Tsuran: Memorial Sites Are Not Merely Places for Laying Flowers, But the Genetic Memory Code

The grand "Roads of Victory" motor race dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Soviet people's victory in the Great Patriotic War, arrived in Minsk on June 21. Its participants visited a significant site in the Belarusian capital, paid tribute to the heroes, and laid flowers at the "Minsk – Hero City" stele.

"Here gathered residents of Hero Cities—those from Sevastopol, Stalingrad (Volgograd), Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Smolensk, Moscow, and Minsk. Many towns and villages bravely defended themselves. This is a unified feat of our people; it is because we stood together that we endured," remarked Vera Sergeeva, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg (Russia).

Artem Tsuran, Chairman of the Minsk City Council of Deputies, emphasized that numerous such runs are organized both in Belarus and Russia. Belarusians eagerly visit iconic sites across Russia. According to Tsuran, these motor races serve to ensure that no road becomes overgrown with grass, for every memorial site is not just a spot for laying flowers but a symbol of memory and a genetic code—something that must be passed down through generations.

A significant point on the patriotic route is the All Saints Memorial Temple in Minsk. Participants of the "Roads of Victory" автопробег laid 11 capsules filled with earth from the hero cities into the crypt—earth taken from mass graves from the Great Patriotic War.

"In this way, we will complete the mission we have been carrying out over the past days. I am very glad that we gathered in the hero city of Minsk to pay homage to our ancestors—grandfathers and great-grandfathers — who fought and fell on the battlefields, and to those who rebuilt the cities destroyed after the war," said Alexey Shaposhnikov, Chairman of the Moscow City Duma (Russia).

On June 22 at 4:00 AM, participants will join a rally at the Brest Fortress in commemoration of the Day of National Remembrance for the victims of the Great Patriotic War and the genocide of the Belarusian people.

The "Roads of Victory" race runs from June 18 to June 24, traveling from Saint Petersburg through Gatchina, Pskov, Smolensk, Minsk, Brest and back to Saint Petersburg.