It’s a sandy track, well-hidden among the pines, off the highway connecting Kyiv to Odesa in the Hatne region. The outline of a newly dug off-ramp, carved by bulldozers and still unmarked, signals the start of a massive construction site. This is the highway exit that will serve as Ukraine’s future national military memorial cemetery. The project is enormous, highly sensitive and not just because environmental activists and residents of the small village of Markhalivka – 40 kilometers from the capital, but right at the base of the future cemetery – worry about deforestation and the loss of their rural quiet.
In the village, only a new brown sign, the color used to mark national sites, marks the road that leads trucks to the site. It reads in English: “National Military Memorial Cemetery.” A first section, designed to hold 10,000 graves and already laid out with broad granite paths, benches and lime trees, is due to receive its first burial this summer. But in the long term, “130,000 or even 160,000” people will be laid to rest at this future burial ground, explained architect Serhi Derbin, clad in khaki linen trousers and a straw panama hat, under the blazing July sun.
“Here will be the main entrance,” explained the young man leading this project, which has a budget of more than €37 million. “Below, there’s a shelter for 300 people, in case of bombardment.” The reinforced bunker is a first for a cemetery. Over there, a “house of mourning” for ceremonies, should it be cold or rainy. “And here, the memorial,” the architect continued, sweeping his arms wide to indicate the 120 hectares set aside for the future cemetery, and the 260-hectare estate beyond.
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