Historic graveyards and places of shooting are destroyed in Belarus :: Charter'97 :: News

The authorities in Zelva are going to honour legacy of one people at the cost of other. In the village of Barsuki, Zelva region, an ancient cemetery and a place where local dwellers have been executed, is dilapidating. The builders have turned them into a sand open pit for building a road in the direction of the partisans’ cemetery. The road is to be finished before the 60th anniversary of the Victory.

In 1989 the cemetery by the village of Barsuki was given a status of the memorial of 9th-13th century by archaeologists. The village was rather a big one previously, and now only two inhabitants are left there. The elderly persons remember that in 1939 several local dwellers were shot by the ancient cemetery. Four priests and a teacher were among them. The sand for building the road to the partisan graveyard in the neighbouring Masty region is quarried exactly on this place.

When human remains were found in the digger, the builders called the police. Everybody was expecting that the road construction would be stopped for the time of investigation, and the bones are to be buried again. However that has not happened.

Local citizens say that the road for the partisan cemetery was planned many years ago, but all the time there were some problems. Now the local authorities has ordered to build it as soon as possible, to be ready for the 60th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. People are saying that the partisans would not be pleased with the road built on the bones of the shot peaceful citizens.

Deputy chairwoman of the regional executive committee Alena Koush says to Radio Svaboda, that the military comissioner of the region has been charged with this problem.