[vdaniuk]

As a Russian speaking Ukrainian, participating in protests, living in Kiev that considers this quote by Albert Einstein to be very true "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind", you are so full of shit.

[shitgoose]

Would you dare to go to Lvov these days and speak Russian there, your native language?

[dimitar]

I have been to Lviv and its perfectly OK to use Russian or any other language for that matter. You can often even hear Russian pop hits on the streets.

I think this misconception stems from the fact that Ukrainian speakers often reply in Ukrainian when spoken to in Russian, because they assume you know both languages, but they will switch to Russian if necessary. This freaks out Russian speakers from outside of Ukraine.

[strlen]

> I think this misconception stems from the fact that Ukrainian speakers often reply in Ukrainian when spoken to in Russian, because they assume you know both languages, but they will switch to Russian if necessary. This freaks out Russian speakers from outside of Ukraine.

This is interesting way to think of it. Since I'm from Belarus and visited Ukraine a few times, I thought absolutely nothing of this. I even remember going to a Polish-owned cafe in Minsk where the owners spoke Polish, but customers spoke Russian. In Belarus children were taught Belarusian from kindergarten on and while Belarusian language, literature, and history classes were in Belarusian -- other classes were in Russian. Afaik, some of the Belarusian writers (can't remember if Yakub Kolas, Yanka Kupala or both...) even changed languages within their books: within the same story, some characters spoke Russian others spoke Belarusian. Of course Ukrainian speakers form a much larger part of population of Ukraine than Belarusian speakers in Belarus (Belarusian seems to be heading the way of Irish Gaelic, unfortunately).

It helps that the languages are in the same language group. In any case, other European countries deal with this all the time (Flemish and French are much further apart for example than Russian and Ukranian). I can't see how joining the EU would make this worse for anyone!

[avasylev]

These protest are against Yankukovich and his regime. Not against Russians. A lot of activists on maidan speak Russian, including Klichko who speaks Russian better than Ukrainian. Plus Lvov is very popular among Russian tourists, still no one was hurt.

[strlen]

Not to mention Yuschenko (the former Yanukovich opponent) himself spoke Russian at home and was Orthodox.

[vdaniuk]

Certainly yes. There is no or very little aggression towards Russian speakers in Lvov.

[gkoz]

Done that and (not surprisingly) nobody cared and nothing happened.