English

Campaign launched against restaurant close to Stalin-era massacre site

 

Campaigners have started collecting signatures to an online petition urging authorities to stop the construction of a large restaurant and entertainment center in the vicinity of a Stalin-era massacre site.

The construction site is a hundred meters away from Kurapaty, a woody area just outside the Minsk Beltway where thousands of people are believed to have been executed by Stalin's secret police NKVD in the 1930s and 1940s.

The petition says that the restaurant's name, Bulbash Hall, is an affront to the Belarusian people. The word "Bulbash" is used mainly in Russia as a derogatory term for Belarusians.

The campaigners also warn that the mass graves may be damaged by the construction work.

The petition demands that the project be aborted and calls for punishment for the officials who gave the green light for the construction of the facility.

The petition is available at US-based campaigning website change.org. More than 1,200 people had already signed it as of Friday morning.

When reached by BelaPAN on Friday, a spokesperson said that the Minsk Regional Executive Committee was aware of the campaign and would look into the matter.