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A Tour to Belgorod for the Contest Winners “Our Sholokhov”

The Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov organized an interesting tour to Belgorod, the City of Fighting Glory, for the winners of the literary contest “Our Sholokhov”. The tour was joined by the best young reciters of Sholokhov’s works, artists and masters from the Sholokhov, Bokovsky, Kashary and Upper Don districts of the Rostov Region and the Serafimovich District of the Volgograd Region.

The cultural program was very rich: during the four-day weekend the children visited several Belgorod museums, the theatre and an organ concert in the Philharmonic Society. In the Belgorod State Museum of History and Local Study the children learned about the nature and the glorious past of the Belgorod country, about founding the fortress to defend the southern borders of the Russian state, about the national culture of the south-western borderlands of Russia and about the brightest facts in the history of the region. The museum workers gave the young visitors a master-class on making articles of foamiran with pictures of the Belgorod fortress.

In the Belgorod State Museum of Art the children admired the building interior richly decorated with carved wood, coloured glass and forged metal. There they learned about the collection of the Russian art of the XX century, then at the workshop they drew their pastel pictures.

The young tourists were brightly impressed by visiting the Museum-Reserve “Prokhorovskoye Pole”. They learned about one of the legendary pages of the Great Patriotic War, a turning point in the battle of Kursk – the fierce tank battle which involved nearly 1500 units of armoured vehicles.

The interactive class “Front-Line Rest” helped to understand how the Red Army soldiers rested during the short breaks. The children ate potatoes from the dixie, wrote letters to their families and reflected how difficult it was for the Soviet soldiers to be there, on the battlefield of Prokhorovka.

Darya Golubeva, a school student from the Bokovsky District, shared her impressions: “We saw with our own eyes the place, where a few decades ago our hero forefathers died defending our Motherland, but did not surrender to the enemy. I was haunted by the idea: what lots of blood was shed here! At that moment the bright blue sky seemed black with the smoke of those past years. I seemed to hear explosions of shells, shouts of the wounded. Even breathing became difficult for me”.

The children visited the Museum of armored vehicles, where the modern multimedia equipment helped to present the history of tank construction from the period of antiquity and the Middle Ages to the present day, and then they took the course of “Young Fighter”. The day in the Prokhorovskoye Pole was ended with the excursion to Zvonnitsa. This monument of Victory was erected near the village, on the place of the tank battle.

In the Historical and Artistic Diorama Museum “The Battle of Kursk. Belgorod Destination” the children saw the unique seamless fabric art canvas diorama “Fiery Bulge” striking with its power and expressiveness. It helped them to imagine what was happening on July 12, 1943, in the Prokhorovskoye Pole.

The members of the tour to Belgorod thanked the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov for the opportunity to touch to the history and culture of our country.

Olga Karghina