Colorado Doctor Watches History Unfold in Ukraine

COLORADO, USA --When Dr. John Schmidt of Pueblo got off the airplane in Lviv, Ukraine, on Jan. 12, he saw orange everywhere.

"Orange hats, orange coats, even orange shoes," the dermatologist recalled. "Everywhere you looked, people were wearing orange. Of course, that was the color for everyone supporting Viktor Yushchenko."

The "Orange Revolution" took place in November and December and signaled Ukraine's turn toward Western democracy.

Yushchenko lost the first election for president last year, but millions of Ukrainians protested in the streets - day after day - that the election had been rigged by then-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. When the nation's supreme court ordered a second election - which Yushchenko won on Dec. 26 - Ukrainians in the capital city, Kiev, and elsewhere celebrated.

"My good friend (Dr. Andriy Horodylovskiy), who met me at the airport, had just spent eight days protesting in the streets," the 55-year-old Schmidt said. "And the amazing part is the revolution took place without any violence."

Schmidt said that the fervor of Ukrainians for Yushchenko gave him a new appreciation for the political freedoms that Americans take for granted.

Schmidt travels to Ukraine three times a year to support a medical charity he established, Veselka, the Ukrainian word for rainbow.

He gathers dermatological medical equipment and supplies, and he ships them to a clinic and hospital in the city of Lviv. He has helped train the 40 dermatologists who work there.

It is a program Schmidt had no thought of creating when he first visited Ukraine six years ago, looking for the ancestral home of his grandfather.

"Just as a lark, I asked my guide to show me a dermatology clinic, and Dr. Horodylovskiy and I struck up an immediate friendship," Schmidt said. "But I couldn't believe how poorly equipped their clinic was. In some areas, they were 40 years behind our medicine."

After his return from that trip, Schmidt established his nonprofit organization and began visiting Ukraine regularly.

Last summer, his organization shipped 42,000 pounds of medical equipment to Lviv. And he followed that up with a regular January visit - which is why he found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians Jan. 23 in Independence Square in Kiev, waiting to see Yushchenko inaugurated as president.