Stalin Line Historical and Cultural Complex at the Zubryonok National Children’s Centre

On 20 and 21 August 2022, staff from the Stalin Line Historical and Cultural Complex visited the Zubryonok National Children’s Centre for the third time. In the Year of Historical Memory, their presentations focused on three momentous events in the history of our country: the Great Patriotic War, the First World War and the war in Afghanistan.

 

Lectures were held on 20 August. Boris Prokazov told the children about the Stalin Line defences, their actual contribution to thwarting the German plan for a lightning war, and how the Historical and Cultural Complex preserves the memory of the Soviet people’s heroic deeds.

 

 

Reenactors Yegor and Timur Grishkevich spoke about the role of the Dnieper Military Flotilla both in the liberation of Belarus and in the assault on the Nazi stronghold in Berlin.

 

 

Sergei Pushnov, deputy commander of the Soldiers of Victory club, used the example of two reenactors portraying Red Army soldiers to explain to the children the differences between the 1935 and 1943-pattern uniforms. Using his own uniform as an example, he described the uniform and equipment of a Soviet commander — a Red Army junior lieutenant.

 

 

Olga Grishkevich, a civilian reenactor, held a history quiz, with the winners receiving special certificates.

 

 

Sergei Zakharov, head of the museum weapons and equipment repair team at the Stalin Line Historical and Cultural Complex, gave a lecture on the development of small arms, displaying examples ranging from a replica of an 1798 rifled Jäger musket to a Kalashnikov light machine gun.

 

 

Pavel Petrukhin, a member of staff at the Stalin Line Historical and Cultural Complex, spoke about the sacrificial mission of the Russian Imperial Army in the First World War. In 1914, its offensive in East Prussia saved its allies, France and Great Britain, from defeat by the German Army near Paris. In 1916, by launching the Lake Naroch Offensive, our army again saved the Franco-British forces from defeat by drawing German units away from Verdun.

 

Pavel then held a quiz and spoke about the military uniforms of German and Russian soldiers. He was assisted by Andrei Roshchenya, portraying a private in the Russian Imperial Army. Pavel himself wore the uniform of a private in the German Army’s 250th Reserve Regiment, which fought in the Lake Naroch area.

 

 

Dmitry Kovalevsky, deputy commander of the Shuravi club, spoke about the Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces, which conducted combat operations in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, and held a quiz. He was assisted by Artyom Bobrovsky. After the lecture, the children could practise stripping and reassembling an AK-74 assault rifle or have their photographs taken with PK and RPK machine guns, an SVD sniper rifle and a grenade launcher.

 

 

As a serving major in the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Dmitry Kovalevsky also helped the children try on a modern firefighter’s protective suit.

 

 

On 21 August, a shooting area was set up along Zubryonok’s historical trail beside the memorial plaque to Hero of the Soviet Union Pyotr Tikhonovich Ponomaryov. The quiz winners dressed in the uniform of a Red Army soldier or reconnaissance scout and had commemorative photographs taken, both on their own and with the reenactors and Alexander Metla, Executive Director of the Stalin Line Historical and Cultural Complex. They then proceeded to the shooting area to fire deactivated blank-firing weapons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other children fired the weapons without dressing in Red Army uniforms.