On Saturday 24^th November 2012 the annual Service to commemorate the victims of Holodomor (Great Famine) in Ukraine (1932-1933) and those who suffered from other famines all over the world was held at the Uspensky Cathedral Orthodox Church of Finland.

 Great Famine – HOLODOMOR - was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people, committed by the Soviet Communist regime in 1932–33.

 In the early 1930s in a region considered to be the Soviet Union’s breadbasket  Stalin’s Communist regime committed a horrendous act of genocide against millions of Ukrainians.

 Soviet government imposed exorbitant grain quotas, in some cases confiscating supplies down to the last seed. The territory of Soviet Ukraine and the predominantly Ukrainian-populated Kuban region of Soviet Russia (Northern Caucasus) were isolated by armed units, so that people could not go in search of food to neighbouring Soviet regions.

Enforced starvation reached its peak in winter-spring of 1933 when 25,000 persons died every day. HOLODOMOR murdered between 20 and 25 percent of population of Soviet Ukraine. The Great Famine of 1932–33 in Ukraine took more than 4 millions of innocent lives and became a national tragedy for the Ukrainian people.

Children comprised one-third of the HOLODOMOR victims in Ukraine. Large numbers of children were orphaned and became homeless.

HOLODOMOR was not caused by a bad harvest or by drought. The harvest was sufficient, so much so that the Soviet government was exporting large amounts of grain. The USSR exported 1.6 million tons of grain in 1932. One million tons of grain would have been enough to feed five or six million people for one year.