A memorial plaque in honor of soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War was unveiled in the Orsha district
– We searched for the names of unknown soldiers for over six months, studying more than 500 reports on irrecoverable losses. All the soldiers whose names we managed to establish were no older than 20–25 years old. They were among the first to break through, – said Vasily Shatkov, Head of the Gas Supply and Gas Consumption Accounting Department of RUP "Vitebskoblgaz", head of the patriotic detachment of the junior youth council of the enterprise. – Thanks to our youth, with whom we help in the search. For the first time, we managed to find relatives of one of the fallen soldiers.
This is the family of the fallen soldier Tsyrempil Garmaev's own niece.
Galina Namdakova, who flew in from the city of Ulan-Ude with her husband and son, tearfully thanked the search parties, the regional leadership, and the entire Belarusian people for preserving the memory of those who died during the Great Patriotic War, including her uncle.
– It's so unexpected – words cannot express it, – said the guest from Buryatia. – For 80 years, we knew nothing about him. My grandmother waited for him her whole life. The last letter from Tsyrempil, where he wrote that he would soon return home, arrived in 1943. And now, after eight decades, we have been invited here.
The woman brought soil from the shores of Lake Baikal to the mass grave.
– The Belarusian people paid a huge price for freedom and independence, for the right to live and raise children on their land, – Chairman of the Vitebsk Regional Council of Deputies Dmitry Demidov addressed the rally participants. – It is the sacred duty of those living today to remember and honor the fallen, to pass on this memory to children and grandchildren. During search operations, the names of heroes who fell in battles for the Motherland are returned from oblivion and immortalized every year.
The majority of the soldiers whose names were immortalized today on the memorial plaque are riflemen and machine gunners of the 27th and 33rd regiments, who were buried in another mass grave near the now non-existent village of Levadnichi. This settlement was located 2.5 km from Klyukovka.
As Deputy Minister of Energy Denis Moroz noted, during the Great Patriotic War, the division's soldiers took part in the Battle of Kursk and the Battle of Moscow, and the Belarusian offensive operation "Bagration". Many of them died in fierce battles during the liberation of the Orsha district in 1944.
– These people went through the horrors of war, fought against absolute evil – the Nazi invaders. Our duty is to preserve the memory of all heroes, to pass it on to future generations. Much is being done for this in Belarus. Commemorative events are regularly held in all regions, including in the organizations of the Ministry of Energy, – emphasized the Deputy Minister.