The meeting of partisans and underground fighters of the Great Patriotic War will be held for the 53rd time at the Mound of Friendship

June 27, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. The next, 53rd meeting of partisans and underground fighters of the Great Patriotic War will be held at the Mound of Friendship, the ideological work department of the Verkhnedvinsk District Executive Committee informed a BELTA correspondent. Combat comrades, representatives of public organizations and youth will meet on July 1. The event will begin with a solemn procession of delegations from Belarus, Russia, and Latvia and their meeting at the Museum of Partisan Glory in the border area of the Verkhnedvinsk district. Then the participants of the meeting will proceed to the territory of the Sebezhsky district, where a solemn rally will be held. Veterans and representatives of the delegations will lay flowers on Russian territory at the memorial dedicated to Maria Pynto, a partisan of the 4th Kalinin Brigade, who was brutally tortured by the fascists in May 1944, and on Belarusian territory - to the underground fighters of the village of Proshki. They will hand over flower baskets for laying on Latvian territory at the monument to the Hero of the Soviet Union Imants Sudmalis. Creative teams of the Verkhnedvinsk District House of Culture have prepared a concert program for the meeting participants. The meeting will conclude at the traditional bonfire of Friendship. The Mound of Friendship was built in 1959 on the border of three republics - the BSSR, the RSFSR, and the Latvian SSR in honor of the combat camaraderie of partisans from Belarus, Latvia, and Russia. Soil for it was taken from the graves of partisans and Red Army soldiers, from the places of death of Alexander Matrosov, Klava Nazarova, Lenya Golikov, Masha Poryvaeva, and other heroes. Three alleys lead to the Mound: from Belarus - a birch alley, from Russia - a maple alley, from Latvia - a linden alley. An oak tree grows on top of the Mound, a symbol of the unbreakable friendship of the three peoples. Three granite slabs bear the inscription in three languages: "The Mound of Friendship was erected at the junction of the borders of three fraternal republics in honor of the combat friendship, cemented by blood during the Great Patriotic War, of Russian, Belarusian, and Latvian partisans. Opened on July 3, 1959." The Sinnyaya River flows through the complex, which is now the border between Russia and Latvia. In the regions at the junction of Belarus, Russia, and Latvia, small armed resistance groups against the fascists began to be formed in the first months of the war. Brigades of Belarusian, Russian, and Latvian partisans were later formed on the basis of these detachments. In August 1942, a large part of the territory of the Osvyansky, Rossonsky, and Drissensky districts of Belarus was liberated from the occupiers. By the beginning of 1943, as a result of joint combat operations by Russian, Belarusian, and Latvian partisans, a significant territory at the junction of the RSFSR, BSSR, and Latvian SSR was liberated, and a partisan region emerged. It occupied an area of about 10,000 sq. km with a population of approximately 100,000 people, stretching from Novorzhev to Polotsk from north to south and from Ludza and Dagda to Novosokolniki and Nevel from west to east. Soviet authorities operated in this territory, collective farms worked, and schools were opened. At the end of 1943, Soviet troops reached the approaches to the partisan region, and the actions of the partisans were coordinated with military formations. -0-