You're reading: Euro 2012 blog: Bulging crowds, security for Ukraine’s Euro 2012 debut

This is the first night of Euro 2012 that I didn't watch any of the games in the fan zone on Kyiv's Khreshchatyk Street.

This is the first night of Euro 2012 that I didn’t watch any of the games in the fan zone on Kyiv’s Khreshchatyk Street.

I dropped down there after leaving the Kyiv Post newsroom and, by 7 p.m., the place was bulging with fans. There were long lines at the beer stands, no place to sit and people were still streaming in. It was a human sea of yellow-and-blue with lines everywhere — even to get faces painted yellow and blue.

The biggest ruckus was taking place at the tent city in support of imprisoned opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. The police surrounded the tent city, making it clear that no political protests would be allowed. There were at least 10 officers for every devotee of the ex-prime minister, jailed since August. While it all looked like a peaceful stare down, foreigners will see the show of force and come away with the impression that all is not right in Ukraine. And they’d be right.

I tried to get to the largest screen TV closest to Maidan Nezalezhnosti, but couldn’t get through. So I backtracked, deciding this would be the night to take a break from the madness.

I am not a football fan, but I love the spectacle of big celebrations. In America, I’ve been to countless pro sports games, including two World Series, one Super Bowl and a Final Four college basketball championship. I know my way around sports events.

A friend called to see if I wanted to meet up at the fan zone. I told her about the craziness, then got the idea to walk to Olympic Stadium in hopes of buying two tickets from scalpers outside the gates. What a naive American I am! In the first place, police, including the Berkut, had cordoned off the stadium nearly three hours before the match was to be played. It was wall-to-wall cops as I made my way to Palats Sportu metro station.

On the way, I saw another excessive display of Berkut riot police at the Jewish synagogue on Shota Rostaveli Street. There at least 40 Berkut officers — armed and with batons holstered — had surrounded about a half-dozen Tymoshenko supporters carrying “Free Yulia” flags and wearing T-shirts in support of her. Clearly, nothing was going to happen here.

I walked another block and got stopped by the officers, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in riot gear. They were only allowing ticket holders to the game to get through to the stadium. I showed a press pass to a supervisor and got through. But it was pointless. The next stop was the ticket gate — and there was no way to get to the stadium without a ticket.

In America, I had gotten used to just going to stadiums an hour or so before the event and standing outside, waiting for ticket scalpers to sell extra tickets. This isn’t America. I saw no evidence of scalping and a couple of Canadians explained why. They had to show their passports to buy the tickets they had. They said they bought them at the fan zone and their names were stamped on them. So no scalping is possible with such safeguards.

Just then, a group of 20 armed and uniformed police officers went running past me towards the center.

On the one hand, it’s great that there’s such security in case of terrorism or violence.

On the other hand, it’s bad for the nation’s image that so much of the law enforcement I saw in this hour was devoted to squelching any show of peaceful dissent against President Viktor Yanukovych’s obvious persecution of political enemies.

I decided to walk home and watch Ukraine vs. Sweden at home. After all, tomorrow’s a working day.

Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected].