Anne Dastakian

"I went there as a reporter for the first time in 2014. One hundred people died on the Maidan and I went there the next day. I flew on an empty plane, there were only photographers. They all had the vests, I was there like this. I took a hotel a little further away from the Maidan, just in case. Other than that, I had a contact there, a Frenchman of Ukrainian origin, and he took me around Maidan. I recall the dead were there. There were a lot of people there, and being short, I felt uncomfortable. I started going around the places where things were happening. There was a crowd of people in front of the parliament and they were shouting at these MPs from Yanukovych's party. When I showed my journalist's card, they let me in, and that's how I got into the parliament when they had just gotten rid of Yanukovych."

"When the Velvet Revolution happened, I came here to celebrate my birthday in '89 because I was born on 13 November. I was with my son and I was taking pictures of my friends the Hradileks. We got together and I was in Jungmannovo with my friends and the demonstration started. I had a camera and started taking pictures from the side of the cops. So some undercover cop came and took me to the cops and wanted the film. I didn't want to give them the film because I had taken pictures of my friends and it was dear to me. My son was two years old, he was with me. They were just ugly. 'The film, the film...' they kept saying. I spoke to them in Russian, because I thought, 'If I start speaking Czech, it'll be over, they'll think I'm a spy or something.' That's why I started speaking Russian, right? I said there was perestroika in Russia, you could take pictures there, and you couldn't here... What is this? My son started kicking him. Then I realized they were going to break my film, so I gave them the film and I don't know where it ended up. Then they let us go, I guess because my son was with me."

"This happened to me one day... Michal Tomek was a restorer as well as painter. He had an exhibition in Smíchov at the Dientzenhofer Gallery and he invited me and a French culture councillor, L'pret was his name. I was there at the exhibition and the French culture councillor came and with him came the StB. I didn't notice them, though. We were talking in French and Czech, and so the StB noticed me, I guess they were curious who I was since I spoke French and Czech. So before I left the gallery, I think Michal told me: 'Watch out, there are the StB there!' He said they pretended to be tourists. I remember they had a camera. I got on the 22 in Smíchov, I think, and the StB followed me in a car. Now and then, somebody got out of the car and got on the tram and sat opposite me and looked at me like that. They wanted to scare me."