English

Hundreds mark ancestors' remembrance day with traditional march to Kurapaty

Hundreds opposition activists, mostly youths, marched through Minsk to a Stalin-era execution site to mark Dzyady (ancestors' remembrance day) in a demonstration permitted by authorities on October 28.

Some 400 people gathered on Tolbukhina Street, the traditional assembly venue for Dzyady demonstrations, on Sunday morning.

The crowd included Yury Belenki and Syarhey Papkow, both deputy chairmen of the Conservative Christian Patry (CCP), Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) leader Vintsuk Vyachorka, BPF Deputy Chairman Viktar Ivashkevich, prominent politician Vyachaslaw Siwchyk and Alyaksandr Makayew, a leader of sole entrepreneurs’ movement.

As the demonstrators marched through the northeastern part of Minsk, they displayed dozens white-red-white flags, Malady Front banners and signs demanding the release of imprisoned opposition politicians Zmitser Dashkevich and Alyaksandr Kazulin, as well as sang Belarusian national songs and chanted “Long Live Belarus!”

The crowd was escorted by police vehicles and plainclothesmen on its way to Kurapaty, the woody place just outside Minsk where thousands are believed to have been executed and buried by Josef Stalin's secret police in the 1930s and at the beginning of the 1940s.

As the demonstrators reached Kurapaty at about 2:30 p.m., their number swelled to some 1,500. They made a short stop near a cross commemorating the people executed at the site. Addressing the gathering, Mr. Belenki said that the cross had been brought to the place by “thousands people” when “a revived Belarus emerged from many years of occupation and the Soviet regime.”

The politician noted that the cross had been vandalized many times, with the most recent attack reported just days ahead of the demonstration. “However, the cross has a sacred meaning and it cannot be broken because it is protected by God,” he said.

The event was crowned by a rally that took place at Kurapaty’s highest point marked by crosses and a memorial stone.

Valery Buyval, secretary of the Conservative Christian Party, read out an address by emigre CCP leader Zyanon Paznyak, who said that “the priority of Belarus’ policies should be the national education of the young generation of Belarusians.” “There will be nothing great and normal achieved in the economy and politics until a new, free Belarusian person emerges, grows, until our culture and language become free as idea and spirit are above everything,” the address said.

CCP representatives urged the public to take part in weekly cleanup efforts at the site and donate money for the erection of more crosses there.