Roytburd made tea and became exasperated. This was not an anti-Semitic revolution. This was the Jews' revolution. The artists, the writers, the dentists had wanted Yanukovych out most of all.

Roytburd was categorical. He was not frightened of the revolution. The Right Sector had never made hate statements fixing on the Jews. They had made this clear at a meeting with the Israeli ambassador. The Svoboda party was populist; its sadistic anti-Semitic days behind it.

Roytburd moved around his New Yorkstyle apartment of exposed brickwork and objets d'art to show me a painting of some lovely breasts. The militia? He was not afraid of them. No! His Israeli dual-national chum Nathan Chazan was running one. True, there had been two attacks on Hasidic Jews. But that was true of any six-month period in London or Paris.

He shuffled back the canvas of breasts. "You know what? The only thing I am afraid of is Russian occupation. You never know what is in the mind of a sick person. That is not my judgment on Putin — that is Merkel's judgment. He's living in his own hallucinations. Somewhere in the 19th century."

He poured some tea. "You know, anything is possible. I couldn't imagine the revolution. Then I couldn't imagine the invasion of Crimea. And if invasion happens . . . I'm not a hero. I'm a Jew. I will go to Israel . . . or America."

There was a reason Jews were being evasive. Terrified of being branded Russian agents, they had little choice but to deny any fear they felt. The level of anti-Semitism in Ukraine was so high normally — a general revulsion towards Hasidic Jews-that as long as the pogroms did not return they were keen to keep as quiet as they could.

That night Maidan looked like a barbarian encampment. And smelt like one. The thud of wood-chopping echoed through the tents. The air smelt of fire smoke. Electric hisses came from the protesters' stage. Liturgy echoed from a priest chanting to four drunks on the empty square.

These militia were mostly rural people, village people, from Western Ukraine. They had taken the night train to the revolution. But not all of them. Round a crackling oil-drum I shared a tea with Sergey, decked in hiking gear. He worked in IT, had a friendly face, and guarded Maidan nightly.

"How can you be here, with these people Russia calls fascists?"

His accent was the one I was used to: clipped Muscovite Russian. "Don't believe the lies. I'm not the only Russian citizen here. I'm a Russian citizen who married in Kiev and lives in Kiev and wants a better Kiev. Maidan was not about blood. It was about getting rid of thieves."

That night a rabbi was stabbed. The candles were out, the flowers were dead. Through the orange street light, the half-lit male faces, the psychologists of Maidan waded through the tents. The madness workers are here. There are more than 400 working here: psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, even spiritualists.