SAINT PETERSBURG, 30 March (BelTA) – Belarus' Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko took part in the wreath-laying ceremony at the Motherland monument in the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery and honored the memory of the Belarusian defenders of Leningrad, BelTA has learned.
The Belarusian head of government left an entry in the memory book. “You are overwhelmed with emotions when you here, in the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, a place of sacred memory and mourning for the tragic and heroic events of our common history. Our peoples sacrificed millions of lives during the Great Patriotic War to defend their right to life, freedom and independence, and their feat of arms will never be forgotten. I thank the staff of the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery for preserving historical memory and telling the younger generation about the horrors of the war, about the cost of the Victory,” the entry reads.
The Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery is one of the mass graves of victims of the Siege of Leningrad and soldiers of the Leningrad Front. A memorial complex to the fallen was erected at the cemetery. The center of the architectural composition is the six-meter bronze monument symbolizing the Mother Motherland.
In 1996, one more monument was erected in the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery. This monument commemorates students of Leningrad vocational schools and 12,000 Belarusian children artisans who came to Leningrad to study before the war and died during the siege from hunger and disease.
