It is 12 days since the first protests, and the opposition in Ukraine is in victorious mood. Chris Stephen, in Kiev, catches up with some of the people he spoke to at the start
The day Ukraine announced that prime minister Victor Yanukovich had won the November 21st presidential election, despite exit polls giving the lead to the opposition's Victor Yushchenko, barricades went up in Kiev's Independence Square. A few thousand opposition supporters, clad in their orange banners and with no clear plan, gathered together. A few tents were erected by hammering iron tent-pegs into the tarmac. Among the protesters were Valery Simenova (21) and her mother, Svetlana (50). They were angry about reports of a stolen election, fearing that if they did not do something, democracy would be finished.
Twelve days on, the few have grown to a quarter of a million, the protest has forced the government to hold new elections, and the tents have become Tent City, complete with guards, heaters and army field-kitchens.
"This has been an extraordinary time," says Valery. "Since I met you I have been here every single day, and some of the nights too. I stand on the barricades some of the time and some of the time I help in the kitchens."
Her mother has not fared so well. The day after I met her, she stayed out all night and caught a cold, and is now at home recovering.
"Being here, I have made a lot of new friends. People are meeting from all over Ukraine, there has never been anything like it," says Valery. "I am much more optimistic now than I was then. Yushchenko and his team understand the situation, they make all the right moves, so we kept our confidence in them."
For Valery, this is history in the making: "I read a lot of history, and I found that we had the same situation, nearly identical, at the start of the last century when Lenin and his army came here. The Ukrainians protested and a lot of people were killed. But this time it is different, this time we can win - this is the 21st century."
When, 10 days ago, I first talked to Irina Yermolenko (24), a student clad in a black fur coat, she was sheltering in a black SUV. The Orange Revolution was in trouble. The protesters were deluged by snow and freezing temperatures, and several thousand pro-government miners had arrived from the east by train and were massing at the nearby Dinamo Kiev football stadium for what many feared was an imminent attack. When I told her I worked for The Irish Times, Irina got out of the jeep, property of her rich boyfriend, and insisted I take down a statement. She wanted the people of Ireland to know that the protesters wanted only to join Europe and that they hoped for Europe's support.
Now, like the other protesters, she is much more confident. Each day she is chauffeured to the protests, sometimes by her boyfriend, sometimes by her huge bodyguard. She buys food from supermarkets, then drops it at the various municipal buildings that house tens of thousands of out-of-town protesters.
"This time has been the most amazing experience for me," she says. "In front of my eyes, my nation has been born. This was definitely a surprise to me, because before people kept their opinions to themselves because they were afraid. Also, Ukrainians are by nature docile."
"I stopped my studies last week. None of my friends study any more, nobody can think of anything else except the revolution. We will keep it going, for weeks or for months, because we cannot fail. This protest won't build democracy, we know that. If we win, it is one step forward, but if we fail, it's 10 steps back."
Last weekend, the Orange Revolution produced a new surprise: crowds of pro- and anti- government demonstrators met head-on outside Kiev's Central Election Commission. Instead of fights, there were earnest arguments.
Dr Tatiana Lavrenchuck stood with her daughter, Tonya, wearing an orange headband, arguing with a tall youth from Donetsk draped in the blue flag of government supporters. The argument was heated, but there was no violence.
"We do not fight - that is the character of the Orange Revolution," said Tatiana at the time. She was worried about who would win a battle of the streets, but now she is confident of victory.
"I was out there that day because I was angry," she says. "Ukrainian people had been patient a long time, but the stolen election was the last drop. They could not tolerate the government any more. My mood now is very optimistic. I am absolutely sure democracy would win. The people in Donetsk were lied to, and in time they will understand."
Like most citizens, she goes to the square for several hours each day, until the cold is too much.
"In the evenings I watch the news," she says. "Nobody in my family watches films or entertainment, we just sit watching news the whole time. Since the revolution began people have become much more polite with each other. If someone steps on your foot in the square, they apologise.That never happened before."
Not everyone is happy. This week, with the Supreme Court reviewing the elections, the government falling and prime minister Victor Yanukovich admitting new elections were inevitable, the miners packed up and went home.
One of the few people in the city still admitting he is blue is Nicolae Zhovner (25), a lawyer from Don Bas, the government's eastern heartland. He works at a bank in Kiev and has endured two weeks of misery from his "orange" colleagues.
"It is like everyone has gone mad," he says. "Anything to do with the colour orange is good, anything to do with the colour blue is bad. I was in a car and we passed a beer advertisement and it was blue and everyone was joking that the beer company supports the government. Two weeks ago it was worse, it was like 'war is coming' and everyone was very tense. Now it has eased up, it is only teasing now, they keep giving me orange things - ribbons, hats - trying to get me to wear them."
He says the nation is now split down the middle between opposition west and government east, and new elections will deepen this split.
"People talk about separation between east and west - well, it has already been made," he says. "It is made in people's heads. I voted for Yanukovich because what matters to me about him is that he is from Donbas. Any result next time around will leave 15 million people feeling abused. There is no one who can unite this country. My feeling now is to try and stay out of politics. I am not orange or blue, I try only to be Zen."
Anastasia Martynenko (18) told me at the start of the week that nothing would drag her away from the protest. That was before her boyfriend gave her an ultimatum: choose him or the revolution. So yesterday, the day the Supreme Court decided on the Christmas elections, she quit Tent City to go skiing on the city outskirts.
"These events changed some things in a bad way," she says. "Lots of relationships broke up. Two boys came from the city of Zhitomir to Tent City. They phoned their girlfriends but the girls refused to come, so the boys broke with them. I had to make a choice, so I am here with my boyfriend. I made many friends in Tent City. Also there were some marriages. But a lot of couples broke up. This protest is only for friendship. It is not for relationships."
Vitaly Kabanchuk (27) got back from Ireland, where he had been translating for a business delegation, to find his city in uproar. He quickly found work with foreign journalists pouring into the city, and has lived night and day in a single square mile, following the crowds marching up the hill from Independence Square to the parliament, then back down again for nightly rallies. Yesterday he was in Independence Square to hear the news that the Supreme Court had called for a re-run only of the second round of election voting, a process that makes opposition victory virtually certain.
"My view changed about the whole Ukrainian nation," he says. "I thought there was no Ukrainian nation. I thought there were 48 million individuals. Now I can see we really do have a nation. It isextraordinary. The work has never been so hard, but I have never been so happy. This is the only chance for the Ukraine to go in the right direction. In the whole of history the Ukraine has been under someone else's control, under Poland, under Russia, under the Austro-Hungarian empire. Now we have this chance to build our future."