Entrepreneur from Brest takes broken monuments to Soviet soldiers from Poland for restoration

It is our sacred duty to prevent distortion of history and preserve the truth about the Great Patriotic War, especially when the neighboring country is trying to remove all traces and rewrite history. And in Poland it is allowed by law to destroy monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators. Thus, a Brest resident is trying to save the destroyed symbols. They are taken to Belarus, restored and installed in an open-air museum.

Brest entrepreneur Natalia Ilnitskaya took the moss-covered and destroyed monument to Soviet soldiers from Poland. It took about three months to correspond with the Polish side, transport and pass the customs clearance of the cargo at the border.

In 2016, Poland passed a law on decommunization, which allows the demolition of monuments built during the Soviet era. In addition to sculptures of leaders, military monuments also fell within its scope.

Last year 6 monuments to Soviet soldiers were torn down in the country.

The heaviest monument weighed about eight tons: only transportation cost 6 thousand rubles. But, according to Natalia, neither dimensions nor artistic value of the monuments matter - the main thing is to save the historical memory. All works on transportation and restoration are paid by the business lady herself. The first monument was removed in 2018. And since then, its museum near Brest has been visited by more than a thousand people from 35 countries.

In total, there are seventeen monuments in the open-air museum.

People of Poland who care about history help to remove the destroyed monuments. Today the good deed, started by Natalya, has turned into the whole campaign to save the historical symbols. Local authorities and public organizations of Brest have already joined the campaign.