When a Tree Remembers a Name: How Ukraine Is Honouring Its Fallen with QR Codes and Living Memorials

War does not only take lives — it takes the everyday presence of a person: a voice, a name, a story. In Ukraine, communities are finding quiet, dignified ways to keep those stories alive. Across parks, avenues and public squares, families, veterans and city administrations are turning to a simple but powerful idea: a living memorial, paired with a scannable code, so that anyone who pauses for a moment can learn the name and the life behind it.

At Forever Connected, this is exactly the kind of initiative that speaks to why we do what we do. Memory shouldn't fade into a plaque nobody reads. It should be alive, accessible, and personal — and technology, used with care, can help make that possible. Here are three moving examples from Ukraine.

The Tree of Memory, Zaporizhzhia

In Zaporizhzhia, a striking installation called the "Tree of Memory" was unveiled to honour the region's fallen police officers. Instead of leaves, the tree carries 41 metal tokens — one for each officer who died defending the country, including 23 special forces officers of the Safari Regiment who were killed in a missile strike in May 2022, alongside 18 more law enforcement officers from the Zaporizhzhia region.

Each token carries a name, a date of birth and a date of death — and a QR code that links directly to the Ministry of Internal Affairs' memory book, where visitors can read the full life story of the person being honoured. As Artem Kysko, who helped bring the installation to life, put it, this is meant to become part of the nation's shared memory, not just a regional tribute. The unveiling was accompanied by a motorcycle rally through the city, with riders carrying unit flags and photographs of the fallen.

Trees planted by the wives of fallen soldiers, Kyiv

In Kyiv's Sovky Park, a different but equally powerful tribute took shape. Organised by the initiative "Heroes' Memorial," the wives of ten soldiers who lost their lives in battle each planted a holly maple tree in honour of their husbands: Oleksandr Pokydchenko, Yurii Kudlinsky, Artem Kravchenko, Andrii Zrazhevsky, Petro Heliuta, Dmytro Hlavinsky, Volodymyr Makarov, Ihor Myshak, Yaroslav Yaniv and Vasyl Chernietsov.

Each tree carries a QR code leading to the soldier's biography. Polina Soboleva, whose husband Oleksandr is among those remembered, described the deep meaning behind the gesture: this is a place tied to good memories of a peaceful life, and every family deserves the chance to keep their hero's memory alive — not just for themselves, but for everyone who stops, scans the code, and learns the story.

Similar tributes have taken root elsewhere in the country: thirty hornbeam trees dedicated to individual defenders now stand in Levandiv Park in Lviv, each marked with the fallen soldier's name, call sign, and dates of birth and death engraved on a chevron-shaped plate.

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The Park of Honor, Khortytsia

On Khortytsia Island in Zaporizhzhia, an even larger tribute is growing. The Park of Honor began in spring 2025, when families of fallen defenders planted the first 95 oaks. Since then, the project has expanded dramatically: 200 trees have now been planted, each one dedicated to a specific defender from the Zaporizhzhia region and personally planted by their own family. The ambition is for the five-hectare site to eventually hold more than 1,000 trees.

Every tree carries a memorial plaque with the hero's name and a QR code linking to the Memorial of Honor website. Mykhailo Semikin, Deputy Head of the Regional Military Administration, described the project as born "out of love, pain and great gratitude," adding that while the fallen cannot be brought back, their names can be made to live on. Veterans are working alongside specialists from the Khortytsia National Reserve to shape the park's future, with new families already on the list to plant trees in the coming season.

A living, growing form of remembrance

What connects these three initiatives is something we deeply believe in at Forever Connected: memory doesn't have to be static. A name carved in stone can be walked past without a second glance. A tree that grows year after year, paired with a code that opens a door to someone's full story — their service, their family, their life before the uniform — invites people to actually stop, and to actually remember.

This article draws on reporting from Mezha.net, a Ukrainian news outlet, as well as Rubryka's Solutions Journalism coverage. You can read the original reporting on the Tree of Memory in Zaporizhzhia, the Park of Honor on Khortytsia, and the trees planted by soldiers' wives in Kyiv.

How Forever Connected can help cities and organisations build memorials like these

Initiatives like the Tree of Memory and the Park of Honor show what's possible when a physical memorial is paired with a digital doorway to someone's story. At Forever Connected, this is precisely the kind of project we help bring to life. We design and produce memorial plaques — for individual trees, benches, monuments or larger heritage trails — that combine meaningful, artistic design with a secure, dynamic Storycode: a scannable code that can lead visitors to a biography, a tribute page, historical context, or a guestbook where family and community members can leave their own memories.

For cities, municipalities, veterans' organisations and heritage bodies, this offers a way to honour the fallen — or to bring local history and culture to life — without relying on a fragile paper sign or a link that breaks the moment a website changes address. Because the code is dynamic, the destination behind it can be updated over time, corrected, expanded, or translated, while the physical plaque itself never has to change. It's also a beautiful and secure way to connect a Storycode to local heritage: from a memorial tree honouring a fallen soldier, to a heritage trail marker telling the story of a historic avenue or landmark, the same underlying technology can serve remembrance, tourism, and cultural preservation alike.

If your city, organisation, or memorial committee is exploring a project like this, we'd be glad to help you design a tribute that is both moving and lasting — one that turns a simple scan into a story worth remembering. Get in touch here.