On 20 February, as revolution engulfed the centre of Kiev, Joseph Schilling, a 61-year-old builder from western Ukraine, went to the frontline to join the protests against President Viktor Yanukovych’s government. He was standing beneath the neoclassical October Palace – once a girls’ seminary and later the HQ for Lenin’s secret police – when a sniper shot him in the head.
The place where Schilling died is now festooned with flowers. There are carnations, tulips and a tub of spring crocuses. Schilling’s photo, near his barricade, reveals a man in late middle age wearing a tie, his hair neatly combed. Here too are images of other members of the “Heavenly Hundred” –the name given to the 102 protesters who have perished near the Maidan, Kiev’s central Independence Square.
The Kremlin describes last month’s uprising in next-door Ukraine as an illegitimate fascist coup. It says dark rightwing forces have taken over the government, forcing Moscow to “protect” Ukraine’s ethnic Russian minority. The local government in Crimea is preparing for a referendum on Sunday which could lead to Russia annexing the region. Yanukovych, meanwhile, has fled to Russia.
Schilling, however, was an unlikely fascist. A father of two daughters, he and his wife Anna had lived in Italy. They had four grandchildren. Moreover, he was Jewish.
With Ukraine on the brink of invasion and division, most people in Kiev blame the country’s troubles on the former president. “This is Yanukovych’s fault,” Zhenia, a pensioner, said, surveying the battleground in Institutska Street, where many were gunned down. She was crying.
Nearby, visitors bowed before makeshift brick shrines, some decorated with gas masks and helmets. Others crossed themselves. One child’s drawing said: “Eternal glory to the heroes”.
According to those who took part in it, the uprising was a broad-based grassroots movement, launched by people fed up with Yanukovych and involving all sections of society.