ukraine: kyiv: holodomor memorial

Two years ago I was in the Ukrainian town of Poltava during the 4th weekend of November. My friend Susannah and I were there to explore the town just because we could.
Just as the sun was going down, we came to the end of a major pedestrian street in town, and listened to a little bit of a speech. We could see the traditional blue and yellow flag of Ukraine, as well as the red and black flag used by the Ukrainian independent army in WW2. Since the protests of Maidan had started just the week before in Kyiv, we thought this was related to those protests.
We walked down the entire length of the street, which took us to a church area. Not long after, we realized there was a procession coming down the street behind us. A truck playing music, a priest at the head of the line, and many people carrying candles in coloured jars. We saw the flags too.

The procession came to a halt at the church, the priest spoke a bit, then went into the church. People with candles laid them on the ground around the church, along with flowers and food. I still didn't know this was anything special.
After returning to Kyiv, we figured out what we had witnessed: the annual remembrance ceremony of the Holodomor. Many cities remember what happened, usually with a speech by someone of honor, flowers, candles, wheat, bread, food in general, etc... There is always a religious aspect of the remembrance, in addition to the story of what happened.

The Holodomor was a famine that happened during the fall/winter/spring of 1932-33. The Soviet government (and current Russian government) have always said it was a year with terrible weather, (it wasn't as good as previous seasons, but not so bad as to cause this famine,) but the rest of the world generally acknowledges that the famine was man made. During these years the soviet government was forcing people into collective farms, and requiring certain amounts of grain be exported. The amount of grain required for export was too much, there wasn't enough left for people to survive. The situation was awful, especially because the people could see silos full of grain, and couldn't eat.

In an effort to keep events a secret, the government closed the borders, so people weren't able to leave and find food elsewhere. Official numbers of starvation range quite a lot, but most people say the official numbers are nowhere near actual numbers. Unofficially I've seen the range of 7-10 million people who died of starvation.
Last year I had friends in town, we spent the 4th Saturday of November touring chornobyl, which was about a lot of death in a different way. We came back to Kyiv too late to see anything rated to the Holodomor, but we did see flowers, candles, and wheat at the base of a memorial sculpture near St michael's church.
This year I wanted to see what happens at the official Holodomor memorial/museum in Kyiv. I had no idea what time anything started, but I remembered Poltava happening in very late afternoon.

I got to the memorial around 1520, after a couple detours. There were soldiers blocking several walking paths near the memorial, which was annoying as I came close, because I didn't know why. When I came close to the memorial, I had to go through metal detectors and an inspection of my purse.
At that point I realized why the paths had been blocked, and why I'd had to go through security. The President of Ukraine, Poroshenko, was speaking at the remembrance service. I was surprised I was able to simply walk up and attend the ceremony, there is no way that would happen if the US president were to speak at a ceremony like this.

I listened, but understood very little. I heard phrases I know well: "слава украіні, героям слава" (please excuse my terrible spelling)...the phrases mean glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes. It's a call and response every Ukrainian knows, and one that still brings tears to my eyes after the way it brought unity to the country during the Maidan protests and violence.
After the president finished speaking, someone else spoke for a while, I have no idea who it was. I could hear him calling the names of the different oblasts (states) of the country, I presume a representative of each oblast was in Kyiv for this ceremony. After he finished speaking, most of the barricades seems to disappear. People in the crowd slowly moved forward, to lay candles, flowers, wheat, and other food at the base of the memorial. Up on the hill I saw candles that had slowly been lit during the speeches, they were beautiful (in a sad way) in the dark.

I watched for a while, and listened to the music playing. Other than the music, it was pretty quiet; a sense of reverence for what happened was in the air.
For the first time ever, I went into the museum area of the memorial. Since the temperature outside was at freezing or just below, coming inside felt amazing. There are books listing those who died in the various areas of the country. There are a few statues of starving people and children. There are displays of bread, since it is traditionally made with wheat flour, which wasn't available during this time. There were women singing, rather mournful sounding songs in one corner. On the walls are photos of some Ukrainian lands during this time, you can see buildings but a lack of crops.  It's a small area, but very intense.
I walked back to the metro and was home around 1930, happy to be in a warm place, with plenty of food.