Photos taken by protesters during the Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity are exhibited on the eve of the Day of Dignity and Freedom in the lobby of the G.I. Denysenko Scientific and Technical Library. Students and teachers of KPI - participants of those events - are on the photos. The exhibition, organized by the Publishing and Printing Institute, will last until December 6. The institute also published a book "Kyiv Polytechnics in the Struggle for Freedom and Independence of Ukraine" with archival documents, photos and eyewitness accounts.
VPI Director Petro Kyrychok recalls how in 2004 university students expressed a desire to fight for Ukrainian democracy on the Maidan - and the administration supported them. The Academic Council decided that the teachers should help the protesting students by giving them the opportunity to catch up.
"Teachers and students who were on Khreshchatyk came there, lived in tents - they defended their constitutional rights, and thanks to the support of young people, the support of our students, such events took place," said Petro Kyrychok.
The Polytechnic decided to defend its rights in November 2013 also. KPI students appealed to teachers, deans and the rector on social networks to help them in this.
"On December 1, 2013, at 10 o'clock, we gathered on Knowledge Square, passed through the campus, and a huge column gathered - more than a thousand students. As a column we went to Khreshchatyk. The movement was quite brisk, the convoy was greeted by cars, the rector was with us. No other university went to the Maidan with its head. We then stood at the rally until six in the evening,” the director of the VPI recalls.
At the beginning of the revolution, last year's IPT graduate Anastasia Dmytruk did not know yet that the poems she would create and record on video would become the unofficial anthem of Euromaidan. Today, every Ukrainian knows the words "We will never become brothers." They were also included in the book "Kyiv Polytechnics in the Struggle for Freedom and Independence of Ukraine" - together with evidence of all important events for the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and independent Ukraine.
The book contains archival materials about the congress of the People's Movement of Ukraine, the minutes of the first democratic elections of the rector, the unveiling of the monument to the Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred in our university and, of course, photos from two revolutions and memories of its participants.
The book was created by a team of teachers and students of VPI. Currently, it is available in only a few copies, and this month they plan to publish another hundred copies.