Sunday 19 January – Day of Christ’s baptism

Today, at 11 a.m., writers and publishers dived into the icy waters of the Dnieper, in our usual place – in the Hidropark, on the bank opposite the Pechersk Lavra. Shame I didn’t manage to do it this year.

Hrushevskoho Street was also baptised. There were more than 10,000 protesters there, but also many more berkutovtsy and soldiers than there had been the day before. The police fired water cannons at protesters to chase them from the barricades. Outside, it is -7°C. But the Maidanistas, soaked to the skin, chanted: ‘Vodokhreshcha! Vodokhreshcha!’ (‘Baptism! Baptism!’). So that was 2014’s version of Christ’s baptism, with holy water delivered direct to the barricades.