The maids at the Hotel Ukraina in Kiev huddle in the crimson carpeted corridors of the Soviet-era skyscraper as the booming loudspeakers from Independence Square below belt out religious and patriotic tunes.
"This is a catastrophe!" whispered one dark-haired woman in a blue uniform in one group. Her friend responded: "Did you see what they did to that building? All the windows were smashed in. Glass everywhere!"
"And they've made a mess with the mud on the carpets here!" said another.
The hotel enjoys a front row seat view of the epicentre of Ukraine's protest crisis and is itself becoming part of the story -- much like the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo or the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.
Journalists staying at the hotel can literally watch the protests live from the first floor restaurant over their bowl of cereal, cooked breakfast and coffee.
Intense conversations about the previous night's protest action can be heard in a mix of languages in the buffet queue and their stories are transmitted all over the world from the hotel's high-speed wifi.
The windows on one side look out over a military-style camp -- the hub of the insurgency against President Viktor Yanukovych -- which is shrouded in smoke from the many field kitchens and stoves.
On the other side is Yanukovych's presidency office, closely guarded by security forces as the protesters' barricades slowly edge up the hillside as more and more official buildings are occupied by the helmeted militants.
The hotel, which was built in the early 1960s and was originally known as the Hotel Moskva (Moscow), is now effectively inside the perimeter of a vast area of the centre of the Ukrainian capital controlled by a ragtag army of protesters.
Some protesters wielding baseball bats and metal bars patrol outside the entrance, others sleep in the lobby and a few get to stay in rooms booked out by lawmakers from opposition parties leading the protest.
As the hotel's puzzled-looking doorman in a top hat and red overcoat looks on, helmeted militants in camouflage jackets return from a night of clashes with riot police and come down for breakfast the next morning.
"We're here to protect the hotel and the guests," said Dyma, one of the militants at the hotel entrance, wearing a tatty armband from the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party and a green army helmet perched awkwardly on top of his woolly hat.
Around his neck is a lanyard reading "Freedom Palace, Guard No. 27".
The "palace" is in fact an arts centre just across the street -- officially called the Zhovtnevyi Palats -- used as a dormitory by the protesters.
"We have information that there have been agents provocateurs who tried to cause havoc. Journalists have also been targeted," said the portly 25-year-old, an unemployed man from Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine.
"We belong to a people's self-defence army. Today is our shift here but we have patrol duties in other parts of the Maidan too," he said in reference to Independence Square.
Hotel staff were reluctant to speak to journalists while on the job, but acting director Oleksandr Dobrovolskyi said that the 371-room hotel was working as normal despite the chaos on the streets outside.
"We do not divide our guests into protesters and non-protesters," he said.
"Each guest has a card from the room but nobody checks the people in the lobby. They drink tea, coffee and warm themselves up."
The maids at the Hotel Ukraina in Kiev huddle in the crimson carpeted corridors of the Soviet-era skyscraper as the booming loudspeakers from Independence Square below belt out religious and patriotic tunes.
“This is a catastrophe!” whispered one dark-haired woman in a blue uniform in one group. Her friend responded: “Did you see what they did to that building? All the windows were smashed in. Glass everywhere!”
“And they’ve made a mess with the mud on the carpets here!” said another.
The hotel enjoys a front row seat view of the epicentre of Ukraine’s protest crisis and is itself becoming part of the story — much like the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo or the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.
Journalists staying at the hotel can literally watch the protests live from the first floor restaurant over their bowl of cereal, cooked breakfast and coffee.
Intense conversations about the previous night’s protest action can be heard in a mix of languages in the buffet queue and their stories are transmitted all over the world from the hotel’s high-speed wifi.
The windows on one side look out over a military-style camp — the hub of the insurgency against President Viktor Yanukovych — which is shrouded in smoke from the many field kitchens and stoves.
On the other side is Yanukovych’s presidency office, closely guarded by security forces as the protesters’ barricades slowly edge up the hillside as more and more official buildings are occupied by the helmeted militants.
The hotel, which was built in the early 1960s and was originally known as the Hotel Moskva (Moscow), is now effectively inside the perimeter of a vast area of the centre of the Ukrainian capital controlled by a ragtag army of protesters.
Some protesters wielding baseball bats and metal bars patrol outside the entrance, others sleep in the lobby and a few get to stay in rooms booked out by lawmakers from opposition parties leading the protest.
As the hotel’s puzzled-looking doorman in a top hat and red overcoat looks on, helmeted militants in camouflage jackets return from a night of clashes with riot police and come down for breakfast the next morning.
“We’re here to protect the hotel and the guests,” said Dyma, one of the militants at the hotel entrance, wearing a tatty armband from the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party and a green army helmet perched awkwardly on top of his woolly hat.
Around his neck is a lanyard reading “Freedom Palace, Guard No. 27”.
The “palace” is in fact an arts centre just across the street — officially called the Zhovtnevyi Palats — used as a dormitory by the protesters.
“We have information that there have been agents provocateurs who tried to cause havoc. Journalists have also been targeted,” said the portly 25-year-old, an unemployed man from Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine.
“We belong to a people’s self-defence army. Today is our shift here but we have patrol duties in other parts of the Maidan too,” he said in reference to Independence Square.
Hotel staff were reluctant to speak to journalists while on the job, but acting director Oleksandr Dobrovolskyi said that the 371-room hotel was working as normal despite the chaos on the streets outside.
“We do not divide our guests into protesters and non-protesters,” he said.
“Each guest has a card from the room but nobody checks the people in the lobby. They drink tea, coffee and warm themselves up.”
