Vitebsk Sole Traders Demanded Money For Monument To Alexander Nevsky

A sum of money amounting to at least Br50,000 is to be transferred within five days.

Written requests with the details of the bank account to which you have to transfer money “amounting to at least Br50,000” are spread at Vitsebsk merchandise markets on behalf of the administration of the Kastrychnitski district of the city, Radio Svaboda reports.

Sole traders cannot take it for a charitable donation request. The phrase that “the money is to be transferred within five days” sounds like an order. Moreover, the date of transfer and the receipt number have to be reported to one’s tax inspector.

Such an appeal of Kastrychnitski district administration has not generated any enthusiasm among sole traders. First of all, not everyone supports the idea to erect a monument to a Russian prince, whose life has practically nothing to do with Vitsebsk. According to legends, he allegedly got married in Vitsebsk Annunciation Church, but it is not confirmed by any documents. This person is not linked with the city in any other way.

In 2009 the city council decided to set up three monuments in Vitsebsk: to Prince Alherd, to the legendary Princess Olga of Kiev, who had allegedly founded Vitsebsk, and to Alexander Nevsky. A for design for monuments’ competition was held, and winners were decided. As for the monument to Alexander Nevsky, the jury expressed a number of pointed comments, and finally the monument was remade by another artistic group. The authors of the monument, for which the money is raised for, are Vitsebsk-based sculptors Aliaksandr Hvozdzikau and Ivan Kazak, and Yauhen Kolchau from Minsk.

The site for the monument was prepared back in 2011: it is situated in Millennium Square in Vitsebsk, and serves as a flower bed at the moment.

In July this year it was announced that the monument would be erected for extra-budgetary funds. The number of a specially created account was published in the newspaper “Vitsbichy”. Now they force to transfer money to this account.

Under the terms of the tender announced by housing and public utilities board, the monument should be made and set up before May 2016. The cost of the production and installation of the monument is Br3,396,173,532.

For a long time the city authorities have been trying to persuade the citizens that the monument is necessary, and the personality of Alexander Nevsky is worth veneration. Many articles in the state media were devoted to this topic, and a book “Vitsebsk Calvary”, published in Smolensk in 2012, could be bought in bookstores. Its author is Anatol Shlykau, acting as a sexton in the church of St. Princess Elena, as he introduces himself to the reader. Shlykau writes that “Belarusians have their eyes constantly directed and fixed on the East”, that “for six centuries Russian and Belarusians had to live in different states, but they do not forget that they had come from the same cradle, and they are brothers”, and the monument to Alexander Nevsky will facilitate “the reunification of the two brotherly countries”.