Belarus to tidy up over 7,600 war memorials ahead of Victory Day

“Every year by 9 May, the country tidies up 7,665 memorial sites, places of military and combat glory, cemeteries of soldiers and partisans of the Great Patriotic War, and also the memorial sites in the places of mass execution of civilians. Various events, subbotniks and campaigns are held for this purpose,” Vadim Demko said.

Speaking about upkeep measures, he noted that every region and Minsk conduct voluntary clean-up days and month-long campaigns, environmental events. Events are also held to mark environmental milestones and organize landscaping competitions.

“An environmental campaign to help birds was launched in Brest Oblast to boost environmental culture and caring attitude to nature among young people. They were encouraged to feed birds and install hand-made nests,” Vadim Demko said.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection has been running the environmental campaign “Landscaping Native Land” for the past two years to draw people's attention to the need for clean-up efforts and to foster an attitude of care towards nature.

Vadim Demko also spoke about the negative impact of plastic flowers that people bring to cemeteries. “Every year some 1 million plastic flowers are moved to the solid household waste deposits. They decompose for some 100 to 500 years. They cannot be recycled. An alternative to them are live flowers in pots, perennial plants, dwarf shrubs, lawn grass, candles, and fabric ribbons,” he said.