Today, August 1, as part of the Belarusian Student Construction Brigades Day, student brigades from Belarus and Russia, as well as veterans of the movement, laid flowers at the memorial to the "Student Construction Brigades of Belarus" on the BNTU campus. The event was organized by the Republican Headquarters of Student Brigades of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union (BRSM).
Participants were given a comprehensive sightseeing tour of Minsk, visiting iconic sites built by student construction brigades over the years. The Polytechnic University was a key stop on this route.
The choice of location for the ceremony is symbolic: back in 1963, it was Polytechnic University students who formed the foundation of the first Belarusian construction brigades. In commemoration of this historic event, a memorial sign was unveiled in the square of the university's main building in 2018. As Nadezhda Shakhovskaya, commander of the Republican Headquarters of BRSM Student Brigades, noted, this monument is the only one of its kind in our country.
Veterans of the movement shared warm memories with current members from Belarus and Russia. Ivan Shostak, commander of the Belarusian Republican Student Brigades (1983–1989), spoke about the monument's creation. He emphasized that Armen Sardarov, professor and former dean of the BNTU Faculty of Architecture, was the architect and mastermind behind the project.
Ruslan Mashkovsky, Commissioner of the Republican Headquarters of Student Brigades of the Central Committee of the Young Communist League of Belarus (1970–1976), also attended the unveiling of the memorial sign and addressed the youth today:
"The unveiling of this sign was a very emotional and solemn event." The construction brigade movement's leadership, representatives of the ministry and university, and, most importantly, the first veterans of that very construction brigade, which consisted primarily of BPI graduates, gathered at the event. This remarkable monument still worthily preserves the memory of the student movement.
Furthermore, addressing today's fighters, Ruslan Mashkovsky emphasized the movement's true legacy:
"I want today's youth to know: where Belarusian construction brigades have been, there are indeed many monuments. And these monuments are embodied not only in memorials, but also in real-life projects that we built, commissioned, and thereby made a huge contribution to the national economy. These include entire villages and transportation construction projects. The monument to our labor lives on in our hearts, in our minds, and in these tangible actions. Student construction brigades are a huge ideological, economic, and educational front.
The student construction brigades movement is a true school of life and a strong bond between generations." The memory of creative labor lives on not only in the thousands of buildings erected both in our country and abroad, but also in the hearts of those who carefully preserve and pass on these traditions.
