Ukrainian elections 2004 were long predicted by knowledgeable people to be of substantial importance not only to the country or to its immediate neighbors, but to the rest of the world as well. The outcome is still uncertain at the time of this writing, but something wonderful seems to have happened already.

Afraid of seeing another satellite escape its orbit, Russia spared little political and financial expense trying to promote the pro-Russian candidate -- Victor Yanukovich. Russia's obedient media covered him almost exclusively. His main opponent -- if mentioned at all -- was portrayed as a fringe Western Ukrainian nationalist (yet pro-American -- horrors!), an anti-Russian, and an anti-Semite.

The tactics worked against the previous serious challenger to the apparatchiks regime in 1991. Viacheslav Chornovil (pictured left) collected "only" 22.27% of the vote against the ex-Communist incumbent.

This time something broke. Maybe, it is that the younger generation grew up, which learned Ukrainian in schools and colleges and thus is no longer mortified by the thought of using the country's language. Maybe, because the "brotherly Russia" is even less appealing now viz. the Chechen conflict and the sorry state of Belarus (ruled by a Russia-propped authoritarian).

Or maybe it was the very crudeness of Russia's meddling. After all, could not they find someone better, than a thug with two criminal convictions (one of them for rape) plus two "closed" criminal cases? The man barely speaks Ukrainian, has blatantly bought his fake doctorate degree, and does not even know, how to spell it. In short, his only "redeeming quality" is the pro-Russian leaning and unlikeliness to ever pursue the outgoing president -- Mr. Kuchma -- who with his cronies themselves stand credibly accused of various crimes.

Most likely, however, it was simply the ugly obviousness of the election-rigging. All of the Western and even some Russian election observers reported wide-spread irregularities and outright fraud in the pro-Yanukovich districts. There is no question, that he would've won in those districts "honestly", but the margin of the win would not have been enough to overcome the losses elsewhere.

Whatever it was, Ukraine exploded with the orange color (that of the opposition's campaign). Not everyone voted for Yuschenko -- the opposition candidate's true support was, probably, at 55-60%, but nobody likes to be lied to. The things, that separated people of Ukraine, most importantly -- the Soviet notion of "nationality" (which is so hard to explain to foreigners) -- are melting away. We -- ethnic Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Koreans, Tatars, Moldovans, Armenians, Georgians, &c. -- from East and from West, North and South are all Ukrainians now. The modern free Ukraine is being born.

It is not over yet. There is a lot of hard work and disappointments ahead. Some would warn that, united by the negative feelings towards the crooks and their foreign master, the new nation will quickly lose the cohesion, unless it finds something positive as well. That is a fair warning, but the new president looks promising and his mandate is now quite overwhelming (thanks in part to his wretched opponents). His responsibility is ever so much greater, but he may just be up to the task. An economic boom may soon follow. Wow...

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