A Ukrainian Eurovision Song Contest winner is pushing her voice to the limit belting out songs nightly to keep up the morale of protesters camped out a snowy Kiev square – the unlikely figurehead of a movement to oust President Viktor Yanukovych.
Ruslana Lyzhychko won with a song Wild Dances in 2004, becoming Ukraine’s only Eurovision winner. For political elites that contest may seem a celebration of inanity, but for Ukrainians dreaming of a European future it brought recognition before a huge continental audience.
“Last night was a record for me – eight hours on stage,” Lyzhychko told Reuters. “People look to me and they also stay.”
The long nights in freezing temperatures have taken their toll. She looked worn to the bone, her face bare of make up and hair dishevelled, sucking throat lozenges as she whisked into the opposition’s improvised HQ for another night.
Lyzhychko, her petite form belying a powerful deep voice, has been on stage virtually all night, every night in more than two weeks since protesters occupied the main square, enraged by Yanukovych’s decision to scrap an EU trade deal and move the former Soviet republic closer to Moscow.
“She is fantastic. She is our voice, our soul, our face and our inspiration and our endurance,” said activist Yegor Sobolev, draped in a yellow-blue Ukrainian flag.
Although she has become a hero to protesters camped out inside the barricades, not everyone shares their qualms about the beckoning of powerful northern neigh-bour Russia.
“When Ruslana won the Eurovision, we were proud of her... but now it is shameful,” a reader from the largely Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass commented in a local newspaper. “I am ashamed of Ruslana.”
President Vladimir Putin wants Kiev, heavily indebted over Russian gas, as a central pillar in a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan to rival the EU and the United States.
But Lyzhychko sings on as protesters prepare for mass weekend demonstrations and Russia and the EU vie for Kiev’s favour, all the while cautious of the country’s huge debts.
At night, Kiev’s central Independence Square, or Maidan Nezalezhnosti, is filled with young men in hard hats and makeshift protective guards – volunteering as self-appointed security to man the barricades against any police raid.
Instantly surrounded by a half-dozen activists at Maidan, Ruslana plots strategy, ignoring the make-up artist and hairdresser who fuss around her. Minutes later, she is transformed and ready for battle: eyes rimmed in sultry, dark eye-shadow and jet black locks swept up into an Amazonian pony tail.
One night, Lyzhychko’s voice boomed out from the stage like a commander rallying troops as protesters shoved back against black-clad riot police, who tried to clear the streets without using force but eventually withdrew, far outnumbered.
Rock music blaring and fists pummelling the air, she belted out the refrain of a popular hit by one of Ukraine’s most popular bands, Okean Elzy: “I won’t give up without a fight,” calling on people to wake friends to swell their numbers and raising chants of “Maidan, exists!”
“I am Ukrainian. I believe in my people, I believe in justice. I will stand firm,” she yelled, stamping her Ugg-clad feet to keep warm.
Lyzhychko is adored among protesters who see her as one of their own in a civil movement wary of politicians after being disappointed over the perceived failure of 2004-05 Orange Revolution to get rid of official corruption and bring change.