Hrodna District: Schoolmaster Made to Retire because Polish Consul Attended Opening of Curriculum Year

On 1 September the secondary school in the village of Milkaushchyna (Hrodna district) was named after the well-known Polish writer Eliza Ozheszko. The celebration of this event as well as the opening of the new curriculum year was attended by the graduates of this school, its friends from Lithuania, representatives of the Union of Poles in Belarus and the General Consul of Poland in Hrodna Andrzej Krentowski.

According to the BelaPAN information, Mr Krentowski was invited to the village by the public association Polska Macierz Szkolna that coordinates the work of the schools of the Polish Diaspora with the Polish language of instruction.

˜On 4 September I was summonsed to Hrodna, where the deputy chair of Hrodna District Executive Committee Valery Klimovich and the chair of the education department Aliaksandr Sautsou stated that as a result of the consul’s presence at the celebration they had many problems. Then they proposed me to retire’, said the Uladzimir Trakhimchyk. ˜In this situation I decided to retire from school on my own free will’, he added.

A.Sautsou commented to BelaPAN: ˜Trakhimchyk retired because he lives in Hrodna and the school is 33 kilometers from his home, which is quite a long way. We proposed him another job, nearer to his house.’ However, he refused to tell what position was proposed and where Mr Trakhimchyk would work.

Let us remind that Uladzimir Trakhimchyk has headed the secondary school in Milkaushchyna since 1998 and coordinated the school activity related to honoring of Ozheszko’s memory. This year the school has opened the writer’s museum and restored the old sinkhole that was used by Ozheszko’s family. The schoolchildren also planned to restore the destroyed family estate of the Paulouski’s family, make an exposition about other famous persons from Skidzel and Milkaushchyna with a maple alley and flowerbeds and also meet with their foreign friends.