You're reading: Sloviansk remains crippled by struggle between past and future

SLOVIANSK, Ukraine - When insurgent leader Igor Strelkov broke into the office of Sloviansk's criminal police chief in April, he told him that Ukraine was gone forever from the city and hit him on the head.

But
now Ukraine has come back with a vengeance, Denis Bigunov, the nephew
of that police chief, told the Kyiv Post.
Bigunov, an active pro-Ukrainian official, has been working as a
specialist at City Hall’s internal policy department since 2012. 

Activists
and officials argue that pro-Ukrainian sentiment in the city is
rising and vow to put an end to its authoritarian government that stems from cultural affinity with Russia. The city is now headed
by a pro-Ukrainian volunteer who has come back from the front. 

In separatist and Russian propaganda, their “liberation” of Sloviansk and the
story of their resistance, has gained mythical proportions, with the
city hailed as a stronghold of the “Russian world.”
The city was recaptured on July 5 by Ukrainian forces, when Russian-backed insurgents fled to Donetsk.

Bigunov
recalls the surreal times under the separatist
regime, which he calls a “zombie apocalypse”
and “witches’ sabbath.”
He and other City Hall employees had to
move to a building across the square. Insurgents who seized the
City Hall first left them to their own devices but then came
to them with assault rifles, taking offense at the
fact that the city government ignored them. 

Vyacheslav
Ponomaryov, who was appointed by separatists as their “mayor,”
lectured City Hall employees a few times, banning them from
displaying any national symbols, Bigunov said. 

Ukrainian
renaissance 

Both
before and during insurgent rule, good attitude to Ukraine was
not encouraged, and Slovyansk was always a
pro-Russian city, Bigunov said.

But
the city was not totally alien to Ukrainian
culture even then. Former Mayor Nelya Shtepa, some of whose ancestors
are from western Ukraine, had a penchant for organizing parades in
vyshyvankas, traditional Ukrainian clothing. Slovyansk even
won the all-Ukrainian vyshyvanka
parade contest in 2013.

Shtepa
is currently under arrest on suspicion of aiding insurgents.  

Bigunov
estimated the current ideological affiliations in the city as 40
percent neutral, 30 percent pro-Ukrainian and 30 percent pro-Russian.

Now
there is a genuine Ukrainian renaissance in Slovyansk, Bigunov said,
comparing this trend with similar Ukrainian revivals in the city
after the 1917 revolution and during the German occupation in 1941 to
1943. 

Ostensibly,
Slovyansk looks very pro-Ukrainian, with many national flags around
City Hall and benches and lamp posts painted blue and yellow all
over. Even the Lenin monument next to City Hall wears a blue and
yellow scarf, while pro-Ukrainian and anti-separatist slogans can be
seen on walls and sidewalk everywhere. 

Now
there are pro-Ukrainian car rallies every week here
with 30 to 70 vehicles and regular pro-Ukrainian protests drawing 100
to 200 people. “Such pro-Ukrainian sentiment has never existed
in the city,” Bigunov said. 

Being
Ukrainian has become fashionable because the fear of persecution
disappeared, he added. 

A ruined building in Semyonovka, Slovyansk, on Nov. 21.

What
the old ruling system was like

“Slovyansk
had very strong institutions of the local ruling party,” Bigunov
said. “The same people have always been in power.” 

First
it was the Communist Party, then it was replaced by the Social
Democratic Party, which had links to former President Leonid Kuchma
and his chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk, and subsequently former
President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions was in charge,
according to Bigunov. “If you were not part of this system you
couldn’t become successful,” he said. 

But
after separatists, including Communists, and activists of Natalya
Vitrenko’s Progressive Socialist Party, fled the city, this
authoritarian system collapsed. 

But
a lot has to be done to create a civilized democratic system instead
of the old one. 

“Now
the old system collapsed but a new one has not been built, Bigunov
said. “If we don’t lay the foundations of the rule of law and
free speech now, we risk coming back to where we started.” 

He
said that civil society was developing very fast now in the city,
with new NGOs like Gurtom Slovyansk and the Student Brotherhood
emerging and foreign foundations coming to Slovyansk. 

What’s
changing now

As
civil society is being born, it is triggering changes in the
political leadership. 

After
insurgents fled, Pavel Pridvorov, a Party of Regions functionary, was
elected as acting mayor in August. Pridvorov claimed to be apolitical
and tried to distance himself from both pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian
sentiment, Bigunov said. 

“I
believe this policy to be criminal because we can’t be indifferent,”
he added. “We can’t afford it because a war is being waged to
destroy the Ukrainian state.” 

Pridvorov
proposed candidacies unpopular with pro-Ukrainian forces for top
administrative positions, and his policies triggered major protests.
Pro-Ukrainian activists even blocked City Hall and brought trash
cans, a reminder
to the old-style politicians that they belong in a dump
.

As a result, Pridvorov had to resign, and local
journalist Oleg Zontov, who had long been the only opposition member
in the Party of Regions-controlled city council, was elected by the
councillors as acting mayor on Oct. 17. 

“They
needed a compromise figure who was backed by civil society and was not strongly resisted (by the city council),” Zontov
told the Kyiv Post. 

He
was elected to the city council in 2010 as a member of Prime Minister
Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s Front Zmin party. Zontov went to the front as a
volunteer in August and came back to Slovyansk in October on military
leave. 

On
Oct. 26, he ran in the parliamentary election on President Petro
Poroshenko’s list in the district that includes Slovyansk, losing to
Yury Solod, a candidate tied to Yanukovych’s regime. 

Zontov
attributed his defeat to his opponent’s larger financial resources
and alleged vote buying. Moreover, candidates linked to the
Yanukovych regime used their old connections and allies at
neighborhood committees to ensure their victory, he said. 

Critics
have accused the Poroshenko Bloc of colluding with candidates linked
to the Party of Regions and deliberately surrendering some districts,
including Slovyansk, to them in exchange for loyalty. Zontov denied
these allegations. 

This
election was the first one in which City Hall did not exert any
pressure on the voting process, he said.  

Meanwhile,
cooperation with current and former Party of Regions city councilors is a challenge. Zontov said that some of his initiatives were
blocked by the city council, and the old administrative apparatus
remained the same because the law makes it hard to fire officials. 

Zontov,
however, plans to challenge the old elite’s dominance. He plans to
run in the March 2015 mayoral election and promises that there will
also be strong pro-Ukrainian candidates in the city council election
at the same time. 

One
of the key symbols of the old system, the Lenin monument next to City
Hall, should be dismantled and transferred to a park, Zontov said. 

However,
he warned against doing this without a broad consensus in the city.  

“To
dismantle the monument, concerted actions of society are necessary,”
he said. “I wouldn’t want to disrupt this balance (between
pro-Ukrainian forces  and the old political system) by taking
premature steps.” 

Separatist
underground 

Despite
the sweeping changes, Slovyansk still faces threats both from within
and without. 

Zontov
said there was still a hidden separatist underground that could no
longer publicly express itself. He believes this “undercurrent”
is nothing to be afraid of because pro-Ukrainian sentiment is growing
and law enforcement and military units have the city under control. 

Zontov
also said that only active participants of the insurgency should be
prosecuted, while mass arrests of people with separatist leanings
were unnecessary.

“These
people were misled, and now their eyes have been opened,” he
said. 

Bigunov
said that murders and other atrocities committed by insurgents had
had an eye opening effect. 

Other
observers, however, argue that the switch in allegiance to Ukraine
was conformist rather than sincere for many people. 

As
to the external threat, both Zontov and Bigunov said the city
was well-protected and dismissed regular reports about possible
insurgent offensives as disinformation intended to instill fear in
Slovyansk’s residents. “An offensive (on Slovyansk) is
impossible even theoretically,” Zontov said. 

Bigunov
and Zontov said the city was being patrolled by the National Guard,
the Sich volunteer battalion and other units. The authorities are
also currently creating a volunteer unit called Slovyansk to defend
the city, Bigunov said. 

Kyiv
Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].