DATES. EVENTS. PEOPLE.

On September 3rd, 1731,  Stanislav Bogush-Sestrentsevich was born — a Russian and Belarusian scientist, writer, church and public figure. He served as an officer in the Prussian Hussar Regiment and the Dragoon Regiment of the Lithuanian Guard. In 1761, he retired and served as an educator in the Radziwill family. After converting to Catholicism in 1763 he was ordained as a priest. Since 1773, he headed the Belarusian Catholic Diocese and since 1798 he was the Metropolitan of all Roman Catholic churches in the Russian Empire. He studied Belarus and the problems of the origin of the Slavs while also fighting against the Jesuits and promoting the ideas of enlightenment and humanism. He died in 1826.

On September 3rd, 2016,  a monument to the creators of the Belarusian national classical opera — composer Stanislav Moniuszko and playwright Wincenty Dunin-Marcinkiewicz — was opened in Minsk. The monument appeared in the very centre of the Upper Town, in the public garden near the Town Hall. Not far from this place is the house in which Moniuszko lived for some time and where he received his first music lessons. Meanwhile, the former palace of the Radziwills (where the Hotel Europe now stands) housed a city theatre in the middle of the 19th century. In February 1852, Sielanka (Idyll) was staged there — the first opera in the Belarusian language. The music was written by Moniuszko, the libretto was written by Dunin-Marcinkiewicz.

On September 3rd, 1941,   the ‘Cyclone B’ gas — which was a crystalline hydrocyanic acid — was first used to kill prisoners in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. Gas chambers were widely used in Nazi Germany as a means of murder in death camps, as is confirmed by numerous testimonies, as well as documents provided at the Nuremberg trials.  


September 5th   is the Day of Oil, Gas and Fuel Industry Workers in the Republic of Belarus. Oil and gas were and are key raw materials, their production is a strategically important sector of the Republican economy. Most of the fields are located in areas with harsh climatic conditions, so the hard work of gas and oil workers is well-respected. According to statistics, more than 70 percent of the oil products manufactured in Belarus are exported to 90 countries.

September 5th  is the Day of Belarusian Written Language in the Republic of Belarus. The concept of the holiday envisages showing the inviolable unity of the Belarusian printed word with the history of the Belarusian people, its close connection with the Slavic origins, as well as understanding the historical path of writing and printing in Belarus. The enlighteners of the Belarusian people are figures of a European scale: Francysk Skaryna, Kirill Turovsky, Yevfrosiniya Polotskaya, Simeon Polotsky. The capital of the Day of Belarusian Written Language in 2021 will be the city of Kopyl, Minsk Region.  

 On September 5th, 2001, Mogilevskaya metro station was solemnly opened in Minsk. This is the terminal station of the Avtozavodskaya line — the fifth busiest metro station in Minsk; on average, it is used by about 50,000 people a day. The construction took seven years. Mogilevskaya became the twentieth station of the Minsk metro. The station is two-level: on the lower one there is a stopping platform, on the upper are entrance lobbies and side pedestrian galleries.

On September 7th, 2001,  the public garden in Minsk, near the Belarusian State Musical Theatre on Myasnikov Street, was named ‘The Public Garden Named after Twin City Sendai’, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of twinning relations with the Japanese city of Sendai. The main attraction of the location is the clock. Its double-sided dial displays Sendai and Minsk time. It is especially beautiful in Sendai Park in spring, when the pink mountain Sakura begins to bloom; a whole avenue is planted with it.

September 8th is International Literacy Day, celebrated since 1967 by the decision of the 14th session of the UNESCO General Conference, at the proposal of the World Congress of Ministers of Education on the Eradication of Illiteracy on the day of its inauguration on September 8th, 1965.


On September 8th, 1941, the fascist blockade of Leningrad began. Fascist German troops reached Lake Ladoga in the Shlisselburg area and blocked the city from land: 900 days and nights of heroic defence  began, showing the world an example of the unprecedented courage of both the soldiers and townspeople.