On the Mound of Friendship, the bridge over the Sinyukha River was dismantled on the Latvian side
The Daugavpils Directorate of the State Border Guard of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Latvia informed the Polotsk Border Detachment a week earlier that the bridge was planned for demolition. It was noted that the work was scheduled for November 24. The Latvian side explained its decision by the need to carry out engineering and technical infrastructure construction work on the territory.
The dismantling of the pedestrian bridge over the Sinyukha was carried out by the Latvians with the help of an excavator. First, they began to dismantle the metal railings, and then the structure itself. When the bucket could not lift it by the cables, the cables were detached, and a hole was made in the concrete surface with the bucket. Hooking onto it, the heavy construction equipment pulled the entire bridge onto Latvian territory. A few minutes later, the structure itself began to be crushed into small pieces.
"I don't know how to express in human terms what has happened now. How can one hate our history, our grandfathers so much?! There was a partisan village here, there was a partisan movement here. And this mound was piled up by those partisans who fought. And earth was taken from the graves of partisans," said the leading correspondent of the newspaper "Dvina Pravda".
According to the woman, she visited the mound as a little girl. "Together with relatives from Russia and Latvia, we used to gather at this place. I remember what large-scale celebrations took place specifically at the Mound of Friendship. A stage was set up near the oak tree on the mound, there were many people. In recent times, it's so painful, we always delivered flowers and wreaths across this bridge, which has now been destroyed before our eyes. Destroyed with the silent consent or approval of some historians who want to rewrite the world. It's terrible. It's terrible to forget our history, the feat of our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers who fought here and laid down their lives," she noted with tears in her eyes.
"I will tell my readers that we, Belarusians and Russians, must not forget the great achievements made by our grandfathers. My grandfather also fought, he reached Berlin. Our generation must honor this memory and be strong, teach our youth on the feat of our fathers," she continued. "We came to the mound and will continue to come. This is our memory."
Latvian authorities dismantled a pedestrian bridge, which is part of the state border, without the consent of the Belarusian side, noted Denis Glebko, official representative of the Polotsk Border Guard Detachment. "In 2010, an intergovernmental agreement was signed here between the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Latvia, and the Russian Federation, which defined the junction of the three states. And this bridge is an integral part of the demarcation documents. The Belarusian side regrets what happened. However, we see that the Latvians, while declaring the engineering and technical improvement of the border, are brazenly lying, and this is just a pretext to erase our history," he said.
According to Denis Glebko, despite the fact that the Latvian authorities informed the Belarusian side about their plans regarding the bridge, the level of agreements was violated. "We are well aware that the agreement was signed between the governments of the three states, and in this situation, only the Daugavpils Border Guard Directorate notified the Polotsk Border Guard Detachment. It is not a matter of the State Border Guard Service of the Republic of Latvia notifying the State Border Committee. The level of agreements was not observed," the official representative added.
At the end of October, it was reported that the Mound of Friendship was damaged from the Latvian side using heavy equipment. Representatives of the Pskov region clarified that memorial plaques were removed, and no information about Latvia's plans to destroy the mound was received.
The Kurgan Druzhby (Friendship Mound) is an artificially created mound on the border of Belarus, Russia, and Latvia. During the Great Patriotic War, a partisan region began to form in this territory, and the monument and memorials here are dedicated to the joint activities of partisan detachments. The mound, located in Latvia, was built in 1959 by collecting earth from the graves of partisans and Red Army soldiers who died in the territory of the three republics. Alleys with established monuments run in the direction of each country from the memorial site: birches grow on the Belarusian territory, maples on the Russian, and lindens on the Latvian.
Every year, on the first Sunday of July, an international meeting of veterans of the Great Patriotic War, the partisan movement, and youth takes place at the Kurgan Druzhby. If previously the three fraternal countries acted as organizers, taking turns, then in recent years, only Belarus and Russia have been the organizers. -0-