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Ukraine's revolution began with a status update on Facebook.
Angered by another high-handed move by an increasingly unpopular government, activist reporter Mustafa Nayyem called for a rally in the country's most famous square, Maidan Nezalezhnosti - Independence Square.
"As soon as there are more than 1,000 of us, we will start organising," Nayyem wrote.
He got hundreds on that damp evening of November 21 last year, the start of a movement that eventually drew hundreds of thousands into the square, toppled the government and propelled the world into a dangerous new diplomatic phase.
One year after that status update, Ukraine formed a coalition government on Friday with a mission to overhaul the economy, combat corruption and steer the country towards integration with Europe.
In Washington, the US State Department welcomed the coalition agreement as "an important and transparent step".
Yet despite that apparent success, the dreams that brought Nayyem and his followers into the square seem fainter than ever. Ukraine is battling to stave off economic collapse and waging war against Russian-backed separatists in the east.
Ukrainians marked Friday's anniversary with eulogies to those who died during the political upheaval that drove out disgraced president Viktor Yanukovych in February. His successor, Petro Poroshenko, laid a wreath at a memorial on the Kiev street where many were shot dead.
But when thoughts turn to what has been achieved since those lives were lost, sorrow often turns to bitterness.
Political party Power of the People published a statement arguing that less than half the demands articulated during the protests, sparked when Ukraine lurched towards closer ties with Russia, had been enacted. "Have the people truly won?" it asked.
That kind of testy criticism at the pace of measures to uproot corruption and cast out remnants of the Yanukovych regime reflects widely felt impatience.
And there is a lot to be unhappy about. The national currency has lost more than half its value since the revolution, leading to a drop in the value of salaries. Industrial output is stagnant and investors have fled.
"Because of the general rise in prices, the spending power of Ukrainians is just melting before their eyes," Anatoliy Kinakh, head of the Ukrainian League of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, said last week.
Critics of the protest movement suggest the upheaval led directly to Ukraine's loss of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in March, and then war in the east.
"The results of this year have been catastrophic for the history and prospects of Ukraine," former Yanukovych loyalist Anna German told Novoe Vremya magazine. "All revolutions, as we see, lead to catastrophe."
More than 4,300 people died in fighting in eastern Ukraine over the past half year, according to UN estimates.
The conflict in the east began in reaction to perceptions that the new order in Kiev was aggressively nationalistic and that it would trample on the rights of Russian speakers.
Russian state media eagerly fanned anxieties. Ukraine and Western countries say Moscow supplied most of the weapons in the uprising that has since devastated the region. Moscow denies that it has supplied either weapons or manpower to rebels.
Either way, the Maidan revolution was nowhere on people's thoughts on Friday in the rebel-controlled areas.
Pensions have not been paid for months. Fighting continues daily, albeit less intensely than in the summer. Hundreds of homes lie in charred ruins.
In the early hours of the anniversary, Nayyem again updated his Facebook status, writing that he could not get to sleep.
"How we've grown," he wrote, "and maybe we've become a little bit sad, too".


Facebook post that toppled a government: Ukraine's revolution, one year on

Ukrainians mark the first anniversary of the Maidan revolution at Independence Square in Kiev. Photo: EPA

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Activist's call for a rally in Independence Square led to the toppling of Ukraine's government; one year on his dream appears fainter than ever


Ukraine's revolution began with a status update on Facebook. Activist's call for a rally in Independence Square led to the toppling of Ukraine's government; one year on his dream appears fainter than ever.
