Historians, journalists and students from different institutions of Moldova and Romania will go to Kazakhstan to follow the footsteps of the deportees on November 12-23. This is the second “Memory expedition”, as the organizers call it.

“This year too, the team of the National Association of Young Historians of Moldova will go to Kazakhstan to find the places where Moldovans and Romanians were deported and where they settled, owing to the circumstances. Our intentions are the same as last year – to bring home this memory page in a documentary,” the Association’s chairman Sergiu Musteata said in a news conference at IPN.

The documentary includes materials gathered last year and will be completed with data collected this year. Most probably, the film will be shown in spring. “Last year, we gathered a lot of different materials, with emotions that cannot be described. The film will be a social one and we hope it will reach all the people of Moldova so that they better understand this history of deportations,” stated Sergiu Musteata.

Project coordinator, Doctor of History Octavian Ticu said that this year the project becomes Moldovan-Romanian. Unlike last year, this year’s expedition will also include Romanian students, besides Moldovan. A part of the team will make the film, while other members will work on the documentary study of the history of Romanian war prisoners. The third objective of the historians is to write a book about the Moldovan community in Kazakhstan.

“We wanted very much to engage young people in a special project that would generate youth activism by own experiences in discovering our past,” stated the coordinator.

The first expedition took place last November, also to Kazakhstan. According to members of the National Association of Young Historians, there are over 14,000 Moldovans in Kazakhstan.