Here's a new video feature from Christopher Miller, reporting for RFE/RL in Ukraine:
Ukrainians 'Inhabit' Lenin's Shadow On Site Of Toppled Statue
KYIV -- Andriy Turchenko was a boy of seven or eight when his father brought him to the statue of Vladimir Lenin on Kyiv's Taras Shevchenko Boulevard in the 1990s, a few years after the Soviet collapse, to teach him about the Bolshevik leader's legacy.
"He was feeling nostalgic," Turchenko recalls.
This week, Turchenko returned with his own son, 5-year-old Oleksandr, for an updated history lesson -- and a selfie on the spot where Lenin long stood. The statue is gone, pulled down by protesters during Ukraine's Euromaidan revolution in 2013, and the plinth it occupied for 67 years is empty.
But thanks to a temporary art installation that put a staircase in place to allow people to ascend to the pedestal, Ukrainians are getting a chance to stand in Lenin's shoes, so to speak.
"I told Sasha," Turchenko says, using a diminutive of his son's name, "Lenin's absence means Ukraine is free."
They snapped a photo of themselves to celebrate that freedom.
Titled Inhabiting Shadows, the exhibit by Mexican artist Cynthia Gutierrez "intends to provoke a discussion and reflection about imposed memory, system failure, emptiness, identity, and occupying space," according to the artist's description.
Organized by the Izolyatsia Center for Cultural Initiatives, an art collective that relocated from war-torn Donetsk to Kyiv after fighting broke out in 2014, Inhabiting Shadows will remain in place through the end of the week. It is part of a larger exhibition called Social Contract, which aims to spur discussion about public symbols. It is on display at the Izolyatsia Center in Kyiv through August 24.
Read the entire article here
A tweet from the man himself on his highly publicized (and generally well received) visit to Ukraine:
An interview with the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine:
Here's another item on journalists, this time from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service:
Moscow Lists Crimean Journalists, Activists As 'Terrorists' And 'Extremists'
Authorities in Moscow have listed 22 people who were born on Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula as "terrorists and extremists."
The list, published on July 12 by Russia's Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring), includes journalists, civil activists, and political prisoners who have criticized Moscow's occupation and illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.
Among those named is Mykola Semena, a contributor to a news site about Crimea that is run by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Semena has been charged by officials in Russia-annexed Crimea with using media to make separatist calls.
Also on the list is blogger Yuriy Ilchenko, who was recently arrested over an article condemning Russia’s seizure and annexation of Crimea.
The list also name several Ukrainian prisoners held in Russia – including Oleh Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Oleksiy Chemiy, and the recently free Hennadiy Afanasyev.
Rosfinmonitoring was created by a decree from President Vladimir Putin and reports directly to the Russian president.
The United States, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and international media rights groups have all expressed concern about a clampdown on independent journalists and activists in the Russian-occupied territory.