Panic on the streets of Kiev

This is what was going on on Independence Square about an hour ago. Lots of speakers, lots of shouting. I didn't understand a lot, well, most of it. But I did hear lots of disparaging comments about the current president and lots of calls of "Long Live Ukraine, Long Live Freedom, Long Live Yushenko!" What I also found interesting was the choice of flags in the crowd. In addition to the Yushenko flags (the orange ones) and the Ukrainian flags (the blue and yellow ones) there were also a fair number of new Georgian Flags (white and red with 5 St. George crosses) and a few old Belarussian flags (white with a red horizontal stripe). Georgia, of course, is where they recently had a "rose revolution" after a crooked election and then promptly adopted this flag as their new national one. Belarus, of course, is where crooked elections are routinely held to help keep their proto-communist president in power. The flag that was in the crowd was the Belarussian flag before their President came to power and promptly banned it. I suppose Georgia is being used as inspiration for many in the crowd and solidarity with Belarus is looking to be expressed.

Once the crowd left Independence Square and started marching down Kreshatik to God-knows-where I decided that it was a good time to hot-foot it out of there. No need to provoke the riot police. Hopefully I'll be able to fly out of here tomorrow as scheduled...