MYKOLA RIDNIY is a young video artist in Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, just forty kilometres from the Russian border. His latest video, featuring peaceful street scenes set to a soundtrack of riots, recalls the events of two years ago, when the city nearly fell to the Russian-backed separatists who now control other cities in the south-east, Donetsk and Luhansk. Today, Kharkiv remains a litmus test for whether Ukraine can satisfy its Russian-speaking people and turn itself into a functional country.
Opinions differ on how close Kharkiv came to become another breakaway “people’s republic”. Most residents like to think the violence was imposed from outside, by whoever paid for the thugs who arrived in buses from over the Russian border to attack supporters of the pro-European Maidan. Others, like Mr Rydniy, point out that plenty of locals backed Russia too. “People know that their neighbours were supporting the Russian side,” he says.
Kharkiv has always been a bit grander than its coal-dusted neighbours. In the late 1800s, local coal magnates built flamboyant mansions here. Under the Soviet Union the city became a...Continue reading
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