nose in the dirt on the other. As early as before the third round Aleksander Kwasniewski got carried away by the atmosphere. Aleksander Kwasniewski, telling about his mission of a mediator in the interview for a weekly Polityka stated: "...for each great power Russia without Ukraine is a better solution than Russia with Ukraine', and further: 'Russia is rebuilding its position in the world, which is all right. But why is it also to gain 50 million Ukrainians?"6. Most Poles used to think and still think like this. Nowadays we support the opposition in Belorus likewise. Likewise, we supported Georgia. One could feel great hope and enormous expectations of a rapid change of both Ukrainian foreign policy and internal democratisation. Bitter words of the Russian political scientist Gleb Pawiow saying that Russia will contradict the 'Kwasniewski's doctrine' which is the limitation of the influences of Russia in the world, could be understood only as a confirmation of the success of the doctrine and effectiveness. The doctrine, as should be supposed,
What has thus happened that our suddenly awakened liking and hopes faded so quickly? It seems the point is that nothing has really changed, the expected close relations did not really took place. Instead of radical changes we heard again about waiting. Instead of seeing new, powerful and changed Ukraine we saw the same political argu- has never in fact consciously existed, was rather the result of happy coincidences and long-lasting efforts of Polish diplomacy to establish friendly relations in the area of post-Soviet countries.
What is more important, however, the success of the Orange Revolution reminded us our great moments and great experiences. It reminded the times when Poland was still on the threshold of changes and great enthusiasm as well as anxiety could be felt. Sporadically, sceptical voices predicting a rapid end of the revolution were drowned out in our ears with the power of words included in the refrain of the informal hymn: "Razom nas ba- hato, nas ne podolaty". 7
Our moods were reflected in a liking or a dislike for the Ukrainians. According to the research carried out by the Centre for Public Opinion Research (CBOS) in December 2004 a great change in our attitudes could be noticed. The number of people declaring liking for the Ukrainians increased from 19% in the late 2003 to 29% in December 2004, and those declaring dislike decreased from 51% to 34%8. There was, therefore, a clear improvement in our perception of the Ukrainian nation. Unfortunately, in November 2005 that positive tendency turned out to be only a fleeting phenomenon. The number of people declaring liking dropped over a year to 25% and dislike increased to 50%9.
ments, factional fights and the slow disintegration of the Orange Revolution. Instead of real actions we could observe the merry-go-round of people and positions, mutual quarrels and selling up the ideas of the revolution. We saw a grey, ordinary life instead of orange future. And more importantly, the Ukrainians also noticed the same. At least these who we meet every day, who have some connections with Poland, are known here, work or publish here. The disappointment was even bigger because we are also often disappointed with the changes in our country. To answer where this disappointment originated we must focus now on internal political scene of Ukraine and its geopolitical conditions, as well as our Polish disappointments and conflicts.
In April 2003, during the conference in Warsaw, Borys Tarasiuk said: "Thinking of the answer to the question included in the title of our conference "Where is Ukraine heading for?" or "Quo vadis Ukraine?", one answer comes to my mind: I do not know!"10. Despite the events in December 2004 these words unfortunately did not go out of date at all. The representatives of the Ukrainian side who arrived then, declared themselves to be supporters of turning westwards and breaking up with the existing model of a multiplicity of directions in Ukrainian foreign policy, or at least with a different distribution of properties. We saw the same people among the Orange and this implied that declarations would be kept or at least start to be implemented. Also in this way we received the words of Oleksander Zinczenko saying that Ukrainian foreign policy 'will lose its basic feature, namely its multiplicity of directions and become simply pro-European' and also that "New authorities of Ukraine will change the standards of living in the next three or four years so much that the issue of its membership in the European Union will become natural and obvious to every- one".However, the gestures towards the Russian Federation were treated by us rather as judiciousness and calming down the situation. It was not a
