Ukraine's Second City, Kharkiv, Eludes Rebel Hands

Located in a Stalin-era building, the office of Ihor Baluta, governor of the Kharkiv region, overlooks the 30-acre Freedom Square—one of the biggest in Europe and the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis with a population of 1.5 million. In the Soviet era, the square bore the name of the founder of the USSR’s secret police.

Today, at the square’s far end, a granite pedestal supports nothing but a giant bronze shoe with a Ukrainian flag sticking out of it. The shoe belonged to a 28-foot-tall statue of Lenin that towered over the square from 1964 until Sept. 28. When Ukrainian nationalists and right-wing soccer hoodlums toppled him that night, the police chose not to interfere. Baluta was in favor of removing the statue, the focal point of pro-Russia separatist rallies. But he’d have preferred a more civilized approach. Asked if a majority of the city wanted Lenin to go, he says, “No. But there was hardly any protest afterward either, which is quite telling.”