Open Day at the State Archives of the Gomel Region as part of the national «Archives for School» campaign

On June 11, 2026, fifth-grade students from Gomel Secondary School No.11 visited the State Archives of the Gomel Region as part of its traditional Open Day. Archive specialists conducted a career guidance lesson for the students, «Live, Study, and Work in the Republic of Belarus». During the lesson, Victoria Rudenko, a first-category archivist in the Document Records and Preservation Department, spoke to the students about the archivist profession and the history of the regional archive. During a tour of the archives, the students were introduced to documents from the regional archives and learned about how archival collections are replenished and preserved. In the laboratory, the students observed archival document repair processes.

On the eve of the 85th anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War, Maya Vashchenko, a senior researcher at the regional archives, spoke to students in the archive’s reading room about the occupation of Gomel by Nazi invaders and the mass deportation of young people to forced labor in Germany. Students were shown letters from Soviet citizens captured by the Germans to their homeland. The discussion continued with the students, focusing on the contents of the letters and the conditions under which Soviet citizens lived and worked in captivity. Photographs from the letters by young men and women sparked great interest among the students.

At the end of the lesson, students watched a video from the Belarusian State Archive of Film, Photo, and Sound Documents, «Hero Fortress», about the first days of the war and the defenders of the Brest Fortress.

1-2. Students of Gomel Secondary School No.11 read letters from Soviet citizens captured by the Germans to their homeland

3. Watching the video «Hero Fortress»

4. On a tour of the archives