12 November 2003, 16:29
"Journey of Peace" delivered letters to Chechen children and made Alley of Peace in Grozny
A successive stage of "the people's peacemaking action" "Journey of Peace", which started in Yekaterinburg a month ago, is over. Five action participants - members of public organizations - have covered 4,500 kilometers in this time and visited Perm, Kirov, Vladimir, Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, and Grozny. In the towns that carriage with humanitarian aid passed though, pupils, inmates of children's homes and boarding schools handed over bags with letters to "an unknown Chechen friend". In Chechnya the participants of the "Journey of Peace" visited Grozny, Gudermes, Nazran, Karabulak, the villages of Goy-Chu, Gekhi-Chu, Znamenskoye, and Gekalo.
12 schools (including one school for the deaf and one school for the blind), 4 kindergartens, 2 children's homes, an Orthodox church, a hostel for the blind, the Grozny Central Library, and a temporary accommodation center received humanitarian aid of the action. The humanitarian load consisted of books, manuals, stationery, things for children, sports equipment and equipment for schools and children's grounds, musical instruments, medical supplies, food products, sewing-machines to create work places. Besides, the Alley of Peace was made on Pervomayskaya Street of Grozny - trees from different Russian regions and saplings presented by Zelenstroy of Grozny were planted.
Anastasiya Maltseva, a regional branch activist of the Memorial Society, told that the action was aimed not only at gathering humanitarian aid for children of Chechnya, but it was a kind of attempt to unite people in their quest for peace as "that which is happening in Chechnya is a catastrophe for the whole Russia."
Source: Interregional Peacemaking Coalition of Public Organizations