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The Stalin Line Museum by Andrei Liankevich
One of the myth in Soviet Union under the name the «line of Stalin» still exists in Belarus. From 1929 to 1939 in order of Stalin along the western border of country, from Karelia isthmus to the Black sea, the chain of 23 defensive buildings were built, 4 from which were on territory of Belarus. At that moment USSR have been preparing to war. In 1939 Stalin and Hitler signed a pact "Robentrop- Molotov", and it was declared, that war will not be. At the same time part of territory of Poland passed to Belarus, and defensive buildings appeared quite not on a border, and in the center of republic. To no strategic role they already would not be able to play. Stalin ordered to destroy them. But it was not. And in 1941, when Nazi Germany drove the Red army to Vyazma, they were extremely surprised, that there was no line of Stalin.
Nowadays, memorial complex was disposed on 40 hectares. Works were conducted by the representatives of internal and boundary troops, ministry of emergency measures, civil organizations. The most considerable part was done by the servicemen of engineerings subdivisions of Military powers. All the reconstruction were done : gun emplacements are here recovered, artillery batteries are equipped, motions of report are laid, the armoured hubcaps and other defensive buildings are set. Into pillboxes the engineers of soldieries recreated the systems of ventilation, troop landing of gases of gunpowders and centralized aquatic cooling of machine guns, set 76-millimetric cannons in them, machine guns are “Maxim”. Pillboxes were built taking into account relief of locality, and to meet two identical — it is practically impossible. The models of the armed fighters in the form of red army soldiers of 40th help to recover the picture of that time.
In a past year a memorial was visited by more than 70 thousand visitors. And tour guides work in the form of fighters and commanders of Red Army. By the way, many of them militated in Afghanistan.
