February 12, BPN. Unidentified individuals defaced the plaques on the crosses at the mass grave site of Stalinist repression victims in Kurapaty near Minsk, teacher and writer Hanna Sieviarynec, the sister of political prisoner and opposition politician Paviel Sieviarynec reported on Facebook on February 12.
“Somebody drew signs on the crosses in Kurapaty,” she said. “All sorts of things were written. One inscription really hurt me. On the plaques to Dudar and Kaval (the executed Belarusian writers Alieś Dudar and Vasil Kaval. – BPN) this man wrote as if he was screaming: “They’re not here!”
“They really aren’t here. Maybe they are somewhere under a garage cooperative in Lošyca, under a concrete platform. Maybe they are somewhere under the new residential buildings in Kamiennaja Horka. Maybe they are under the Arbita cinema. Or maybe they are at a dump, where bones were taken during the construction of the ring road (the Minsk ring road was laid through Kurapaty – BPN). Though <…> I know a hollow behind the Kurapaty Golgotha, down by the road, where they could be. Once I was walking there, either to or from the Guard (Kurapaty Guard also known as Kurapackaja Varta – a protest against the restaurant in Kurapaty, held for over three years since late May 2018 – BPN), and something got stuck in my leg, cutting it until it bled, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. There were no branches or twigs, just grass,” Seviarynec wrote.
She also said that the defenders of Kurapaty have already scrubbed the third-party inscriptions from the plaques.
From time to time, vandals do damage to Kurapaty. Last November, unknown culprits painted the Clinton Bench, a memorial installed in Kurapaty by US President Bill Clinton in 1994. Prior to that, it had been destroyed several times. In addition, the vandals had defaced the memorial sign installed at the initiative of the state.
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