Opinions & Interviews

“The award is a great honor and an incentive for future work. It is pleasant for any institution when its work is appraised highly by the head of state. We are full of strength and determination to continue our work to perpetuate the memory of the defenders of the fatherland,” assured Nikolai Skobelev.

He noted that the year 2016 has been declared the Year of Culture in Belarus but for the museum employees every year is about culture and history. “We will be working to improve our expositions. More and more materials that were previously not available to the general public, for example in the Belarusian National Archive and Russian Central Military Archive at Podolsk, are declassified. We try to communicate new historical data, new information to our visitors through info terminals and other sources of information. We will continue expanding our collections (this process is almost a daily routine) and advancing our scientific and educational projects,” the Director said. As an example he cited the campaign “The Museum in a Suitcase" when specialists with some artifacts go to schools to lecture.

According to Nikolai Skobelev, more than 400,000 people visited the Belarusian Great Patriotic War Museum in 2015, including such dignitaries as China's President Xi Jinping and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev. In general, the cultural institution took an active part in the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory. In our view the exhibition of the year 2015 was the international exhibition in the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 on Poklonnaya Hill called “We were Together in the Fight Against Nazism”. The participants of the project were post-Soviet countries and, according to the visitors, the Belarusian exposition was one of the best,” Nikolai Skobelev said.

Belarus President conferred five awards For Spiritual Revival 2015 on the teams of authors and workers for vigorous humanitarian activities. Ten special prizes of the President of the Republic of Belarus have been awarded to figures of culture and art, men of science, educators, teams of authors, cultural institutions for great achievements in visual and performing arts, amateur art, museology, education of young people. The award has been conferred on the team of the Belarusian Great Patriotic War Museum in recognition of their significant contribution to the development of museology and patriotic upbringing.