Ukrainians had high hopes after the Orange Revolution, but a year later progress has been slow, writes Chris Stephen from Kiev
The first time I met teacher Svetlana Simonova and her daughter Valery, on a cold November day at the start of Ukraine's Orange Revolution, I thought it might be the last.
Observers had just announced that the government had rigged a presidential election and democracy appeared about to be snuffed out.
These were the early days, before Kiev was swamped with crowds half-a-million strong. Just a few thousand gathered on the city's main Kreschatik boulevard with no clear idea what to do if the tanks arrived.
"I have come here to make sure that my daughter has a future," said Svetlana (50). "I am not frightened of the tanks. The boys who drive them have mothers and families just like us." It was a brave statement, but when I left them, huddled like penguins against the snow flurries, I wondered if I would ever see them again.
Now, one year later, we are back at the exact same spot on the boulevard - with the same freezing weather. And now there are smiles on faces once etched with anxiety.
"You need to understand our history," says Valery (26). "For 300 years we had no freedom. Maybe we are not exactly free yet, but we have made a first step." It is, she admits, a small step. Ukraine may have democracy, but it also has chaos.
The revolution ended with high hopes when opposition champion Viktor Yushchenko, his face disfigured by a poisoning attack, was elected president.
In office, Yushchenko launched many reforms, but most have run into the ground. The media, now free, happily charts the infighting at the top of the administration and its failure to sort out the economy, end corruption or even find out who poisoned the president.
Although Yushchenko is not tainted by corruption, the media has focused on the high living and fast cars of his 19-year-old son, and his bizarre attempt to patent the slogan of the revolution, which was "Tak" or "Yes".
In September Yushchenko sacked his prime minister, the glamorous Julia Tymoshenko. In the revolution they had been a fine double-act but in office they fought, and now the "orange vote" is split between the two of them ahead of parliamentary elections next March.
Meanwhile the leader of the former government, Viktor Yanukovich, blamed by many for rigging the elections, has stayed out of trouble and held onto his support among ethnic Russians.
Despite all this, the Simonovas are optimistic. "We won the right to have elections," says Svetlana simply.
The women reveal an extra reason for their decision to risk their lives on the barricades: Just before the rigged election, Svetlana's husband Anatolie, a doctor, had died after a long illness. He had been a lifelong campaigner for Ukraine's independence, and they felt their presence was in part to honour his memory.
The year has been a rocky one for them. Valery lost her job in March when the travel agency she worked for went out of business. The agency was connected to the old regime, and lost out in the blizzard of reforms.
BUT TYMOSHENKO'S CAMPAIGN against corruption in the customs service has opened a new door, enabling Valery to set herself up as a one-woman export business, selling carved wooden horses and other folk art to France and Germany.
"After the Orange revolution I realised that I have to make my own decisions," she explains. "I have many problems but I know I can solve them."
Further up Khreschatik I meet Maxim Kukovsky, who I last saw as the burly tough-talking head of security of Pora, the most radical of the opposition groups. By the time I met him, the revolution was in full swing and his big worry was that the camp would be infiltrated by fifth columnists, hence his demand to see my passport and press pass.
TODAY I MEET a very different Maxim, all affable smiles and self-deprecating jokes. The 34-year-old businessman with a soft round face shows me a tree, a few feet from where we stood back then, which he says marks the saddest memory of his four-weeks in Tent City.
Around this tree he poured four litres of Jameson which some kind soul had donated amid the mountain of food, clothing and firewood. "We had a strict no-alcohol policy so it had to go," he explains. "This is the richest soil in all of Kiev," he says wistfully.
Like Valery, Maxim (34) has had a rocky year. Orders for his small computer business fell during his four weeks as a revolutionary, then suffered again amid the turmoil of reform.
Yet he too insists the revolution was a success - not because of the government it ushered in, but because democracy itself was entrenched.
"The big difference is that now, for the new elections in March, people can choose. For the last elections, they could not choose. So now they have hope," he says. "Life is difficult, yes, but when was it ever easy?" A year ago academic Dr Olexy Haran worried about civil war. The country was split between the majority Ukrainian speakers, who backed the opposition, in the west and the minority Russian-speakers, who backed Yanukovich, in the east. Those in the west wanted to join the European Union, those in the east a union with Russia. With Ukraine now heading down a long road to the EU, the split remains but talk of war has fizzled out.
"Do I think the Orange Revolution was positive?" says Dr Haran. "The answer is yes, and in capital letters. The most important thing is that nobody can use administrative resources the way they were used before." Yanukovich supporters are thin on the ground in Kiev. One middle-aged woman, Nadya, who did not give her second name, said she supports Yanukovich because Yushchenko broke his promises. An ethnic Russian, she also has a more practical worry. Ukrainian remains the country's only official language, to the fury of the ethnic Russians. While their language is denied official status, Yanukovich can be certain of their backing.
Despite its beauty, with dozens of golden-domed churches looking out from high bluffs over the slow-flowing Dnipre, Kiev has yet to see its recent fame translate into a tourist boom.
But long-time resident Desmond Reid, manager of the Irish pub O'Briens, thinks it will happen. He plans to open two new pubs, sure that democracy is now entrenched and prosperity will follow.
"The revolution was a success for people power," he tells me. "They did it once and they know they can go out and do it again."