Participants of the international 'March of Peace' have arrived in Vitebsk
Starting on July 15 from the Kursk Memorial to the Fallen in the Great Patriotic War, the march participants will visit Minsk, Grodno, Brest, Motol, Nesvizh, Mogilev, and Gomel until July 21. Peace rallies, laying wreaths and flowers at memorials, as well as presentations of the "Kursk Character" project will be held at the stops.
In the regional centers, it is planned to conclude six cooperation agreements between educational institutions of Russia and Belarus. Agreements between Kursk Secondary School No. 43 named after G. Zhukov and Polotsk Secondary School No. 16, as well as Kursk Secondary School No. 61 named after P. Mikhin and Novopolotsk Secondary School No. 2 named after E. Trapeznikova were signed at the V. Lenin Vitebsk Regional Library.
– The Great Patriotic War almost destroyed Vitebsk. Out of its 180,000 residents in 1944, only 118 people met the liberators, – noted Viktor Glushin, Deputy Chairman of the City Executive Committee. – It was said that the city could not be restored, but the residents managed. And today, the flourishing 1050-year-old Vitebsk proudly welcomes the participants of the "March of Peace."
Lidia Asadchikh, Chairperson of the Kursk Education Committee, expressed gratitude to the people of Vitebsk on behalf of the Russian guests for the warm welcome. Russian educators are keenly interested in learning about a friendly country that honors the memory of the Great Patriotic War years and knows firsthand the price of Victory.
– There are fewer and fewer witnesses to the terrible events of the Great Patriotic War. And there are more and more people who want to rewrite our history, to desecrate the bright memory of those who fought for Victory at the cost of their own lives, – reminded Lidia Asadchikh. – We must do everything to preserve the historical truth about the events of those terrible years.
Representatives of the city administration and the Peace Fund presented guests from Kursk with a commemorative album reflecting the history and present day of Vitebsk, as well as other pleasant souvenirs. Chairperson of the Vitebsk Regional Branch of the Belarusian Peace Fund, Tatyana Tumanova, emphasized that people's diplomacy, including children's diplomacy, and jointly planned educational projects are a transition from the theory of patriotic education to practice.
She also recalled that the Vitebsk region organization closely cooperates with the Russian Peace Fund, which unites 45 regions. The closest friends of the Belarusian organization are residents of Smolensk and Pskov. According to Tatyana Tumanova, personal meetings allow for a better understanding of the work strategy of like-minded people and an exchange of useful experience.
There was also an honoring of activists. Dmitry Khoma, Head of the Main Department for Education of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, and Nadezhda Ponomareva, co-head of the "March of Peace," chairperson of DOSAAF for the Kursk region, deputy secretary of the Kursk regional branch of the "United Russia" party, were awarded jubilee medals for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus by decision of the regional leadership.