Kochanova: preservation of war memory guarantees that Nazism will not return to our countries
Preserving the memory of the terrible history of the Great Patriotic War will guarantee that Nazism will not be repeated in our countries – as stated by the Chairperson of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly, Natalya Kochanova, at a meeting of the organising committee overseeing the preparation and holding of the joint Belarusian-Russian Memory Train patriotic cultural and educational project
Noting that the organising committee will be headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of the Republic, Valery Belsky, Ms. Kochanova addressed the meeting participants with a proposal, “Maybe we should not be limited by the cities that the project participants visited last year? Maybe we should add new cities based on the logistics of the project? For example, the Russian Federation, offers some other destinations this year – in particular, Ufa. Here, the 10th Forum of Regions of Belarus and Russia will be held. We have agreed with Valentina Ivanovna [Matviyenko, Chairperson of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of Russia] to meet in Ufa with the Memory Train participants.”
Irina Starovoitova, the Chairperson of the Standing Committee for Education, Science, Culture and Social Development, reported on the conceptual issues of the Train of Memory preparation and implementation, “The project will be launched on June 22nd in the city of Brest. Our Russian colleagues have proposed an emblem of the train and its branding. It is proposed that souvenirs be provided by the Russian side, and when preparing the menu for participants, special attention will be paid to food – to exclude products that may cause allergies or be inappropriate for religious reasons.”
The Memory Train project was initiated by the heads of the upper chambers of the Belarusian and Russian parliaments: Natalya Kochanova and Valentina Matviyenko. It was successfully launched in 2022: in two summer weeks of travel, its participants covered more than 6,000km and visited fifteen cities in Belarus and Russia, where defensive and liberation battles took place during the Great Patriotic War.
In 2023, young people from five states of the Eurasian Economic Union will gather and, in 2024, ten CIS states will take part. Meanwhile, participants from fifteen former Soviet republics that defeated fascism will be invited in 2025 – the year celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory.
