THE ŅENT?  

What can be called the Symbol of the Orange Revolution?

Humanity loves installing monuments and grandiose memorial sites honoring and in memory of any great event that left its imprint on history and contributed to the development and evolution of nations and peoples. When Time will come for having a monument to the Ukrainain "Orange Revolution", architects should not think too much and decide in favor of the symbol of modern Ukrainian history - the Tents. The reason is that during November-December of the year 2004, for the first time in the 13 year history of independent Ukraine, the fate of Ukraine was not decided by top level bosses and powers-that-be in their offices, but by ordinary Ukrainians in tent cities in the squares of Kyiv and Lviv, Kharkiv and Luhansk, Ivano-Frankivsk and Uzhgorod. They were those people, who froze at the winter nights in the tents, organizing themselves into brigades for guarding the tent city and for supply of essential provisions; they were those, who got food and warm clothes from nameless pensioners as well as famous entrepreneurs; they were those, in whose honor sang the best singers of Ukraine - they were those people, who put Ukraine a step forward on its way to a better society and state. They were those, who in the course of 17 hectic days became world class heroes - as the Ukrainian maidans and tent cities were the main actors and focus of international media, pushing aside issues in Iraq and the Middle East, problems of the US Dollar and the Euro in stock exchanges etc. 
And that is why the Tent - both the small tourist-tent, or the spacious and well equipped military ones - all have their fullest rights to be the symbol of the Orange revolution: they gave roof over the heads of the passionate revolutionaries, protected them from November winds and December sleet, warmed them up and at the end of the day, helped their cementing into a historical community - the people of Ukraine. 

Bogdana Kostiuk