Memory Garden planted to commemorate wartime doctors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Institute of Fundamental medicine and Biology gathered volunteers on April 24 to fulfill the commitment.

The planting took place near Dormitory N 1, one of Kazan University’s older dormitory buildings in the city center. After cleaning up the territory, the volunteers planted seedlings of aspen, birch, chestnut, oak and lilac.

The event was joined by Vice-Rector for Construction and Maintenance Lenar Safiullin, Vice-Rector for Biomedicine Andrey Kiyasov and Vice-Rector for Social Work and Student Affairs Arif Mezhvedilov.

One of the buildings currently housing the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology was previously a military hospital. During the Second World War, it treated over 32 thousand servicepersons and 13 thousand other patients. Over 80 percent of the aforementioned military staff returned to battle.

Sophomore student Aslan Nuran said that it’s her first time planting a tree, “As we are training to become doctors, this event is especially important for us. I am planting a lilac. It will be a beautiful tree for sure.”

Junior year student Zukhra Ibragimova joined in, “We want for the doctors to be remembered through the years and for these trees to grow after we’ll have finished the studies.”

The Memory Garden initiative was launched in 2020. The objective is to plant a tree for every person deceased in the Soviet Union as a casualty of the Second World War, which amounts to 27 million trees.

Source text: Rufina Gimaletdinova

Photo: Alexander Kuznetsov

Translation: Yury Nurmeev