Demonstrations

There is a lot of complicated political stuff going on in Ukraine. Last Friday Max and Alex took me to a demonstration against the sitting government.



This is the main square of Kharkov where the demonstration was going to be. But the government somehow hindered that and instead they had these people make a demonstration for the government. Max told me that most of the people probably were paid to show up. He also told me that when he was in University they once told him to show up at a similar demonstration and because he did not he wasn't given a mark that he needed.




We took a bus to the real demonstration. The bus was actually a van and we were sitting 12 people crammed together. Max insisted that we had another passenger take a photo of us, I think it is because he likes my blog and he wants me to have some pictures I can post.




The demonstration, lights and loud music and banners with clenched fist logos. There was a famous journalist speaking, he is writing articles about swindles like when large Ukrainian companies are privatized and sold very cheap to friends of the government. The former chief of police was also speaking. He was fired because he had promised to go after all the corrupt people of the government. When he started speaking there was a group of young people who started making loud noises so that we could not hear him. They were stopped by some angry old ladies and the police. Max told me that the young people may also have been paid to make the noise.




This is from another demonstration some weeks before. It is the police demonstrating because they are getting paid to little. I think someone told me they get around 200$ per month.