"I was going to “National Memorial to the Heavenly Hundred Heroes and Revolution of Dignity Museum-Maidan” voluntarily, but I did not know anything about Ukraine or the museum. Besides this, I had so many questions on my mind: What is memory? What is forgetting? What is the meaning of the “sites of memory”? I gave some answers to myself but I had to think more broadly, and this program was a great opportunity to deepen my thoughts in these fields. Undoubtedly, this journey, like any journey, would lead to new questions while providing some answers. At the end of the day, I was right: I had some answers, but also I had new questions on my mind, too.
From the first moment I started preparations for this journey, I started to make researches about the Maidan demonstrations. I was remembering the protests that started in November 2013 in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Although I could not have enough information due to being in prison at that time, the news of the demolished Lenin statue and the protests made by extreme right-wingers led me to an antipathy. It was the time to question what I know, what I am sure of. And actually I like to do this", – Ufuk Aydın / Volunteer of beraberce Xchange Program: Sites of Memory 2019.