Visiting President Ho Chi Minh’s memorial site
06/07/07 (GMT+7)
Visiting President Ho Chi Minh, in the centre of Hanoi where these is a relic site in honour of President Ho Chi Minh which is flooded with a peaceful atmosphere, green colour and the scent of flowers on trees.
During the past 32 years, the site – located next to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Ba Dinh Square – has received over 40 million domestic and foreign visitors who have come to see with their own eyes the working and living place of Ho Chi Minh, the beloved great leader and liberation hero of Vietnam, a great cultural man of humanity.
Even the current hot weather can not prevent visitors and local people from standing in long lines to pay tribute to President Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum.
Mrs Nguyen Phuong Lan from Phu Minh commune and her two children were among many from Soc Son suburban district of Hanoi who often visit the memorial site every summer.
She said: “It has been our family’s tradition to travel to Hanoi and pay tribute to President Ho at his mausoleum. When I was young, my father awarded me a visit to Hanoi for my good study results.”
She recalled the joyful moments going around President Ho’s stilt house and stressed that she would continue her family’s tradition.
Many visitors also shared the same sentiments and thinking with Mrs Lan. It is not only to realise their the aspiration but also a way to express their sacred sentiments toward the beloved leader of Vietnam.
Mr Bui Kim Hong, director of the site, said that it features specially important values because it reflects truly and profoundly the daily life of President Ho Chi Minh during his 15 last years from 1954 to 1969 and also one of the most eventful periods of the nation’s history.
All documents, exhibits and vestiges relating to President Ho Chi Minh are carefully preserved as if he is still living and working. The first stop is the Presidential Palace which was formerly the governor’s palace in the French-ruled period.
After the successful resistance against the French colonialists, the house was used as a working and reception place of the Government and State following President Ho Chi Minh’s proposal.
The house witnessed much internal and external activities of President Ho as the head of the Party and State. It was also the place where he read Tet greetings to Vietnamese people at home and abroad.
The second destination is House 54 where President Ho lived and worked after returning to Hanoi from 1954 to 1958. It was this place where he drafted many important documents for the Party and State concerning the revolutionary lines for both the north and the south, initiated specific policies to meet the country’s practice and the revolution’s requirements.
On the left side is a garage displaying two cars presented by the Government of the former Soviet Union and overseas Vietnamese, a Pobeda and a Peugeot 404, which served President Ho Chi Minh during the time he worked and lived there.
Opposite House 54 and on the other side of the fish pond is a stilt house where President Ho lived and worked from 1958 to 1969.
The house was designed according to the style of stilt houses of the ethnic people in the northernmost region with a rose-mallow fence, remembering Nghe An, his native land. At this house, President Ho used to work with the Politburo and officials from different localities and received international guests together with cadres and fighters from the south. It was also the place where President Ho wrote the appeal calling on the entire people to struggle against the US aggressor for national salvation after the enemy escalated the war to the north.
He also started the first lines of his testament left for the entire Party and people. The house is preserved like he was living, including a bookshelf, a small transistor radio together with other simple things for his daily use.
Behind it is House 67 built with thick walls and its roof was made of ferro-concrete to become a safe place for him during the war. He then decided to use it as the headquarters of the Politburo. President Ho stayed in the house for treatment until he passed away on 2 September 1969.
The site also has other interesting areas such as a 3,000-metre fish pond in which assorted of fish are raised. After finishing work, President Ho used to feed the fish.
Next to it is a garden with a diverse eco-system including 161 varieties of trees and some aged over hundreds of years, creating a beautiful landscape. There still exists a star fruit tree presented by southern people to President Ho, suggesting that the southern region was always in his heart.
Also within the garden is the Xoai (mangro) Road, recalling his early morning steps as he walked and exercised. At the end of the road is a flower trellis which marks President Ho’s moving sentiments toward southern people and fighters, children and international guests.
Mr Nguyen Anh Minh, a member staff of the site’s management board said that the preservation of the relic promoted its historical and cultural value and helped visitors understand more about President Ho’s great thoughts, morals and his life devoted to the people and the nation. It is also a statement for all Vietnamese people and international friends to learn about the cultural values of Vietnam of which President Ho Chi Minh is the most significant embodiment.
(Source: Nhan Dan)
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