MINSK DISTRICT, 30 October (BelTA) - Belarus continues the tradition of celebrating the 7 November day. It was a correct decision and the country has only benefited from this, Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he talked to the media, BelTA learned.
According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, having preserved the holiday, Belarus has continued the Soviet tradition of making ‘so-called gifts from authorities to people'. “We have preserved this holiday and have formulated the appropriate ideology: we finish construction projects ahead of this day. We complete harvest campaigns, sum up the results and so on and make gifts to people," the president said.
The country did not give up on its historical past. Unlike neighboring Ukraine and Russia, Belarus has not demolished Soviet-era monuments. “I put an stop to such things at once. Some here were willing to demolish monuments, launch decommunization and lustration processes. But I put a stop to these things. We benefited from it,” said the head of state.
“We had 1917 in our history. It came to us from other territories. We lived in the Russian Empire, were part of it. A revolution took place, and we began to build the first socialist state together with the Russians and others. The goals were noble in 1917 (you probably do not study the period thoroughly but I did as a historian). Those were good goals: power to people, land to farmers, villains and oligarchs up against the wall. These things did happen but there were a lot of other good things,” the president noted.
When asked what gift he would like to receive, Aleksandr Lukashenko said that while visiting the RNPC oncology and medical radiology he thought how it would be great if Belarusian doctors found a way to cure cancer. “What a gift it would be for me and all of us! Doctors work effectively as 70-75% of patients live. Yet 30% die. People bear some blame for failing to see a doctor in time to diagnose the disease. But if we found a cure to this disease, the humanity would be much happier. That would be a great gift,” the president noted.
