Photo story: Memory Train passengers visited Belovezhskaya Pushcha

Participants of the Memory Train cultural and educational project have visited the pearl of Belarus: the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park. The trip of 200 children to Belarus and Russia aims to introduce schoolchildren to historical monuments associated with the Great Patriotic War while also familiarising them with the natural riches, cultural features, and industrial attractions of both states.

It is impossible to travel to Belarus and not to see its main symbol, as the project’s organisers correctly determined. Many youngsters saw the magnificent bison, a contemporary of mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses, for the first time in their lives. The Memory Train passengers were also delighted with the red deer, the savage wild boars, and the sage owls.

And after the guided tour of the enclosures, the children were greeted at Tsarskaya Polyana. Here, the Kofanov border post officers demonstrated the detention of an offender with the help of a four-legged ‘companion,’ and the schoolchildren were able to try soldiers’ porridge and dance together. The organisers emphasise: such joint activities bring the youngsters closer together, and each passenger will have 199 new friends by the end of the journey.