Surrounded by a high fence, Bykivnya Forest on the outskirts of Kiev served as a vast burial ground for the NKVD (forerunner of the KGB). It is estimated that about 200,000 victims of the Soviet system, mainly those shot in Kiev, are buried here. Up until the rise of the Ukrainian independence movement the authorities maintained that any bodies found here were killed during the Second World War, and erected a monument to the 'Victims of Fascism'. As the Communist system collapsed people started go to the forest and pin mementos of those who had disappeared to the trees.
