On Monday Lesya and I got back from L'viv. It was a great trip. In addition to some relaxing and visiting of tourist sites, we also met with the people running the Yushchenko tent in the middle of the city and talked with a lot of people living there.

The most interesting points were these: in L'viv we continued to hear stories, most of them firsthand, about how Yanukovych supporters were seen manipulating the results of round two of the election. Ironically enough, the only guy we didn't hear these stories from was the fellow in charge of the Yushchenko tent, Vasyl.

He said that between 25 and 40 people lived in the nearby tents, but it looked more like a dozen people there when we visited. He simply repeated that everything was fine.

"Did you see any falsifications?"

"Naw, everything was fine."

"How about the political reform package, what do you think of it?"

"Oh, it's fine."

"And the political situation in the country?"

"Fine."

We asked why he was personally there, and he said he and the other supporters were there "to protect our interest".

This was exceedingly surprising to me, as it was the first time I'd heard Yushchenko supporters talking like self-interested political players, rather than protesting based on moral grounds. It was only one guy, true, but I wanted to at least show you this interesting bit of conversation.

Later on we talked about the day after the election. Vasyl said that on that day the entire central plaza had been packed along its three block length. The protest had later closed down all business and school activity in the city.

The Yanukovych supporters had also been to the square. A couple days before they had showed up with their tents. They set everything up and the Yushchenko supporters chatted with them.

"They were nice enough," said Vasyl.

After setting up, the Yanukovych supporters took a couple pictures, and were gone again within about thirty minutes.

There was no sign of them when we got there.