30 June 2008
Over 15 people commemorate Stalin terror victims at Kurapaty rally

More than 15 people gathered in the Kurapaty forest close to the Minsk beltway on June 29 to commemorate Stalin terror victims.

Opposition and civil society activists hold rallies on the 29th day of each month at the site to remember people massacred in Belarus during Stalin purges.

The crowd, which included opposition youths, small business activists, former Gulag prisoners and heritage conservation campaigners, sang Belarusian revival songs, observed a minute of silence and laid flowers at crosses marking the site where thousands are believed to have been executed by the NKVD secret police in the 1930s.

A group pushing for the commemoration of Stalin terror victims is now working on a book that would include a list of sites where people were massacred by the NKVD between the 1920s and 1940s, Uladzimir Ramanowski, a leader of the group, said at the rally.

Seven police officers and plainclothesmen observed the rally. They warned one participant, retiree Nina Bahinskaya, against displaying “unregistered symbols.”