On December 8, 1991, the Belavezha accords opened the history of the new Belarus. For 27 years now our country has been walking the path of independence.
Stanislau Shushkevich considers the independence of Belarus and the removal of nuclear weapons from its territory to be the main results of the Belavezha accords and his presidency in the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR. It was the signature of Shushkevich that was the first one to be put under the USSR disbandment document.
Eight months earlier, in March 1991, the Communist Party, which ruled the country, organized a nationwide referendum which allegedly showed the will of the people to preserve the USSR. Soon after the Soviet empire collapsed, but a large part of the interviewed passers-by kept nostalgic feelings for the country.
“It was much easier to live in the Soviet Union than it is now, though there was a goods deficit,” they say.
The Belavezha accords were a continuation of the so-called “parade of sovereignties” of the former Soviet republics, in which Belarus declared its independence only the tenth in line after Russia, Georgia, the Baltic and other Soviet republics.
There is still a lot of nostalgia for the Soviet times. Nevertheless, the past will be the past, even though some people want to bring it back.
Halina Abakunchyk
