Today, Ukraine celebrates 32 years of independence. The independence day is the main state holiday in modern Ukraine, celebrated on August 24 in commemoration of the Declaration of Independence of 1991.

In 1916 the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna left Petrograd (Sct. Petersburg) to join her daugther, the grandduchess Olga then working as a trained nurse in a hospital in Kyiv. The Empress stayed at the Mariinsky Palace (Present presidential palace and government building) where she engaged herself in charity and Red Cross work. In september 1916, she celebrated the 5oth anniversary of her arrival from Denmark to the Romanov Empire with great festivities and ceremony at the Mariinsky Palace. Following a period of great anxiety, political unrest and internal family-trouble, she felt largely at home in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

Happy Independence Day