It”s easy to be official ”rebel” in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine – If you weren’t here for Ukraine’s revolution, you can catch up – sort of. For 60 cents, hawkers at Independence Square will sell you a fake certificate, complete with President Viktor Yushchenko’s mimeographed signature, declaring you a veteran of the uprising.

And those who missed the tent city of protesters who played a critical role in last year’s Orange Revolution can choose from plenty of new camps, albeit much smaller and driven by less weighty causes than bringing down a government.

Tent camps are sprouting daily in Kiev, the capital, and other cities. On any given day, Ukrainians are roughing it outside official buildings to protest the destruction of a children’s playground, the arrest of dissidents in neighboring Belarus, a government probe into the finances of the stadium of their favorite soccer team.

“Tent camps have become almost like a springtime decoration,” opposition lawmaker Taras Chornovil said.

The camps may even have become camp. Tourists arriving in Kiev for this month’s Eurovision Song Contest are being invited to stay in “Eurocamp,” which the organizers say will offer the sights, sounds – even the smells – of the tent city that swept Yushchenko to the presidency in December after disputed elections.

“We are trying to re-create that revolutionary atmosphere for those who only saw it on television and want to experience it themselves, and for those who want to relive it again,” Eurocamp spokeswoman Olena Hantsyk-Kaskiv said.

The pro-democracy youth group Pora, or It’s Time, which helped organize the Orange Revolution camps, is acting as consultant. Graffiti-covered tents, military field kitchens and cranky generators will be on-site to add to the atmosphere.