Ukrainian – that sounds proudly in Moscow of late, too. Thanks to the Orange Revolution it becomes more and more fashionable to be Ukrainian in today’s Russia. Actions of human rights activists and liberals under orange insignia take place almost every week in Moscow.

The latter say that due to success of the Orange Revolution, “elder” and “younger” brothers have switched places. Ukrainians are now the elder brothers for Russian democrats. European brothers.

Experience of recent Ukrainian developments inspires Russian oppositionists greatly. The majority of Russian mass media, who were virtually always using a disrespectful style of writing about Ukraine and Ukrainians only recently, now resort to more reasonable judgements.

Namely the usage of customary to them but offensive for us “khokhol” and “khokhlushka” (“topknot”, a derogatory name for Ukrainians) has noticeably declined.

My acquaintance Mykhailo, who works in Moscow as a shift manager of Ukrainian construction workers – guest workers – is not ashamed of answering his cell in Ukrainian any more in the presence of his Russian employers.

He used to play a rather strange game before, when Ukrainian language could be heard from him only without unnecessary witnesses. Mykhailo tried to be like a Muscovite to such a degree that he was even copying, sometimes too much, the Moscow accent.

It was sometimes unpleasant to listen to. Muscovites do not talk like that. Mykhailo’s artificial “Moscow” accent aroused only slighting smiles among Russians. Now Mykhailo has given up these attempts and is even proud of the fact that in Moscow he communicates fluently with his wife and child in Ukrainian.

Mykhailo’s pride for his Ukrainian origin was at last confirmed by the “orange” results. Before he only hoped, and now he is sure, that in the near future Ukraine will occupy its deserved place among the European and world’s states.

My acquaintance Serhiy, guest worker from Zhytomyr region, has been “doing away” with his Ukrainian accent for months, too. He works in one of Moscow private firms that gave him a Zhiguli car for efficient solving of various work-related problems. Serhiy’s main problem was connected with Moscow traffic policemen.

As soon as they heard Ukrainian “sho” or “he” sounds (attributes of a Ukrainian accent), the amount of fine at least doubled immediately. The officers, in spite of the law which prohibits them to act like that, every time tried to check Serhiy’s so called “registration”, “migration card”, “working papers” etc.

Those are responsibilities of the migration service, but Moscow coppers like to make use of the fact that Ukrainians are not acquainted with the local legislation. It is a noticeable source of increasing the cops’ “requisitions”.

Now Serhiy feels more confident, every time warning the policemen about the possibility of writing an official complaint to the Ukrainian embassy.

He was wary of doing it before, because he had absolutely no trust in the embassy officials, who, as well as Leonid Kuchma, did not dare to irritate Russian authorities, even when the problem concerned protection of their compatriots in Russia.

I’ve learned at first hand why guest workers from Ukraine have tried to hide their origin till recently. A year or a year and a half ago, I got several blows of a baton from a cop only for speaking Ukrainian on the street.

My companion and I were walking through the territory of Moscow wildlife reserve “Kolomenskoe”. Suddenly we heard a “Stay still!” cry from behind. That’s a shout someone would use on dogs, not people. We did not even look back, because we in no way referred that noise to ourselves. Suddenly I got a violent blow in the back and fell on the ground.

When I rose at my feet, local copper delivered several more blows using his rubber baton. Only after that he got a burning desire to check our documents. But he didn’t get any loot this time. Both my companion and I were citizens of Russia with Moscow registration. And copper turned out to be our Ukrainian compatriot from Kirovohrad.

He heard Ukrainian language and contentedly rubbed his hands in the foretaste of a bribe. Even Lenin once wrote correctly that “the greatest Russian goon is russified national”. This “copper” had to go home. I just appealed to my colleagues from Russian Interior Ministry press service and told them about the incident.

Ukrainian life in Russia is gradually reviving with the Orange Revolution. Even those who have forgotten about their Ukrainian roots long ago, start to remember their motherland. Some even plan to change their Russian citizenship to Ukrainian.

I should think so! Ukraine has got quite good chances to become a NATO and EU member in the near future. Ukrainian pensions nearly matched Russian ones, and

Ukrainian childbirth benefits have no analogues in Russia. Only the absence of new workplaces and relatively low salaries in Ukraine are restraining.

These days, the Congress of Ukrainian communities in Russia took place in Moscow. Delegates from 80 regions of the Russian Federation were proudly walking through the city centre with Ukrainian insignia on their chests. It could be seen for the last time 15 years ago, when the Union was collapsing.

A number of Russian mass media kept instilling the feeling of inferiority in Ukrainians all the time after the collapse. No day passed without writing about Moscow hookers of Ukrainian origin, about Ukrainian guest workers, who supposedly work for peanuts and not very professionally. However, when famous in Russia Ukrainian natives were mentioned, Russian press tried to hush up their origin.

One of my colleagues in Moscow suddenly confessed she is Ukrainian. She even asked me to teach her Ukrainian language. Until now, she used to criticise everything Ukrainian, demonstrating undisguised Russian chauvinism. If even she changed, we can with certainty assert that things are moving along.

If only Kyiv won’t let us down!