It has now become a tradition by now that the Hungarian House of Photography - Mano House these days and MÚOSZ Photographers' Department hold the annual exhibition of works by winners of the Hungarian Press Photo contest " MÚOSZ Grand Prize ". In 2014 István Bielik won the prize for his series Never Ending Helll.

Facts:

In November 2013 protests began in Kyiv's main square, the Maidan Square, organized by the opposition, the Association Euromaidan. The root cause of the protests was that the Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych had stopped negotiations about the Euro-Atlantic integration, in particular the EU Association Agreement when he received a favourable offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The demonstration went on steadily until in the middle of February 2014 bloody clashes between protesters and police forces escalated. By 18 February, 2014 the fighs claimed the life of twenty , and the number increased to eighty by the morning of 21 February.

The violence sparked international acclaim and three EU foreign ministers arrived in Kiev to mediate between the opposition leaders of Euromaidan and Yanukovych. This resulted in an agreement that was signed on 21 February.

MPs resigned one after another from the Yanukovych led Party of Regions on government. In the meantime he had left the presidential estate during the night and left together with his guards to an unknown location. The next morning, on 22 February Yanukovych was acquitted after a parliamentary no-confidence vote. Subsequently, the Parliament passed a new law and Yulia Tymoshenko was released from prison.

Personal:

As a photojournalist, I felt obliged to report the events taking place in the neighbouring country. After convincing my superiors, I visited Kyiv on two occasions during the riots to photograph the revolution for the newspaper Népszava (People's Voice).

The exhibition presents a selection of photos taken during te above mentioned period of time.

István Bielek