Eurasian Youth for Peace: PetrSU in an International Youth Project
The forum brought together children from seven countries: the Republic of Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Armenia and the Russian Federation (Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, Kherson regions, Primorsky Krai and the Republic of Karelia). Karelia was represented at the forum by schoolchildren of the Lomonosov Gymnasium in Petrozavodsk and a student of the Institute of Philology Valeria Melnikova. The Karelian delegation had an important task: the children were transporting soil to Belarus from the site of the death of Red Army soldier Mikhail Sindikevich, a native of the Mogilev region, whose name is immortalized on a mass grave in the village of Helylä, Sortavala district, and whose relatives were found by Belarusian searchers. A solemn meeting was held in the hero’s native village of Myslotino: the villagers paid tribute to the memory of their fellow villager, who went missing in September 1941 in Karelia and has now symbolically returned home.
The forum program included a visit to the Victory Day parade in Minsk on May 9, excursions to the Museum of the Great Patriotic War and memorial complexes, meetings with writers and public figures. Karelian high school students and Valeria Melnikova told at the forum events what trace the Great Patriotic War left and how the memory of the participants of this terrible war is preserved in families, at Petrozavodsk University, how search teams work, how heroes who gave their lives for the peaceful sky above our heads return from obscurity.
The Union of Search Teams of Karelia handed over for joint work a list of Belarusian soldiers whose names are immortalized on mass graves in the Sortavala and Pitkyaranta districts. Mikhail Sindikevich is the first whose relatives have been found.
The search work continues. And Petrozavodsk State University is involved in this work.
The youth international team has become incredibly united during the five days of the forum. The most important thing that the guys took away from the communication: the world depends entirely on people, on their ability to respect each other, be friends and remember - remember about family, about the country, about the past.
The forum "Youth of Eurasia - for Peace" is implemented by the public organization "Education without Borders" with the support of the "Russian World" foundation. Petrozavodsk State University has been a direct participant and co-organizer of the forum for three years now.
