Barricade (fr. Barricade) is a handmade barrier fortification built with construction debris, wood, furniture, barrels, boxes, concrete blocks or cars. Barricades are most often constructed in a narrow section of the road or street and used as shields from the attacking opponents or as fighting positions in street fights. The first barricades were built in the Middle Ages in Paris.
The protesters in Kyiv erected numerous barricades during the protests of the late 2013 and early 2014 to protect the area of the Maidan from the police and internal troops who had been trying to crush the tent town and terrorizing activists from day one of the Maidan.
This barricade on Hrushevskoho Street, the one leading to the government district, was built after the police shot the first protesters dead in January 2014. Women would fill construction bags with snow while men would build the wall with the snow-filled bags. To make the barricade more solid, they reinforced it with construction debris and water which quickly turned into ice in the winter cold. The highest section of the barricade measured 4 meters; it was 1 to 3 meters wide.
The special police units destroyed the barricade during the assault of Maidan on February 18, 2014. On February 20, the protesters rebuilt it after a counterattack, now with road tiles.
Julia Po (Julia Polunina-But till 2020, 1985 р., Simferopol) — Ukrainian artist, photographer. Got engaged in photography in 2012. Studied at the Cultural photographic centre “PhotoCult” in the srudio of Oleksandr Liapin. Apart from that, finished Roman Pyatkovka’s course of conceptual photography and the course in history of photography by Viktoriа Myronenko. In 2014 published her “Barricade” book, after which receive the Grand-Prix of “Photographer of the Year-2014” (Ukraine) for the similarly-titled project. Member of Ukrainian Photographic Alternative association (UPHA). Works and resides in Kyiv.