In true Soviet style, Ukraine's leaders staged a military parade on Kyiv's main thoroughfare, Khreshchatyk, to mark eight years of Ukrainian independence on Aug. 24.
Complete with artillery-laden tanks, stern-faced generals and redwood-sized missiles built to deliver nuclear warheads in an era now far bygone, the spectacle was more than an Independence Day celebration. It was also a clear effort by the administration of President Leonid Kuchma, in an election year, to impress the old-guard electorate by invoking the Red Square rallies of the Soviet past.
Alas, the display of muscle, by all accounts, fell far short of those Red Square rallies in Moscow, which sometimes lasted two hours and included casts of thousands.
'This is nothing. This is a shadow of what the Red Army once was,' said World War II veteran Vsevolod Ignatenko.
Such is the price of independence. Still, cash-poor Ukraine and its depleted military managed to do OK for itself. The parade displayed 122 combat vehicles and 36 aircraft. From start to finish it lasted about 23 minutes, including a procession of fire trucks at the end.
What Ukraine's Independence Day celebration lacked in military might, it made up for in media-friendly images of Kuchma.
Saddled with a dismal economic record, Kuchma has settled on convincing voters he is a patriotic guarantor of Ukrainian independence and stability. So the administration was operating as close as possible to zero-risk when it came to maneuvering the nation's men in uniform past state-run television cameras.
Kuchma's parade organizers virtually hand picked the crowd at the parade to preempt potential party spoilers from creating decidedly unfriendly media images. But thick police cordons closed off Khreshchatyk to rank-and-file citizens not owning a special pass provided by their country's internal security bureaucracy.
'The powers-that-be must be afraid to let normal people come and watch the parade on the Khreshchatyk,' said Olha Drach, a 20-year-old university student. 'Maybe [Defense Minister Leonid] Kuzmuk is afraid someone will throw a tomato.'
It didn't happen. Parade viewers at Independence Square – the ones shown on television to the rest of the world – patriotically waved blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags as phalanxes of sailors in white blouses goose-stepped by, followed by grumbling tanks and rumbling jets.
The viewing public was, as is traditional in Ukraine, overwhelmingly peaceful. More surprisingly for this vodka-drinking part of the world, they were almost all completely sober.
'I expected a lot more drunks today,' said police sergeant Bohdan Shkur. 'It's been very quiet, a very good holiday. Everyone has been very peaceful.' And that included everyone in the parade.
Soldiers marched by, showing off spiffed up BMP-II armored personnel carriers and tanks, including the T-84 Ukraine wants to sell to Turkey. Howitzers at Artillery Regiment 224 had received a fresh coat of olive drab.
The column moved out at 10:00 a.m. sharp, foot soldiers leading. Most marched in perfect slow step, except for an air force cadet unit that got its cadence jumbled for a second as it approached the reviewing stand.
Next came tanks, then artillery, then missile carriers, and then aircraft fly-bys – including one of Ukraine's few functional Tu-160 Blackjack bombers – and the national aerobatics team. That was about it.
There were no disasters like a tank stalling in front of the reviewing stand, in part because the military chain of command had impressed – forcibly – on mid-level level leaders that the vehicles had better work.
'I don't want to think about that,' responded the 224th's colonel when asked what punishment awaited him if one of his trucks were to bust down in front of the defense minister. 'They would probably make me guard radioactive materials in the Chernobyl dead zone.'
Civilian opinions varied as to whether the parade was worth all the trouble.
'I feel sorry for those boys. They must be uncomfortable in those uniforms,' Drach said. 'It's too bad we have such a big military, the money should be used to pay pensioner's salaries.'
'Of course we should have an army, and a strong one,' Ignatenko said. 'It's the basis of any normal country. How can you have a real country, and not have an army?'
Nevertheless, at least two Kyivans were particularly happy that their president held an army parade in the capital.
Hairdresser Katya Romanyuk and retiree Olha Kuznetsova had dolled themselves up in their summer best this Tuesday, not so to see President Kuchma's parade, but to get close to junior sergeant Gennady Kuznetsov afterwards.
Kuznetsov, a lanky young man with a quick grin and a blue beret, serves in a paratrooper battalion outside Kyiv. His unit's participation in the Independence Day events meant that, as fellow troopers piled into trucks on Lesy Ukrainky Boulevard afterwards, the tall sergeant had about 15 minutes to see his pretty blonde girlfriend, and, inevitably, Mom.
'I'm fine Ma, I get plenty to eat,' Kuznetsov said. 'You don't have to worry.'
