The barricade on Hrushevskoho street
Leading away from the main protest camp at Maidan and up to the Parliament building, is Hrushevskoho street. When the protests started to boil over by the end of January and the first demonstrators got killed by police gunfire, the barricade here became the absolute flash-point of the protests. The infamous Berkut riot-police faced scores of mostly young men with all sorts of body armor, helmets and crude handmade weaponry, lined up against each other in an almost surreal medieval like setting.
The violent outbursts of the protests, which were a direct backlash to brutal police crackdowns in the months prior, had become an instrument of their own to pressure the president in meeting the demands made at Maidan. Each time negotiations between the opposition and the president stalled one could see the big plumes of black smoke rising up from the front barricade at Hrushevkoho street. It made opposition leaders often address the 'self-defense' units there first, before going to the main stage at Maidan, just to try and keep the calm.
Against the backdrop of molotov-cocktails and rubber bullets, there were ordinary people supporting the violent protest in whatever way needed. Women handed out food and hot drinks, there were people filling up bags with snow to reinforce the barricades, or kept gutters from freezing over so melted ice water could flow away from the barricades. At the heights of the riots a human chain would form all the way to Maidan to hail car tires to the front. It was this level of organization and support of the violence against the system that made a once peaceful protest into a full-fledged revolution. A more detailed analysis of these sentiments can be read in this excellent op-ed from the KyivPost.