On 24.06.2021 in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine was opened Khortytsia Mennonite Memorial which is the result of project It is Time to Collect Stones with restoration of Mennonite monuments of 1793 - 1918.

Khortytsia Mennonite Memorial includes 18 monuments.

Boris Letkeman, a representative of Mennonite community in Zaporizhzhia and Oksana Turchinina, director of charity foundation "Mennonite Center" in Molochansk attended the opening of the memorial.

Within the framework of the project the book "Khortytsia Mennonite Memorial" was also published which collected information about the Mennonites who lived on Khortytsia.

Project "It is Time to Collect Stones" was implemented with the financial support of Mennonite Community of Canada.

About Khortytsia Mennonite Memorial

Scientists from Khortytsia National Reserve discovered gravestones in the foundation of a barn in Upper Khortytsia in 2019. They were once a part of Mennonite cemetery.

In 1789 228 Mennonite families from Prussia founded six villages in the colony of Khortytsia in Zaporizhzhia region.

Mennonites are Chistians who practice baptism and are committed to nonresistance.

These early settlers built a church and established a cemetery in their village of Khortytsia.

Soviet authorities forced the church to close in 1935 and then destroyed the cemetery which later turned into a sport field.

Over hundred Mennonite gravestones have so far been discovered.

Organizers of Khortytsia Mennonite Memorial

National Reserve Khortytsia
Khortytsia Island
Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine

Pavel Korsun
Tour Guide
Ukraine tours and Kiev tours

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