Singing flash mobs in Ukraine celebrate a multinational and multilingual country, opposing intolerance

From the Facebook page of New Cold War.org, Dec 3, 3016

On December 1, 2016, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a decree entitled ‘On priority measures aimed at the strengthening of national unity and the consolidation of the Ukrainian society, the support of civil society initiative in this sphere’. It was published on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the all-Ukrainian referendum on the independence of Ukraine which was held on December 1, 1991.

According to the new decree, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has three months to develop and adopt a comprehensive plan of these ‘priority measures’ with the active participation of central and local authorities, civil society organizations and national and international experts. After the plan is adopted, local authorities must develop their own plans. Local authorities also have to support the implementation of all-Ukrainian and regional ‘grass root initiatives’ designed to strengthen national unity and patriotism, restore and preserve national memory, develop national consciousness and  interregional cooperation, and popularize the spiritual and cultural heritage of the Ukrainian people.

Poroshenko stubbornly tries to fit bilingual, multicultural Ukraine into the straightjacket of Ukrainian nationalism. The Institute of National Memory of Ukrraine works hard at sanitizing Ukrainian history so that it fits the nationalist narrative of centuries of Ukrainian suffering and heroic fight against invaders, most of all against Russian tyranny. Minister of Culture of Ukraine, Evhen Nyshchuk, considers the residents of Donbas to be genetically different from the rest of Ukrainians because they have too much Russian spirit in them. They need to be educated into Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian language because Ukraine is deemed to be a unitary state.

Residents of Donetsk city join Ukrainians in other cities in a singing flash mob, celebrating Soviet traditions and upholding tolerance and multinationalism for Ukraine

Post-Euromaidan Ukrainian officials take their wishes for reality. Ukraine has never been a unitary state. the southeast of Ukraine has always been predominantly Russian-speaking and culturally close to Russia. This Russian-speaking Ukraine has been silenced by the current nationalist regime in power in Kyiv. Recently, this part of Ukraine it made itself heard through a beautiful, spontaneous initiative of ordinary citizens – flash mobs singing Soviet songs on central train stations.

It was sparked in the city of Zaporizhzhia, where local students sang ‘Spring on Zarechnaia street’ to congratulate the leading steel factory of the city, Zaporizhstal, on its 80th anniversary. This flash mob had a snowball effect. On November 22, in Kharkiv, youth organized their own singing flash mob. They performed the song ‘Staryi klyon” (Old Maple Tree) from the famous 1961 Soviet comedy ‘Dievchata’ (‘Girls). On November 27 in Odessa, young people sang ‘Smuglianka’, a song from the cult Soviet movie "V boi idut odni stariki” (‘Only old timers are going to battle’). Today in Mariupol, a large city of Donetsk oblast under the control of Ukrainian paramilitaries and troops, residents, mostly women and girls, gathered at the central post office and performed a very popular song ‘Ya lyublyu tebya, zhizn’ (I love you, life).

Today, Donetsk joined in solidarity with the singing flash mobs. At the central train station in Donetskcity, local youth performed another famous Soviet song ‘Ot geroiev bylykh vriemen’ (Heroes of times past’).

People throughout southeast Ukraine are thus showing solidarity with each other. They have showed to the whole world that Russian-speaking Ukraine, which is proud of its Soviet past, is alive and well. No decree and no top-down initiative can kill the spirit of this Ukraine.

Watch one of the flash mobs in the news video report:

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