The Monument to the Motherland

Yesterday, after an emotional day before, we decided we needed to get out of the small apartment and do some more sightseeing. The sun had broken through the dreariness and it seemed, while still cold, to be a really nice day out. So even though we weren't really sure what to go and see, we have seen most of the big sights already, we left the apartment.
We jumped on the metro and decided to try one more time to see the museum underneath the Rodina Mat (the giant lady statue). This would be our 3rd visit to the museum. I told Mike that if it wasn't open today, we just weren't meant to see it!!
Lucky for us, it was!

I am so glad we took the time to come back. It was fascinating!! I decided, while walking around that I truly knew nothing about what really happened during WW2. I studied history and WW2 in high school, and since then it has always fascinated me. I thought I new a lot of things, but I realized that the things they teach in Australia and probably the USA as well, are not the full extent of what happened. It was amazing to me to see the things that they had in this museum. Original hand written letters and documents, Officers clothing and papers with pictures of them, weapons, flags, devices used by the German army to make things out of the bodies of those they killed. It was upsetting and humbling all at the same time. I thought a lot about how truly blessed we are to be born in places that didn't ever experience the horrors that these people experienced. Our countries were part of the war, but we were not taken captive or forced to eat only a single small piece of bread per day, for 900 days, while the Germans tried to starve us out. We never witnessed loved ones being sent off to camps. We never really experienced the horrors that people from this part of the world did. I am so grateful to be born in a time and place that sheltered me from such things. But I think that it would do us all well, to learn what really happened. Knowledge is the key to it never happening again.

decorated Soviet war heros

This was cool. It reminded me of the old TV show that I watched as a kid called 'Hogans Heroes'

Nazi uniform and weapons carried by a soldier

A copy of Hitlers biography 'Mein Kmpf' My struggle.

Nazi clothing

A crashed plane that wasn't found until 1987

Soviet handgun

Pictures of soldiers killed

Flame thrower used by the Nazi army

Old Soviet money and the pilots wallet it was found in

artifacts found with the plane

One of many pictures and clothing of soldiers. If you look closely, this man is wearing the shirt in the picture

This spoon took some bullets

Discarded bombs

This was a buried flag. When the Soviet positions were overrun by the Nazis here in Kiev, the soldiers didn't want to leave the flags behind and didn't want them to be taken and destroyed by the Nazis. So they cut out the battalion numbers and then buried the flags.

Another crashed plane

This is a representation of the amount of food that the people of Leningrad were allowed each day during the 900 day siege of Leningrad. Approximately 800,000 people died due to famine and disease, But the city never fell.  

A glove used by the soldiers. notice the trigger finger is separated!

This is a guillotine that was used by the Nazis, along with a gallows, which you can't really see.

18 million people were forced into camps throughout the world, 12 million were killed. 5.5 million Ukrainians were among them, including 2.5 million Children and young people, that were taken and sent to other place to be used as slaves.

A Nazi stamped bag from the camps

This horrible machine was used to grind up the bones of those killed to be used for fertilizer. They also used the fat from the victims to make soap, and their hair to make clothing.

A hand sewn star of David

More weapons

a printing press and typewriter

A soviet soldier

Old Bombs

If you ever make it to Kiev, please visit this museum. It was amazing.

On the way home we stopped to get groceries and Mike found a funny bottle of Vodka (i know shocking right!) And I think its funny that I have seen more of these than strollers.

They push or pull their kids around on these!

AK47 bottle of vodka

This was a statue we saw on the way to the museum. It is a monument representing Holodomor. It was eerily beautiful.
The term Holodomor refers specifically to the brutal artificial famine imposed by Stalin's regime on Soviet Ukraine and primarily ethnically Ukrainian areas in the Northern Caucasus in 1932-33.
In its broadest sense, it is also used to describe the Ukrainian genocide that began in 1929 with the massive waves of deadly deportations of Ukraine's most successful farmers (kurkuls, or kulaks, in Russian) as well as the deportations and executions of Ukraine's religious, intellectual and cultural leaders, culminating in the devastating forced famine that killed millions more innocent individuals. The genocide in fact continued for several more years with the further destruction of Ukraine's political leadership, the resettlement of Ukraine's depopulated areas with other ethnic groups, the prosecution of those who dared to speak of the famine publicly, and the consistent blatant denial of famine by the Soviet regime.

Still no news on the appointment. We are hoping and praying fervently that it will be on Monday.