Ministry of Culture: 4 Kurapaty houses were built in protected zone!

03/12/2012 - 08:49

A monument may appear in Kurapaty. It will be created by the company that wanted to build "Bulbash-Hall" near the mass execution place, Minsk District Executive Committee told journalists.

The culture department of Minsk District Executive Committee has heard about the idea but has not received any documents that could prove the fact.

“They are rumoured to be ready to do a lot. They are even going to make a project of the protected zone near the monument. But there are no documents now," replied Minsk District Executive Committee.

The developers have damaged a big part of the memorial's protected zone. Houses and part of the main building of the roadside complex have already been built in the protected zone.

“Those four houses and part of the main complex are in the protected zone," head of the cultural and historical legacy department of the Ministry of Culture Ihar Charnyauski said.

The construction of the monument is not obligatory now, he added. Interestingly, the BSSR government was going to create the monument in 1989. And nobody has cancelled that decree yet. Maybe the developers of "Bulbash-Hall" will do it...

Politician Zyanon Paznyak thinks that the offer is cynical. There is a monument in Kurapaty now, he assured Euroradio. And no other monument is needed...

Zyanon Paznyak: “They are cynics. Decent people would not say anything like that. The memorial already exists and their monument is not needed there. Their monument will be craeted when they get out of Kurapaty with their restaurant and provocations. Thousands of crosses is already a monument. And there will be hundreds of thousands. The memorial is being created by the people and it is eternal."

Participants of the round-table discussion "Let us protect Kurapaty" are going to complain to the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Investigation Committee: they insist on demolishing the buildings near Kurapaty. However, they think that the idea of building a monument there is... interesting.

“The decision has been made: we will demand to destroy the buildings. We are going to lodge a complaint to to the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Investigation Committee. But the information about the monument is interesting. We will ask the Ministry of Culture to organize a meeting with officials. We would like to learn more about their plans," Hanna Shaputska said.

At the moment you can only see a stone with a plate saying that a monument should appear there. The BSSR decree was signed 23 years ago and the monument has not been built so far...