Kiev, then and now

(Left) Activists gather at Horodetskoho Street in central Kiev one morning last winter during a shift change after patrolling the streets around the Euromaidan camp overnight. A man plays the national anthem "Ukraine is Not Dead Yet" on the trumpet as men and women sing.

(Right) Today, a relative calm has descended on the city, though men in camouflage uniforms can often be seen here as soldiers return from the front lines of eastern Ukraine, where the fight against Moscow-backed rebels continues.

(Left) Sergey Didich, seen here on Kiev's Institutska Street, joined the Euromaidan camp on Independence Square Dec. 7. Before becoming a revolutionary, he was a member of his city's parliament. I photographed him in a crowd in Kiev on Dec. 11, when the camp was stormed by Berkut riot police. Eleven months later, his son Andriy contacted me and asked for this photo. His father had died in clashes with security forces in Kiev on Feb. 18.

(Right) The heaviest clashes took place on Institutska Street. After riot police retreated, protesters followed but found themselves trapped. Snipers and police with Kalashnikov rifles opened fire on the protesters, killing scores. Ten months later, the street is now home to a memorial that stretches for hundreds of feet. Sergey’s portrait is in the middle, close to where I stood when I captured his portrait in December.

(Left) Protesters face down riot police on Hrushevskoho Street last January.

(Right) In place of barricades and bonfires on Hrushevskoho Street is a memorial to Euromaidan activist Mikhail Zhiznevsky, killed during the revolution.

(Left) A protester peers through binoculars at police lines on Kiev's central Hrushevskoho Street in January. The road became a flashpoint when protesters attempted to march to parliament. Met by riot police, protesters hurled stones and molotov cocktails and police responded with volleys of rubber bullets and tear gas. At least three people died in three days of fighting. Protesters burned tires to create a smokescreen to keep police from advancing, creating an apocalyptical scene of smoke, fire and ice.

(Right) Today, crosses and memorials to fallen protesters, including the "Heavenly Hundred," dot the cobbled Hrushevskoho Street. The barricades have come down and traffic bustles to and from Kiev's parliament and government district. Some buildings are still stained by the smoke that rose over the road. But the entrance to the Dynamo football stadium has been restored. This week, a light dusting of snow fell over it all.

(Left) View of Independence Square and the Euromaidan tent camp from the hill near October Palace in Kiev on a cold New Year's Eve last year.

(Right) The tents and barricades have come down but memorials to the activists killed have been erected, along with dozens of blue and yellow Ukrainian flags along Institutska Street below.

(Left) The view from Hotel Ukraine on Independence Square, overlooking the tent city where hundreds of thousands of people gathered to protest against President Viktor Yanukovych in February.

(Right) The same view today from the top of the hotel. A giant blue and yellow poster that reads "Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!" now covers the burned out Trade Unions Buildings, center-right in the photo.

(Left) Protesters hung flags and revolutionary messages from a tree that can be seen through the smoke and fog in Independence Square.

(Right) The same view of Independence Square and Khreshchatyk Street today after a light snow. The tree is now gone.

(Left) Euromaidan volunteers stand guard on the barricade on Institutska Street which cuts through central Kiev, from Independence Square to the city's government district. This big barricade was erected beneath a skybridge to prevent the government's security forces from storming the protester's tent city. 

(Right) Now part of the street has been renamed "Alley of the Heavenly Hundred," in reference to the Ukrainians who were killed here during the revolution. Portraits and memorials with flags and flowers line the street. People come out daily to pay their respects to the fallen.

(Left) A couple embrace near a barrel fire inside the barricades last winter. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian endured sub-zero temperatures for three months at the camp, which served as the heart of the anti-government protest movement.

(Right) A year later, the barricades and barrel fires have been cleared from the square and people now go about their daily life.

(Left) The first camp of some 300 or 400 people — mostly students — on Maidan was violently dispersed by riot police in the early morning hours of Nov. 30. Immediately afterward, thousands of Ukrainians gathered on nearby Mykhailivska Square outside a monastery in which the students sought refuge and medical attention. They formed self-defense squads and prepared for a giant demonstration later that day. 

(Right) Today the square is as calm as it was before the revolution.