'The Petition'

Even under harshest times it was a familiar sight for a tourist or passerby to be

stopped by strangers with 'petitions' often hand written accompanied by 'documents'

bearing strange 'seals' similar to notarials, and these individuals would be seeking

your aid in their cause. Here, after the recent overthrow of the last Administration,

this woman takes to Maidan (Freedom Square) in Kyiv's center to present her

oversize petition addressed to a judge in far away Kherson on behalf of her son's

criminal cause in hopes it will buy some 'justice' or at least some attention. Your

ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly, very critically, or wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help improve

my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

However strange it may seem to Westerners, this outsized petition to the judge who sentenced this woman's son to prison, has a long and storied history in the region that once was a part of the Soviet Union and before that the territory of Russia which was ruled over by the Czars, a word derived from Caesar, the Roman rulers.

Under Czarist rule, peasants and all others who felt oppressed had one last recourse for any grievance, and that was direct appeal to the mercy of the Czar who ruled Russia.  As noted, Ukraine was a former Republic of the Soviet Union, and before that it was part of Russia, and actually was the forbear of Russian society with the Kievan 'Rus' having preceded and branched into growth of what now is the center of Russian Society and the Russian nation -- Moscow.

However poorly (or not) the Czars ruled, they had a sort of pressure valve for those who saw themselves gravely afflicted, and that was the direct appeal.  

In the United States or in Europe, one can hardly imagine challenging a court sentence to the President of the United States of to say, Angela Merkel, present German leader, because the courts and the executive leadership of both countries are co-legitimate and run separately along with the other co-legitimate branch of each - the court or judiciary branches and one can seldom influence the other except for granting of pardons, and pardons are dispersed relatively rarely in the United States.  

This woman is appealing with her giant sign to the judge, not the President of Ukraine or any political leader.

In a sense, she is following the ancient tradition, however presently seen as hare-brained by Westerners, of petitioning the Czar for clemency for her son, first by gaining attention of media using her outsize sign/petition.  That that there is no czar and at that moment no real functioning government or leader in Ukraine seemed to her of no moment, even though the Maidan revolution had just taken place. 

After all, she's a mother, and her son's a 'criminal' or at least found to have been a 'criminal', there's a new government in power, and she's playing her best card, which is not to pursue the matter through the oft-called-corrupt judiciary, as clearly she has no money to pay corruption, which would have to have been paid BEFORE or during trail, and now it's after trial and imprisonment, when even corruption would seemingly have little affect.

But, she's a mother -- it's her son.

It's her baby in prison.  

What's she gonna do?

But love him and show support the best way she can fathom.

If it takes the form of a contorted, outsize and long outmoded 'appeal to the Czar', then so be it.

john

John (Crosley)