Ariel 'Foreign Bureau'

By Helen Fawkes, Ukraine Correspondent, 15 February 2005

The poisoning of a presidential candidate, a rigged election and then the so-called orange revolution.

I didn't expect my first year in Ukraine to be quite so fascinating. The day after November's presidential election, I was broadcasting live from Independence Square, mainly for radio.

My producer and I watched tens of thousands of people arrive at the square and they just kept on coming. All of them passionate about getting the election cancelled.

It was an incredible feeling knowing that we were witnessing something historic happen. A few days into the protests, the city was paralysed, as opposition supporters took over the streets.

Walking home at night I passed hundreds of tents along the main road. I would get back smelling of camp fires with the protest pop songs still ringing in my ears.

The demonstrations lasted three weeks. But it felt like my life was dominated by the elections for several months.

A different country

Ukraine finally has a new president, but now the hard work starts, Viktor Yushchenko has to win over the millions in the east of the country who support his rival, while those who voted for him have huge expectations.

Ukraine feels like a different country from the one I arrived in 15 months ago. There is no longer a climate of fear. Before the elections it was quite a dangerous place to operate as a journalist.

I covered one story where police claimed that a reporter had committed suicide by hanging himself on the handle of a fridge door. The most high profile murder case is that of opposition journalist Heorhiy Gongadze who was abducted, shot and decapitated.

His unsolved killing has been linked to the former president Leonid Kuchma, something he has always denied.

When I first met Yushchenko, he was leader of one of the opposition parties. Television news often ignored or criticised him. He told me he was glad the BBC was in Ukraine, saying that it was vital for democracy.

Eurovision glory

Working in the former USSR is frustrating and rewarding. For some, Soviet habits die hard. But I've worked in London and Moscow and people here are friendlier.

My colleagues at the Ukrainian service of BBC World Service and in the BBC Monitoring office in Kiev have been incredibly helpful.

I'm not used to the weather yet. Ukraine is colder than you can imagine. Last week the temperature went down to minus 20. During the protests I resorted to using marker pens as the ink in my biro froze.

When it's warmer Kiev is a glorious city with boulevards and pavement cafes.

Ukraine is vast; to get to the Crimea means an overnight train journey. Some of my favourite trips have involved music. I travelled to the east to watch the debut performance of an orchestra deep underground in the shaft of a salt mine.

While on a mountainside in west Ukraine, I watched musicians perform songs which inspired Ruslana and Ukraine's winning entry in the Eurovision song contest. In a few months time this country hosts the competition.

Once again the eyes of Europe will be on Ukraine. But this time we are not expecting the vote to spark such controversy.

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