Kiev - Confident and cheery in priestly black robes, 21-year-old seminarian Oleg is on duty in the small wooden chapel built a year ago above the Maidan, the scene of deadly protests in Kiev last year that shaped Ukraine's history.
Bullet holes are still visible in nearby trees and even the windows of a tall four-star hotel, but nowhere is the memory of the repression of the protests as raw as in photos of the slain "Heavenly 100" that stare from makeshift memorials scattered around the vast central city square.
"We are here to talk and pray, we celebrate the memory of the young guys who died here, we help keep everything clean," says Oleg as incense fumes swirl in the one-roomed chapel.
In the past months, city officials, relatives and citizens have been debating what to do about the tributes placed on the Maidan by family and friends of the around 100 people killed in the pro-EU protests against ousted president Viktor Yanukovych's corrupt rule.
Leave them be or build a mammoth memorial? Or a museum?
It took five years and a lot of talk before work even began on the 9/11 memorial in the United States. Another decade passed before it opened.
The eclectic tributes to the people mowed down by gunfire in Kiev in February 2014, in the opening chapter of Ukraine's conflict, are at the mercy of the elements. In winter, they often carry a blanket of snow.
But people keep the flowers neatly sorted in rows and the rosaries, candles and ribbons spruced up.
Crude monuments with paving stones used in the Maidan barricades as pedestals for a display of the hard hats the protesters wore as protection and the rusty slabs of metal used as shields.
The chapel has a gas mask on display that belonged to the first victim, a 20-year-old called Sergiy, as well as the blood-stained stole worn by the priest who was by his side.
"People come here to remember, soldiers leaving for the front come for a blessing," says Oleg.
AFP
