«Gagarin Street: How Vileika Touched Space?»: Ahead of Cosmonautics Day, the Zonal State Archives in Molodechno and young archivists present a new issue of the «Archive Bulletin»

To mark the 65th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s spaceflight, the Zonal State Archives in Molodechno and young archivists have prepared a special issue of the «Archive Bulletin» project. The topic is «Gagarin Street: How Vileika Touched Space?». The goal is to demonstrate how historical memory is recorded in documents and embodied in the urban environment.

The story is based on authentic documents from archival collections. Viewers will see the minutes of the Vileika City Council’s executive committee recognizing the new street as Gagarin’s, an architectural sketch by artist V.Luksha from 1973, the acceptance certificate for the first fifty-apartment building (1975), and materials from the late 1970s on the commissioning of a vocational school complex and a crèche-kindergarten.

The project was implemented as an informational and journalistic investigation: young archivists, both on-screen and behind-the-scenes, independently worked with the inventories of the collections, selected visual materials, and participated in the preparation of the video script.

The episode traces the chronology of the street’s development: from its official name to the development of its infrastructure. A separate section is dedicated to the current stage of Belarusian cosmonautics, specifically to Marina Vasilevskaya‘s participation in the 2024 space mission. The program includes footage of a meeting with the first female cosmonaut of sovereign Belarus and her autograph as a symbol of the continuity of generations.

Enjoy watching!