev was a shock. They didn’t want to go the way of Crimea, they simply wanted a federal structure (like Germany, Russia, Canada, France etc) where regions could retain their unique character and culture. Russian tv was showing the protest camp in Kulikovo Pole square, Odessa, and fiery hate speeches in Kiev denouncing the protestors as separatists. Yet Russians were not sold on greater reaction, despite media spin.
It was wonderfully hot on May 1st and we ventured out to meet friends, ending up part of my company’s May Day group in the parade through the city centre. May 1st has a special place for a country that took trade unions and worker’s collectives to their hearts, especially in an agricultural-industrial area like Voronezh. Mam, Tim and I marched, waved and felt very much part of a community. In our group, from Russki Appetit, were a husband and wife from Ukraine. They came quietly into the crowd and I realised that they didn’t know too many people. As the only “foreigner in the village” I spoke with them and their son Rasul. They were of Uzbek/Tatar-nationality and had left their home in Kiev in April. The Dad, Mansur, worked as manager in a restaurant there, his wife Guzel, was chef. They’d been given 1 hour to pack and leave their apartment late one Sunday night - their crime was being Muslim, non-white and successful.
With us Mansur was working as a chef in one of our company’s restaurants, while his wife stayed home with Rasul. Today, on May 2nd 2023, they are in Crimea where fellow Tatars found them a place to restart their business in December 2021. That day 5-year-old Rasul spoke briefly with 4-year-old Tim and I said to one colleague:
I can’t imagine having to run with a couple of bags and Tim because some scumbags decide they want my business and house.
That night at concert in one of our pubs, one of the girls from HR told me that she worried for her Auntie in Odessa. She was a local women’s cooperative manager and was in Kulikovo protesting the new laws. I nodded, sipped my beer and listened to the greatest ever cover of Welcome to the Jungle. That night, still a recovering sports addict, I slipped and checked out Ukrainian football on a Ukrainian online forum. Odessa’s Chornomorets were at home to Metallist from Kharkov on May 2nd. Now, I had history with Metallist. In 2011-12 I’d a very minor role with a BBC documentary that bravely exposed the horrific anti-semitism, racism and openly neo-nazi elements involved in the club. I’d been clued into it by a Serbian player client of mine who’d trialled with them. The outrage at the time of the documentary in 2012 was well-scripted and trying to protray it as lies. It wasn’t. The ultra fans from Kharkov were notorious, hardcore criminals who sold drugs, collected debts, organised murders, ran prostitutes and extortion rings in the city & region. They were protected and used as protest/strike-breaking heavies by oligarchs.
On 2 forums the Metallist ultras were boasting about going to Odessa to “straighten” the Moskali (Russians). I had a mutual friend of Adolphe Teikeu, a Cameroonian who was playing for the home side. I wrote to her and asked if all was ok there. It was 1am on the 2nd of May and she was out walking with her husband (a coach with Chornomorets). She replied, yes, all ok. In the morning I’d a Facebook message with a photo of the Metallist fans gathered in the city. She said:
(My husband) says he never saw so many of them here and not just Metallist. Too Dinamo fans. Adolphe says he plays, the shouting (racial abuse) won’t stop him.
The game was an uneventful 1-1 and kept Metallist in the hunt for 2nd place behind Shaktar. Afterwards it was chaos in the city. The Metallist criminal gang, who had been masquerading as “Azov” and terrorising civilians in eastern Ukraine, unleashed hell on the men, women and children of the protest camp in Kulikovo Pole square. Armed with rifles, pistols and other wepons, they burned the tents to the ground and the savagery began that would turn public opinion against Ukraine. Some protestors, again, including children, retreated to the adjacent Trade Union house (imagine Liberty Hall in Dublin but beautiful). Some of them believed they would defend themselves and be defended by police. Roman Grigorchuk, head coach of Choromorets was told by police to warn players against going into the city for dinner or dancing. Adolphe told our mutual friend that Chornomorets fans heard about the bestial behaviour of the visiting criminal gangs and ran to defend the camp, only to be beaten or killed. The police were helpless, they were outgunned and outmatched.
At least forty-eight people died in the Trade Union house fire, live on TV. In a Kiev studio the audience cheered news that the “separatists” were routed. Those involved in the organisation and execution of the deadly attacks ended up praised, promoted and elected into parliament. Those on the receiving end were charged. Footage of people leaping from 3rd and 4th floors windows to escape the blaze was all over Russian and Ukrainian media. Seeing badly and mortally injured people lying on the ground, being bludgeoned to death by “patriots” with iron bars and baseball bats, turned stomachs and hearts. Russia went into shock. Odessa, friendly, lovely Odessa. Her citizens being shot, beaten and burned to death. The night of the 2nd I sat in the pub, alone, watching the tv news and asking myself - how?
Local, normal, Ukrainians broke into the police station in Odessa to free the protestors who were barely alive. Men and women, in need of medical assistance from smoke inhalation, burns and wounds, were taken from their cells and justice for those killed for protesting peacefully rang out around most of Ukraine and a lot of Russia. It didn’t come. The western media quickly turned away as it was the same people Viktoria Nuland, and her ilk, had put in power who were responsible. How could it be told to the US electorate that they had just allowed neo-nazi criminals run riot in a peaceful Ukrainian city and burn people alive? Our Ambassador answered a young man from Odessa, telling him that the EU was not uncaring and that every conflict needs dialogue to end. He was right, he was brilliant, his sentiment was at odds with Berlin, Paris, Washington, Ottawa, London and Kiev.
Had there been a proper investigation into May 2nd, 2014, I can guarantee. No, wait, I know 100% that if there had been a full investigation and those responsible were charged, jailed and taken out of commission - there would be no conflict right now. Azov would never have existed to torture and brutalise innocent Ukrainians until now. The nasty far-right element would have been minimised and the population in Donbass would not be terrified that the same evil was coming their way. Moscow would have no excuse or reason for what is happening now. There would be a sign from Kiev that criminality and the murder of opposition had no place in Ukraine. Instead, the paid pr people from a London-New York agency made sure the narrative remained and the victims were victimised over and over.
With just a tiny bit of human decency and respect for life on May 2nd and in the period afterwards, tens of thousands of men, women and children would not have died for an inhumane cause.