Press releases

Nationwide clean-up day in Belarus raises over Br18m

MINSK, 18 April (BelTA) - Preliminary data indicates that the nationwide clean-up day (subbotnik) has raised over Br18 million. These figures were provided by Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Natalya Petkevich during her participation in the republican clean-up day in Minsk District on 18 April, BelTA has learned.

Natalya Petkevich noted that about 2.3 million people joined the clean-up day. “This is a very good figure. Across all regions of the country, people are engaged in beautification and planting trees," she said.

Before Radunitsa [the day of commemoration of the departed] and before 9 May, people are tidying up monuments and graves dedicated to the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and in memory of the fallen. “We all realize that our country is only what we are able to create with our own hands. So beautification, cleaning, restoring, and paying tribute to the memory; this is what we all do," Natalya Petkevich said. "It is good that this 'talaka' [a traditional Belarusian form of collective voluntary assistance] is in our hearts, and we show it for the benefit of all of us."

According to Natalya Petkevich, patriotism means doing something for one's country. "I think the sense of love and attitude toward one's country as one's home, nurtured and passed down through generations, is patriotism," she emphasized.

The prime minister, deputy prime ministers, and the leadership of the Council of Ministers Office are working on 18 April to landscape a mass grave where 45 soldiers of the Red Army and partisans are buried. They fell in battles during the defense of the village of Pyatevshchina in June 1941 and during its liberation in June 1944.

The funds earned from the spring community clean-up day will be channeled toward the creation of a permanent exhibition at the National History Museum of Belarus, which is currently under construction, as well as other related work.