On September 29-30, 2023, a walking tour of the students and staff of Vitebsk State Order of Peoples' Friendship Medical University took place. It was dedicated to the 78th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and the Year of Peace and Creation. The event was organized by the VSMU administration, primary trade union organizations of VSMU students and employees, the VSMU sports club, and the patriotic club “Serving the Motherland.”

At Vitebsk State Order of Peoples' Friendship Medical University it has become a tradition to hold events dedicated to the memory of soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War. The Liozny direction was not chosen by chance, because the Liozny district became the first liberated region of the Vitebsk region from the Nazi invaders. The residents of Liozny fully experienced all the horrors of the occupation; the front stood here for nine months; less than half of the residents of the region survived.

The hike began with a visit to mass grave No. 213д000269 in the agricultural town of Vorony, Vitebsk region, where 7,827 Soviet soldiers are buried. The names of all those killed are known. Among those buried are soldiers of the 158th Rifle Division of the 84th Rifle Corps of the 39th Army. First of all, tourists began improving the area at the memorial, then laid flowers.

The next point on the hike program was a visit to the officers' burial No. 3375-157 in the agricultural town of Stasevo. This is a unique military cemetery where only officers are buried. According to the latest data, 183 people: infantrymen and tank crews, artillerymen and signalmen, scouts and sappers, miners and medics, platoon officers. 55 captains, 39 majors, 13 lieutenant colonels found their last shelter here.

Then the tourists went to the city of Liozno, Vitebsk region, to the memorial complex "Adamenskaya Gorka", immortalizing the memory of 820 soldiers of the Red Army of different nationalities from all regions of the former Soviet Union, where they laid flowers and listened to the story about the liberation of the Liozno district from the Nazi invaders, prepared by students. In the center of Liozno, the tourists laid flowers at the mass grave of Soviet soldiers and visited the "Liozno Military History Museum", where they had a tour of the Great Patriotic War hall and listened to a story about famous countrymen. 

Then the tourists went to the place chosen for setting up a tent camp - the picturesque shore of Lake Shelokhovo. The campers, working together, quickly set up camp and organized their everyday life. In the evening of the first day there was a contest of "Tourist Life and Skills" and a creative amateur art competition "Belarus Remembers". The day ended with songs accompanied by a guitar, a hearty dinner and hot tea cooked on the campfire.

The next morning, having had breakfast and an air rifle shooting competition, the travelers rolled up the camp, cleaned up the area and set off on their way. 

The hike participants thanked the organizers for the opportunity to participate in the event, which allowed them not only to test their strength and endurance, but also to get new interesting information.

This walking tour contributed to the civic-patriotic, cultural and moral education of student youth, propaganda, popularization and development of physical culture, sports and tourism as the most accessible mass form of active recreation and healthy lifestyle, improving environmental culture, knowledge about one’s country and its heroic natives.