BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

21/09/2010

Belarus ambassador visits new exhibition in Nottingham

Photographs charting the dramatic history of one of Eastern Europe's famous landmarks are on display in Nottingham.

The exhibition at Nottingham Society of Artists' Gallery, 71/73 Friar Lane, commemorates the Brest Fortress in Belarus, the site of the Second World War's first battle on the Eastern Front and now a World Heritage Site and memorial to the fallen servicemen and women.

It has come to Nottingham to mark the twinning links between Nottingham and Minsk in Belarus and a recent visit to the city by a delegation of Nottingham businessmen and women.

Members of the delegation, with the Lord Mayor of Nottingham Councillor Brian Grocock, the Ambassador of Belarus, His Excellency Aleksandr Mikhnevichand guests from the University of Nottingham will join a reception at the gallery at 5pm on Monday. The gallery is open from 10am to 4.30pm and admission is free.

The fortress, which was build as a response to Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, was one of the largest and most modern fortress complexes in Europe. The photographs tell the full story of its history with the earliest in the collection dating from 1886 and showing a visit by the Tsar of Russia and the Russian royal family.

Other displays show the results of German dawn attacks on Sunday, June 22, 1941. It took nearly a month of fighting from room to room and cellar to cellar before the German army secured the fort, with women and children even joining in the fighting.

The fortress never surrendered, the handful of survivors eventually escaping to the forests to join the Partisans. The story of its defence is an epic along the lines of that of The Alamo or Rourke's Drift but while it is scarcely known in Britain it has been the subject of three feature films in the countries of the former Soviet Union and Daniel Craig's recent film, Defiance, told part of the later story.

For further information please contact Jem Woolley or John Connelly at Nottingham City Council on 0115 915 5092 or visit the exhibition website, www.brestfortressinuk.co.uk.

Source:

http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=11701


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