KAZAN, 28 April (BelTA) – The connection between Russia’s Tatarstan and Belarus in the context of the Great Patriotic War is very deep, Director General of the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan Ayrat Fayzrakhmanov said at a press conference dedicated to the commemorative concert Every Third, which will take place in Kazan, BelTA has learned.
“We had more than 700,000 people go to war, and more than half did not return. A significant number fell on the battlefields of Belarus,” Ayrat Fayzrakhmanov emphasized.
According to him, four divisions formed in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic took part in the fighting during the Great Patriotic War. “For me, this is a personal story. My grandfather fought in the 18th Rifle Division. In the summer of 1941, after being encircled, he went missing. For our family, this was a very painful story. As we learned only about ten years ago, thanks to the Memory Book editors, my grandfather actually survived and died near Velikiye Luki in a field hospital in August 1942. It was the first time in my life I saw my father cry,” he shared. He added that his uncle on his mother’s side went through the war as a tank crewman and said that the fiercest battles were in Belarus.
In addition, six Heroes of the Soviet Union are connected with the Republic of Tatarstan.
Ayrat Fayzrakhmanov noted that Tatarstan is doing a great deal to preserve the memory of the wartime generation and pass it on to young people. The region has a highly developed reenactment movement dedicated to wartime events. “There are countless storylines. We hope to continue uncovering them so that future generations learn more about the battles of the Great Patriotic War, including those on Belarusian territory. One must visit Belarus to understand the scale of the tragedy, every corner of land there is connected in one way or another with the war’s tragic events. We honor the memory of Belarusians. And this history also includes the Belarusian Tatars, who took an active part in the Minsk underground,” he concluded.
Photos by Andrei Sinyavsky/ BelTA
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