Backstage of a Revolution

A year after a bloody protest movement swept through Ukraine, an intimate look at how a disparate band of bat-wielding, balaclava-clad protesters took down a government.

Interview by Chelsea Stahl

A year ago this week, the government of Ukraine was toppled after thousands of Ukrainian people from disparate regions and diverse walks of life became players in the “Maidan” revolution that swept the capital, Kiev. After years of corruption and economic stagnation, the protestors demanded the impeachment of then-President Viktor Yanukovych. What began as a protest led by thousands of students erupted into clashes between police and people from all walks of life. Laborers and businessmen, ex-soldiers of the Afghanistan war and bodyguards, men and women of all ages; they each grabbed a wooden stick or a baseball bat, a helmet or a balaclava and headed to Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti — Independence Square. Two Italian photographers, Jean-Marc Caimi and Valentina Piccinni, traveled there to document the movement.

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With violent clashes once again rattling the country, Narratively's Chelsea Stahl talked to the two photojourna…