Island of courage and sorrow

Island of courage and sorrow (Island of Tears) — a monument to soldiers-internationalists. Opened on an artificial island near the Trinity suburb August 3, 1996. Sculptor Y. Pavlov, designed by M. Korolev, T. Koroleva-Pavlova, V. Laptsevich, G. Pavlov, Pavlov, D. Homjakov.

Request of the Afghan Government to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan was associated with a political crisis after the Revolution of 1978 year in the Soviet Union announced that it is caused by the desire to strengthen the security of the Soviet Union. As a result, the so-called «limited contingent» was involved in military operations for almost ten years.

The memorial consists of a mortgage boulder with an icon, a monument-chapel, the sculpture of an angel-guardian, a memorial table and boulders with the names of Afghan provinces, where the dying Belarusian soldiers.

The basis of the main monument put the original appearance of the church of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk, such as it was in the twelfth century. Euphrosyne of Polotsk is a saint and for Catholics and Orthodox.

On the wrought-iron gates leading into the monument — the image of the largest arms of Belarusian cities and towns that played a special role in the development of Belarusian Culture in Minsk, Mogilev, Polotsk, Nesvizh, Gomel, Vitebsk, Brest, Grodno. Inside — four of the altar.

Conceived as a monument to soldiers killed in Afghanistan, became a memorial monument to the sons and daughters of Belarus, who fell in different centuries, in a foreign land under foreign flags, in other people's wars.