Ministry of Culture selects design for Stalin's executions memorial
Photo: Belarusian Ministry of Culture
The Ministry of Culture has made a selection of the monument to be installed in Kurapaty – a mass execution site during Stalin's purges in the late 1930s.
Sculptors Volha Nyachai and Syarhei Ahanau as well as architects Maria Markautsova and Volha Yarmolina have won the contest. Their project is not shown on the website of the Ministry of Culture.
The jury has chosen the four pillars made of ‘rusty’ metal, Syarhei Ahanau (one of the authors of the project) told Radio Liberty. The monument should resemble a chapel, he added. The authors of the monument ‘would like to preserve the people’s memorial existing there now’. The new monument should fit into the crosses installed around.
A meeting of the monumental and decorative art council of the Council of Ministers will be conducted on Thursday, Ahanau said. The project will be approved there. Negotiations on its financing are in process now.
The monument will be installed on the hillock with big crosses. Meetings are usually organized there. It will be placed 10 meters away from the centre because of a gas pipeline underground.
By the way, Volha Nyachai and Syarhei Ahanau are the authors of the monument to Gedymin in Lida.
Public opinion was not taken into account when choosing the monument.
