Truong Thi Street and revolutionary memories

(Baonghean) - On these special Autumn days, Vinh City residents, when walking on Truong Thi Street, suddenly slow down, look up at the Uncle Ho Statue on the Square named after him to contemplate the moments when the city celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding with mixed emotions before the eternal departure of General Vo Nguyen Giap...

Many people still remember the old General's quick steps up Chung Mountain to simulate the occasion of visiting Ho Chi Minh Square in 2004. It is likely that the General's steps, which had gone through many long marches, were urged not only when returning to the memorial work of his revolutionary teacher, his great leader, but also when he recalled returning to a famous revolutionary site associated with his youthful revolutionary activities and his great love for martyr Nguyen Thi Quang Thai (the wedding was held in Vinh in 1935). Truong Thi - that revolutionary site has been named for the main road running in front of Ho Chi Minh Square, connecting National Highway 1 through Vinh City with Lenin Avenue today.

Truong Thi Street - Vinh City.

This road named after a rare land in Vinh has been and will be remembered more in the emotions of these Autumn days, when all people's hearts turn to the legendary General Vo Nguyen Giap. As if imagining an Autumn day in 1931, on the train from Hue, there was an intellectual young man with bright eyes full of ambition who stopped in Vinh Town before going to Hanoi to study at An-be Xa-ro School. It is very possible that the young man excitedly set foot on Vinh Street as soon as the train stopped at Truong Thi Railway Factory, because eagerly waiting for him was a girl with the same revolutionary aspirations whom he had met and fallen in love with during the days when they were both imprisoned by the French in Thua Phu Prison (Hue) - she was Nguyen Thi Quang Thai, who later became the beloved wife of the General.

And in the following days, each time he returned to Vinh to meet his lover and get married in 1935, surely the revolutionary soldier Vo Nguyen Giap came to Truong Thi - Ben Thuy many times, at least because to thank the "standing up first" struggle of the Truong Thi workers in the 1930-1931 revolutionary movement, he and Mrs. Quang Thai both actively participated, then were arrested and met each other, so that the couple's love grew with the love for the homeland, the revolutionary enthusiasm...

I wonder, passing through this street, how many people wonder when this road has “grown up”? Since when, that it is so spacious, with wide sidewalks? Since when, that the purple-flowered trees are still young, stretching their green leaves to sway in the burning sunlight of Thanh Vinh? And suddenly startled: there is a row of shady palm trees, as if it has been there for a long time. That street corner with that row of palm trees is like a peaceful painting on the noisy, bustling, and hurried streets. People sell sugarcane juice, coconut juice, or in the evening, add in the artichoke, iced tea… And it seems that all those people have a slow, leisurely appearance. Even those who come to drink water seem to want to look out at the streets to ponder, to wait. A small, very strange road, runs from Truong Thi Street to Goong Lake. Only a short distance, but all worries seem to be suddenly left behind when encountering the vast, deep lake.

Not far away, but it seems so far away, the day this street was just a dirt road running through the rice fields. Even older, counting the time when the feudal school built the Confucian examination school in Nghe An, the place where Truong Thi Street is now was still a rice field; when the French built the Truong Thi Railway Factory after the second colonial exploitation (in 1914), to build the factory foundation, they had to dig up a large amount of soil to create the current Goong Lake, then there were small paths from Hung Dung, including one path that coincides with today's Truong Thi Street. Through many ups and downs of time, the scorched earth resistance of Vinh, the country's reunification after the Great Victory of Spring 1975, in the strong reconstruction of the young city, Truong Thi Street was graded and paved until 1997 when it was expanded and officially named the street as it is today.

And Truong Thi Street has become the most special street in Vinh City because it is the only street with no houses, offices or private service establishments on both sides. The 4-star Phuong Dong Hotel, numbered 1 at the intersection with Le Duan and Tran Phu streets, was once considered the "locomotive" for the spacious and modern office buildings that have been and are growing on the east side of the street, through Nguyen Tat Thanh Park, to the end point of the Nghe An Provincial Party Committee and Customs. Only then can we see that with human strength, faith and love for the country, today's "decent and beautiful" buildings have proudly grown from ruins and desolation.

You may think that I am saying something old and trite when I mention the name Truong Thi that has shone in the history of the revolutionary struggle of my homeland, but that is the real pride that exists in me, when I walk on the street of my ward. Like at this moment, even though I am a familiar face, I still slowly blend into the flow of people passing by, coming to Ho Chi Minh Square, respectfully under the Uncle Ho Statue, to share a little experience in the mixed emotions of the atmosphere of celebrating the city's 50th anniversary, and the tears of sorrow when seeing off General Vo Nguyen Giap. I suddenly recalled the memories of Mr. Bui Van Chat (Truong Thi Poetry Club - Vinh City): "On the occasion of the 90th birthday of General Vo Nguyen Giap, the delegation of Truong Thi Poetry Club brought our poetry collection "Big Brother" to Hanoi, to 30 Hoang Dieu to congratulate. When mentioning Truong Thi, his eyes lit up: "Hello comrades of Truong Thi - Ben Thuy!", then he shook each person's hand tightly. It seemed like he was recalling the suffocating but extremely determined days that could never be forgotten of Truong Thi workers, both in green and brown shirts: 15 days of factory closure, 15 days of thousands of workers being pushed onto the sidewalk, 15 thousand families suffering from hunger and poverty, but the workers still bravely fought back".

So, can we compare it like this: Truong Thi Street with the constructions of Ho Chi Minh Square, Nguyen Tat Thanh Park and the place where the highest Party and government agencies of the province stand, connecting to Lenin Avenue, is a "revolutionary street" that shows the determination and great aspiration to advance in the revolutionary cause that our predecessors have worked hard to pave the way?!

Sam Temple