Ukraine has launched an online space called «MemorіDіm» — a digital project dedicated to the stories, memory, and cultural heritage of the country's eastern regions. The platform is built as a virtual "house," in which individual rooms and sections bring together not only historical facts but also the small details of everyday life: food, objects, family memories, and traditions from which the memory of a specific place is formed. As the project is described by the publication WAVE (RBC-Ukraine), the goal of the initiative is to preserve the connection with places that, because of the war, can no longer be visited in person.
Virtual Rooms: From the "Pantry" to the "Kitchen"
The project's architecture is organized around thematic "Rooms," each of which reveals its own layer of local culture. A separate chapter titled "Pantry" is dedicated to the personal belongings and collections of local residents: through the objects that people kept in their families, visitors can learn more about the daily life and traditions of the region. The "Kitchen" section gathers traditional recipes tied to specific settlements and families in the eastern oblasts, while the library contains research, publications, and other materials the project team had been working on previously. In this way, the platform goes beyond a dry chronicle and captures the living fabric of everyday life.
Audio Tours Along the "Path Marked by Salt"
An important part of «MemorіDіm» has become the audio tours of the locations along the "Path Marked by Salt" route. They are dedicated to the caves, mines, and natural and historical monuments of the region. The audio stories feature not only descriptions but also the memories of the residents of the towns and villages along the route about places significant to them, family belongings, events, and local traditions. By the creators' design, this format allows one not merely to read information about a location but to hear its story through the voices of the people who lived there — that is, to perceive the place "by ear," in a living human intonation.
Returning Home and Getting to Know the Region
The authors describe «MemorіDіm» as a way to preserve the connection with places that, because of the war, are no longer physically accessible. For internally displaced persons, the platform can become an opportunity to return, at least in memory, to familiar towns and villages: to see the objects, hear the stories, and recall the traditions associated with home. At the same time, for those who have never been to eastern Ukraine, the project opens up the region through its local culture and the stories of its people, rather than only through the events of recent years. Taken together, the "Pantry," the "Kitchen," the library, and the audio tours form a multi-layered picture of memory in which the personal and the historical complement each other.
