Here, in Obhiev, the snow continues to fall, and the city is blanketed, purified in white. Children outside of School #3 throw soccer-ball sized snowballs at one another, and, save for a few people with yellow flags sticking out of their pockets, the cause behind the rallies that have stopped Ukraine and gained the world's attention seems not to exist.
My host-mother returned from Kiev last night. She was one of the quarter-million that supported Yuchenko taking his symbolic oath of office, watching on a huge videoscreen as he read the words with his hand on a 300 year-old bible. It was with her this morning that I watched on television as a deputy from Zhytomyr told the gathered crowds that Yuchenko was the president of their oblast, and Lviv and Ivano-Fansisco have declared the same.
My host brother, Losha, and his friends are on a marchrutka as I type this, on their way to Kiev to lend their support. What could I tell him but "operechno", be careful?
Kuchma, the current president of Ukraine staunch supporter of Yanokovich, finally came out of hiding and announced that the government was willing to negotiate. Yuchenko has agreed to negotiations, his supporters now being ringed with militia. All is still peaceful, but Yanokovich suppoters in the capital are growing in number, covered in blue the way Yuchenko supporters are covered in orange. The television still hounds down any threats from the east, trailing miners from Donetsk who say they are going to Kiev "for a football game", and who may well try to stir up violence. The government has promised not to be the first to start the violence, but an outbreak of fighting would be the perfect excuse for an intervention...
Despite the illegal grab for power, Yuchenko still has legal routes to take. The parliment could declare no-confidence in the election and the supreme court could null the votes in some of the disputed regions (all of which are Yanokovich supporting) thus giving the election to Yuchenko.
The problem at this point is that no matter what is said at the negotiating tables, there is no way the Western oblasts will accept anyone other than Yuchenko as president. And with Western governments completely in his court, Yanokovich and Kuchma are backed into a wall. Even Putin in Russia is backing off his earlier support for the Yanokovich win. Still, the last thing Russia wants is the EU and NATO spreading right to its doorstep.
The White House has said it was "deeply disturbed by extensive and credible indications of fraud committed in the Ukrainian presidential election," according to spokeswoman Claire Buchan and reported by the AP.
Putin has branded the West's criticism of the elections as "inadmissible". Ukraine "doesn't need to be lectured."
I'm still twiddling my thumbs in Obhiev. Everyone in America wants me to stay out of trouble, which is endearing, but my romantic side wants to be in Kiev. I know that this is real life, real danger, but that is why I want to go. I want to go because this is real life, history in the making. If this goes off like the Rose Revolution in Georgia not even a year ago, this will be one of the seminal turning points in Ukrainian history, something noted in Eastern European textbooks for centuries to come. If Ukraine finally takes its place in the EU, which I hope to see it do in the next decade, this will be the moment that helped that to happen. But being in Peace Corps is more important to me than being at a rally, and so I stay.
At least my mom will be happy about that...