Holodomor (Перешліть цей текст своїм англомовним друзям)

A little explanation for English-speaking people why on the last Saturday of November Ukrainians write a lot about the Holodomor and light candles on their windowsills.

"The origins of the famine lay in the decision by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to collectivize agriculture in 1929... Collectivization led to a drop in production, the disorganization of the rural economy, and food shortages. It also sparked a series of peasant rebellions...

Farms, villages, and whole towns in Ukraine were placed on blacklists and prevented from receiving food. Peasants were forbidden to leave the Ukrainian republic in search of food... The crisis reached its peak in the winter of 1932–33, when organized groups of police and communist apparatchiks ransacked the homes of peasants and took everything edible...

Between 1931 and 1934 at least 5 million people perished of hunger all across the U.S.S.R. Among them, according to a study conducted by a team of Ukrainian demographers, were at least 3.9 million Ukrainians...

As the famine was happening, news of it was deliberately silenced by Soviet bureaucrats... Western journalists based in Moscow were instructed not to write about it...

The first public mention of it in the Soviet Union was in 1986..."

This article for Britannica was written by the incredible Anne Applebaum. Read it in full: https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor. And look at the photos of Kharkiv 90 years ago. Kharkiv was then the capital of Soviet Ukraine.

Here is what the Holodomor Museum adds: "In 1932 – 1933 the regime of “black boards” acted in 180 districts of the USSR (25% area). Such a repressive regime was used only in Ukraine and Kuban, in the areas where Ukrainians lived...

The Stalinist regime declared famine in Ukraine as a non-existent phenomenon. That is why, they refused the assistance offered by many NGOs...

In the spring of 1933, the mortality rate in Ukraine became catastrophic. The peak of Holodomor fell in June. Then the martyr’s death took away every day 28 thousand people..."

I recommend reading this article as well: https://holodomormuseum.org.ua/en/the-history-of-the-holodomor/