Monday, December 01, 2008

The “Golden autumn” of Belarusian debates

Autumn in Belarus has come to its logical conclusion, and it’s high time we analysed the results. The work of Belarusian debaters really deserves the description ‘fruitful’ during these three months. Here are just a few of the activities we held.

In September, we prolonged the summer as much as possible by visiting the southern Belarus town of Svetlogorsk, which greeted us with sunny weather and a surprising interest in debate. Despite the town’s small size, the debate movement in Svetlogorsk is very active. Pupils had been studying debates for a week with the help of Slovak coaches Kubo Macak, Matej Macak and Matej Kurian. We participated in their lessons and were amazed by the children’s enthusiasm despite the challenges of language. Both children and coaches enjoyed the week and even organized a real debate tournament at the end. We watched the games, helped debaters overcome the embarrassment and difficulties of the language barrier, and were pleased with the eagerness and quality we saw. All in all, we were reluctant to leave Svetlogorsk, and delighted to have new friends and fellow debaters. Our enthusiasm had the locals in Svetlogorsk interested in organizing a real club there and the students are eager to participate in our national tournaments.

Dreary October weather didn’t deplete our energy. The small village of Byhov, which invited debate coaches to work with their pupils, is not only historically significant, but also a town where people can and want to debate. During the seminar there, we taught children and coaches the main rules and principles of debates, as well as the importance of debates in today’s society. In the village of Gluhovo, our task was to convince teachers and pupils that debating is not a privilege of big cities – they can also learn to debate and succeed as well as anyone else. The inhabitants of the village were inspired by this notion, and formed a debate club.
The culmination of the autumn events came in November, the coldest month. But inside the debate rooms it was rather hot. A traditional Autumn debate tournament was held in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. This year the tournament was a significant one – not only were there many teams from Minsk, as well as other cities and towns of Belarus, and not only we did we greet our traditional guests from St. Petersburg (Russia), but it was also the first visit to Belarus of debaters from Yakutsk, the capital of Yakutia, the autonomous republic of the Russian Federation. Seven brave children and their teacher flew 13 hours and then took a long train ride to arrive here. They were happy with the “warm” weather (5Cº above zero versus -15Cº in their homeland), Belarusian hospitality, and of course the profound and interesting debates. The tournament consisted not only of games, but a presentation of Belarusian and Yakutian culture, traditional food and drinks and a great number of songs. Not everyone was satisfied with his or her debate results, but everyone enjoyed the atmosphere of friendship and intelligence during this tournament.

Autumn has ended… but many of the debate projects still fill our minds, and we hope to keep them warm enough through winter to realize all of them.
-- Nastya Zhvalevskaya, Belarus

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