Abstrakt
The Tractormakers' neighborhood is "difficult heritage" in post-socialist Belarus. A former socialist window-shop, exemplary proletarian housing is forgotten by the Minsk officials today, its ensemble quality of architecture is being destroyed.
Belarusian dictatorship is not interested in cultivation of memory, it is blind for the historical role of the site so important for the postwar reconstruction and modernization of Belarus. Socialist past is not reflected, but exploited as political instrument, myth of golden age.
Politics of memory stand against culture of memory. The struggle for recognition and preservation of the tractor neighborhood and also of similar architecture in Minsk is the matter of civil activism and reflects the process of developing civil responsibility in belarusian society.
Particular traits of the socialist industrial neighborhood such as enclosed yards and classicist elements of decor, built identity of its inhabitants and are the reference point of individual stories within historical past.