This is a post from Nikolay Khoroshkov’s livejournal. He is a landscape photographer from Mariupol and surely making political news reports is not his main job. However, he decided to write an article on what happened in his home town.
“This post is not about politics but about our society in general. As you know, Mariupol became “famous” May 9th. Many people have seen photos and videos from the place. It is hard to comment what the media tell because they work some political orders and show only their owners’ point of view.
So there is much hell-raising on how the “Ukrainian army shoots peaceful citizens”. This is total crap and has nothing to do with real facts. I live in Mariupol near the internal affairs office so, willy-nilly I found myself in the middle of the events yesterday.
A group of well-armed people started to storm the building. I don’t know who they were but they had weapons and acted in a very professional way. Have to note they fired not only from automatic weapons but from something like RPGs as well. Part of them got inside the building. The militia began to shoot back. Ukrainian special forces and militaries on armed vehicles came a bit later and then the real hell began.
When it was over the building caught on fire and burnt out completely.
And now the most interesting thing was how the people near the building behaved. They started shouting “Right Sector!”, “Hired guns!”, “Fascists!” “Get out of the city!”, “Pack your bags to Kyiv!” Then the filthiest things followed. Somebody started to shoot at the militaries from behind the people’s backs using the crowd as a shield. No comments…
I am terribly ashamed of those Mariupol citizens who turned into some kind of drunk bastards. They started to burn down buildings, rob arms shops and liquor stores.
When one of the APCs broke down, ‘peaceful Mariupol citizens’ attacked the militaries. Those decided not to shoot back and just left. The mob robbed the vehicle, somebody fired it and occasionally wounded a man passing by…
Part of the city mayor’s office burnt out during the night. I came out next morning to look what was happening in the city center. Most of the people there were drunk…
I took some photos on mobile. No comments, just look.
This is Donbas Republic at its best…
These people say they fight against fascism…
Should I add more?..
P.S. I appreciate the courage and self-possession of Ukrainian militaries against the mob and their abuses.
P.P.S. In case you might get the situation with Mariupol citizens wrong: there ARE a lot of sane people here but they are really scared… Scared to stay in the same city with those “people” mentioned above. Scared to go to the demonstration, to speak Ukrainian in the street or to carry the Ukrainian flag…”
All photos by Nikolay Khoroshkov
http://n-khoroshkov.livejournal.com
Translated by EuromaidanPR
