Memorial Peloton ride in Bialystok

On 24 August 2024, while on the way to the peleton of the European Day of Remembrance of Stalinism and Nazism Victims in Bialystok, Poland, a researcher of the Occupation Museum of Latvia (LOM), Dr. hist. Edvīns Evarts, visited LOM's cooperation partner in Vilnius, Lithuania, – The Memorial Complex of Tuskulėnai Peace Park. He viewed two exhibitions Homo Sovjeticus and Secrets of Tusculeni Manor and was also shown the columbarium that contains the urns of people killed by the Soviet regime.

The next day, Dr. Evarts visited the Siberian Memorial Museum in Bialystok (Muzeum Pamięci Sybiru). The museum has audio guides in several languages, including Latvian, that provide important additional information about the exhibits. 

The series of commemorative events, which began a few days earlier in Riga and Vilnius, featured a memorial peloton in Bialystok. About 150 participants took part in the bike ride that included several sites of importance to the city and its residents – locations where professional actors told the life stories of deportees. One of these was about Marija Stakle from Latvia, who is well known in Latvia because her embroidered handkerchief is the prototype of the memorial The Historical Tactile built next to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia.

The peloton ended at the Memorial Museum Siberia, where riders were greeted by two women survivors of Siberian deportation, and who shared their life stories. The whole event ended with the lighting of memorial candles for all of those killed and injured in Siberia.