The Arrest of Yulia Tymoshenko (Kiev)

Our introduction to Kiev was a sleepy, creepy post night train chat with a sexist, racist, middle aged marriage tourist from "United States of Muricah. But I will expand on this in the next blip for this blurb is reserved for the 'current affairs/photojournalistic highlight' of the trip.

As some of you may have read in the news, the former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, was arrested in Kiev for repeatedly disrupting the court during a trial over an 'abuse of office'. She has been accused and charged in the past for things like embezzlement but this recent arrest has been tagged by many of her followers (mainly Ukrainian nationalists and old Orange Revolutionaries) as a political arrest. They accuse her Eastward looking and decidedly corrupt opposition Viktor Yanukovych of trying to quash her political campaign. The accusations go both ways.

The main voice on the street on the day of her arrest, though, were her supporters. It was purely coincidental. We were actually looking for a hotdog stall when we came across the ruckus. A sizable crowd of a few hundred, mainly old aged, supporters some with traditional folk get-up were heaving and ramming a blockade of military police. They appeared to be trying to get into an alley, which, it later turned out, was the way to the court.

After a twenty minutes or so hand fulls of marshrukty came along side the protesters. From them poured black helmeted, baton wielding riot police who jogged in formation to join the ruckus. It was strange really to see the two sides come up against each other : the old timer protesters squashing and grabbing at the young riot police, some of whom looked barely out of primary school.

To be fair, though, the police remained largely passive. I only saw two people get hit. In fact, I think most of the police were just having a laugh and not taking the protesters seriously. A huge squeeze rushed through the crowd wen the bullet proof police van came from the alley. The police stayed tightly packed around it before it got to the main road and made it's escape, Tymoshenko in tow.

I was desperate for internet access after the show. It would have been great to post photos onto Blip or send photos into BBC or the Guardian, just on the off chance. All we could do was walk off, alongside the marshrukty of riot police, probably heading to the pub. We had one thing in common