Orienting Yourself to These Kyiv Protests

Sometimes if you’re not familiar with a place, a little context helps. This photo, above, shows protesters given shelter and sleeping at St. Michael’s Cathedral, just up the hill from #Euromaidan. It’s from this YouTube video. Here is almost the same view from our trip there last March, without protesters.

In the photo below from a story in the Kyiv Post (photo credited to AFP), you can see where St. Michael’s is, relative to EuroMaidan, just up the hill around back.

Below is the church itself, with the short road to Euromaidan extending off to the top right. The dark space extending into the photo from the center left is the Dnieper River, with the left bank in the distance. There were reports last night (12 November, 2013) that the authorities blocked bridges across the river, and thus access, to people coming to reinforce protesters in the Euromaidan.

Finally, a view to Euromaidan from essentially the same vantage point, with the camera turned just a little to the right and zoomed in some, so that St. Michael’s is just out of the frame to the left. Euromaidan is dead center. You recognize the Ukraine Hotel’s big blue sign on the left and the independence monument to the right of the hotel.

Khreshchatyk, the main street in Kyiv, stretches off from near the monument to the right. It’s lined with shops and, according to Wikipedia, “Along the street are located buildings of the Kiev City Administration which contains both the city’s council and the state administration, the Main Post Office, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, the State Committee of Television and Radio Broadcasting, the Central Department Store (TsUM), the Besarabka Market, the Ukrainian House, and others.”

Just a little perspective. Photos link to the original versions.