Distinguished Belarusians honored with Spiritual Revival awards

In accordance with the decision of the Belarus President, five Spiritual Revival awards have been presented for results achieved in 2012. The awards were bestowed upon priests, pedagogues, workers of charity organizations, author and worker collectives for active humanitarian work. President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko signed the relevant decree on 8 January.

Among the awardees are the architects, who have worked out the design to restore the 16-17th centuries palace and park complex in Nesvizh.

The award was bestowed upon Igor Dyatlovsky, Director of the Radoshkovichi boarding school for orphans and children deprived of parental care. Thanks to Igor Dyatlovsky dozens of orphans are raised in a homelike environment, get education, and become decent citizens.

The spiritual Revival awards was presented to Mother Superior Gavriila of the Grodno Saint Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Stavropegial Nunnery of the Belarusian Orthodox Church, for her considerable personal input to the spiritual revival of Belarus, publishing, spiritual education and charity efforts aimed to preserve the historical and cultural heritage.

Among the awardees are personnel of the Gomel Oblast medicine and genetics diagnostics center with the marriage and family consultation service. The personnel have achieved considerable results in bringing down child mortality and disability rate, providing aid to parents, who want to conceive children, propagating the values of matrimony and sound family relations.

Vitaly Kulpeksha, Director of the religious mission Catholic Charity Society Caritas of the Vitebsk Eparchy of the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus, was awarded for efforts in the humanitarian field, the preservation and propagation of charity and mercy traditions in the Belarusian society.

Aleksandr Lukashenko also signed a decree to confer ten special awards of the Belarus President on people of culture and art for results achieved in 2012.

The awards went to people of culture and art, writers, pedagogues, authors and artists, theaters, museums, libraries for major achievements in the sphere of musical, and theatrical art, imaginative literature, cinema and video art, folk and amateur artwork, museum and library trade, the upbringing of creative youth.

Since the year 2012 was the Year of the Book in Belarus, works of many awardees were related to the Belarusian literature and written word this way or another.

Awards went to the team of the National Academic Grand Opera and Ballet Theater of the Republic of Belarus and the author team of the movie actor studio of the National Film Studio Belarusfilm for the vivid scenic implementation of Belarusian literature classicists. Awards were bestowed upon personnel of the National Library of Belarus for the considerable contribution to the preservation and popularization of the book legacy of Belarus, upon personnel of the Yanka Kupala State Literature Museum for their efforts to propagate the works by the people’s poet and writer, and upon Anatoly Cheboganov, a writer, for the series of historic documentary books I Am A Son of Yours.

Belarus President awards went to those, who have made a considerable contribution to the preservation and propagation of the cultural and spiritual legacy of the Belarusian nation. The number includes personnel of the Dribin District History and Ethnography Museum (Mogilev Oblast) and the amateur theater Khmeleuskiya Valatsugi of the Khmelevo Rural Community Center of Zhabinka District, Brest Oblast. They have done a lot to revive folk crafts, rites, and folk art in their regions. The award was also bestowed upon the Minsk City History Museum for creating an exposition of the art gallery by Mikhail Savitsky, a prominent painter and a Hero of Belarus.

One of the awards went to Galina Adamovich, a documentary movie director, for her movies about people of culture and sports that had been lauded at international cinema festivals and to Albina Pekutko, Head of the Choral and Vocal Art Chair of the Belarusian State Culture and Arts University, for the sizeable personal contribution to the development of the Belarusian school of academic choral singing.

The decrees are a vivid testimony to the government’s unwavering attention towards the formation of a sound spiritual environment in the Belarusian society, towards the preservation and augmentation of the national cultural heritage, the development of the Belarusian culture and art, the inspiration of love for the Fatherland, the propagation of ideas of love for the mankind, benevolence and mercy.