On the holding of a roundtable discussion, «This Victory Day!», at the State Archives of the Gomel Region

On May 7, 2026, a roundtable discussion, «This Victory Day!», was held in the reading room of the State Archives of the Gomel Region, dedicated to the 81st anniversary of the Soviet people’s Great Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

The event was attended by Andrei Gurzhiy, First Deputy Head of the Main Justice Department of the Gomel Regional Executive Committee; Yuri Lebedev, Chairman of the Belarusian Union of Officers of the Novobelitsky District of Gomel; students of the Gomel Cadet College; and staff of the regional archives.

Archive Director Yuri Vasilyevich Shestopalov addressed the participants with a welcoming speech, congratulating them on the Great Victory and reminding them that war is not only about difficult, bloody battles and decisive engagements:

«War is the hard, grueling, and relentless labor of people in the rear, in factories producing ammunition, weapons, and clothing for the army. Women, children, and the elderly—those who could not go to the front—took their places at the machine tools. Their most important goal became work. «Everything for the front, everything for Victory!»—that was the main slogan of those days», said Yuri Vasilyevich.

The roundtable participants were shown a document exhibition, «The Female Face of Victory. Victorious May 1945», about the female heroes of the Great Patriotic War. The heroic deeds of engineer and Hero of Socialist Labor Elena Chukhnyuk, navigators Galina Dokutovich and Polina Gelman, tanker Alexandra Samusenko, and Rimma Sherstneva, who shielded an enemy pillbox with her body, will forever remain in the memory of grateful descendants.

Presentations by archivists and invited guests focused on the importance of preserving the historical memory of the heroic deeds of fallen heroes during the Great Patriotic War. Summing up the roundtable discussion, Andrei Gurzhiy addressed the students of the cadet school, expressing confidence that the youth will carry on the baton of memory of the Great Patriotic War with dignity and pass on to future generations a sense of pride in their homeland.

A moment of silence was observed in memory of the fallen heroes and civilians during the Great Patriotic War.

At the conclusion of the event, the children of the archive’s staff – Anastasia Primakova, Milana and Karolina Ilyinsky, and Roman Shishkin – prepared patriotic skits, songs, and poems by Russian and Soviet poets.

1. Speech by Archive Director Yuri Shestopalov

2. Speech by Yuri Lebedev

3-5. Anastasia Primakova, Roman Shishkin, Milana and Karolina Ilyinsky read poetry

6. Andrei Gurzhiy summarizes the roundtable discussion

7. Roundtable participants