"Some of today's Young Front members never saw Sevyarynets and Dashkevich"
The legendary youth organization celebrated 15th anniversary by handing diplomas to activists of the year.
The event took place at the office of the BPF party (Charnysheuski street, 3). It was quite easy to agree on that - current Chairman of the BPF Alyaksei Yanukevich used to be a "Young Front" member. The first head of the independent Belarus Stanislau Shushkevich was among the honourable guests of the event.
Stanislau Shushkevich: "I am happy that there are sincere, true young people in Belarus, the people that want to build up a real Belarusian country, real democracy human relations between humans."
Stanislau Shushkevich and Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu
The guests arrived with presents. Poet, ex-presidential candidate Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu brought his books "Kon".
Civil activist Andrei Kim brought rare leaflets to the party.
Andrei Kim: "Here, I brought the "Young Front" leaflets, issued in the end of the 1990s. They are really cool, simple and funny: You can sit and wait while this beastliness gets you, you can sell yourself to Lukamol, or be with us. Young Front". Unfortunately, this is still timely, so you can give these leaflets to the policemen and BT journalists who are keeping duty right now here, under these windows".
The "Young Front" Vice-Chairperson Nasta Palazhanka stated that the biggest value of the "Young Front" was continuity of generations.
Nasta Palazhanka
Nasta announced that a nomination "Young Front Activist of the Year" started since that day.
Mikola Dzemidzenka: "As we never elected an activist of the year, we'll do this for the whole fifteen years today! We really liked it when we founded the "Love Belarus" award, so we had an idea to award ourselves as well!"
Alyaksei Shein
Ivan Shyla
Artur Finkevich
Tatsyana Shaputska with her three-months-old son Stefan - a future "Young Front" activist
Thus, the following people became "Young Front Activists of the Year" from 1997 till 2011: Yauhen Skochka, Alyaksei Yanukevich, Valyantsin Stefanovich, Alyaksei Shein, Alena Valynets, Vital Supranovich, Syarzhuk Lisichonak, Syarzhuk Bakhun, Artur Finkevich, Zmitser Dashkevich, Zmitser Khvedaruk, Ivan Shyla, Tatsiana Shaputska, Edward Lobau, Kasia Halitskaya. "The man of the 15 years" was of course founder of the "Young Front" Pavel Sevyarynets.
Zmitser Dashkevich's father Vyachaslau collected the "Young Front Activist-2006" award instead of his son.
Ales Makaueu shakes hands with Vyachaslau Dashkevich
It is worth mentioning that many laureates stated that they were not the only heroes - and listed the others. This is what Kasia Halitskaya - the 2011 laureate - did.
Kasia Halitskaya: " I would like to say that 2011 was a hard year for the "Young Front", we really miss our leader Zmitser Dashkevich... That year would have been impossible without our honourable brigade of heroes - Raman Vasilieu, Uladzimir Yaromenak, Zmitser Kremenetski, Mikhail Musski (who is in the army now), Paval Syarhei and of course Kolya! (Mikalaj Dzemidzenka - Euroradio).
