The Belarusians between heaven and ground: Belovezhskaya Pushcha
The article by Anatoly Kozlovich,
Published in «Narodnaya Volya» (People's Will) Newspaper, #131,
July 06, 2002
— Dad, and where is the Belovezhskaya Pushcha?
— There is no Pushcha, sonny.
I cannot forget the first meeting with the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, just like people cannot forget their disappointment after the first love.
«I will show you the Belovezhskaya Pushcha tomorrow!», a chairman of the collective farm from the Pruzhany district has solemnly promised me at the end of a warm April day. Workers of the collective farm have finished sawing and the next day the chairman was going to have a rest. He found the way to spend the day off immediately as he learned that I had never visited the famous forest. His ten year old son, Vitya had also never been there and asked for a long time — «take me, take me! "
There were twenty kilometers to the Pushcha; however we have seen wildlife right on the land of the collective farm. A bison was grazing close to a main road on a winter crop. Noticing that our car stopped, the bison interrupted feeding, lowered its head and stood still, like it was lifeless. «He is observing us! », said the chairman. «He is repulsive, he will dig up the rye». « Let's banish him! « proposed Vitya. The chairman did not agree: It is dangerous to get him angry. There is not too much food in the Pushcha after the winter. He does not consume our rye for free. Bisons dig up rye, wild boars use potatoes, while I get some compensation from the Pushcha. Building materials are good there. Let's go! "
Now the forest came closer and closer to the road — first tall pines, and then a field, a meadow, a bog and bushes replaced it. Suddenly we have seen an odd stump near the side of the road. An unofficial indicator «BELOVEZHSKAYA PUSHCHA — Protected Game Ground» was set at the stump.
The chairman turned off the road, drove round a milestone and passed by a striped barrier. The Gazik car went on forest roads for a couple of hours. In some places roads were rocky, in some sandy, or wet, or almost impassable. The car jumped when passing over a narrow-gauge railway fully covered by grass. The chairman was like home in this place, he went trough road maps with information that the Wilderness Protection Zone is here, and there is no thoroughfare and no going through without special permission, and also it is forbidden to pick mushrooms and berries. Then he exclaimed as a reaction to the silent question of the son: «But the bison digs up our rye!»
There were a lot of people in the Pushcha. We overtook with difficulty three lorries loaded with long pines. We left behind some workers going on bicycles in a line. Each man carried a chainsaw at the back. We met a forester with a cart. The chairman got out of the car, shook hands and talked to him. On returning he told me and Vitya that bisons have got their food in the morning and that afterwards they left deep into a thicket. «Let's look at some centuries old oak and two hundred year old pines». We went along the drainage channel.
The oak was impressive; the three of us clasped the trunk. Pines were very high. In my childhood I saw such pines in the Karganov woods near Gorsk settlement. Pines like these made up the load of the three lorries we had seen. Leaving the place with pines we drove into a birch grove. It was like we entered a white temple. Fluffy snowdrops turned blue in a small glade. We had to linger over there. Meanwhile it was time we ate something as well.
We broke some birch branches and tied empty bottles to them so we could get some juice. While we put a cloth on the ground and hypothesized about the future yield of the blossoming wild strawberry, bottles filled up with birch juice. The chairman poured it into his son's glass, whereas he and I used vodka. A thing happened that I will remember for all my life: while eating, Vitya asks seriously «DAD, BUT WHERE IS the BELOVEZHSKAYA PUSHCHA? "
The boy expressed my feelings! The longer I stayed in the Pushcha, the more sorrowful I felt. I have not seen what I expected. Originating from a village surrounded by forest, I have seen the same woods. The Belovezhskaya Pushcha did not create a mystery image. The roads, channels, stumps, lifeless young pine plantations, the lorry column, chairman-transgressor, cutting sites covered by aspen… hindered the creation of such an image.
The feeling of disappointment hampered the joy of saying: «I am in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha!» It was the same disappointment as after the end of a love story. It was the same with what parents think of their children, when they have not come up to expectations. It was the same with children being disappointed with the future.
Something similar, as it proved to be, was in Vitya's soul. Later visiting the Pushcha I always remembered his question: «Dad, but where is the Belovezhskaya Pushcha?» And I was more convinced of its legitimacy and tragedy.
«The Belovezhskaya Pushcha», is a quarterly newspaper issued in Minsk starting with 1995. Valery Dranchuk is the publisher of this newspaper and he also undertakes all the editorial duties. He is a publicist, poet, artist, designer and editor. The edition is emotional, is full of both objective presentations of facts and of subjective impressions. I always trust the newspaper, and I appreciate it doesn't over-emphasize its «objectivity» and «detachment«. Let's give our colleague, Mr. Dranchuk the chance to speak:
«Long time ago, the number of employees of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park exceeded one thousand. People now deal with those things which do not correspond to nature protection and conservation. There are already horses and geese being bred here and there are Christmas tree plantations… All these are at the low end of the list of initiatives while trophy hunting for foreigners is among those at the top of the list. As before, science is just on the background. There is no sense to talk about the efficiency of researches. The
Now let's give Mr. Vladimir Dazkevich, scientist and author of article in the «Belovezhskaya Pushcha» newspaper, the chance to speak his mind:
«I will tell you the most sorrowful, most offensive and, perhaps, most painful words, which I have to tell. The ancient wild forest is a thing of the past. That forest, which we recently considered mysterious, great and primeval, is already lost today. I lived here for over half a century and I can prove to any commission that everything is destroyed and damaged here. And what are those people who are leaders doing here? They focus their attention on building hotels, restaurants and tennis-courts. But who will come here? Everything is extremely expensive. And what about education, what do they have to offer to inquisitive children? Where are culture, ethics, knowledge, and the love for nature? Where are the efforts to conserve Pushcha, our main natural heritage and a unique part of Europe? I feel sorry but I have to say it — in Belovezhskaya Pushcha there is already nothing left to show tourists».
And we have to listen to the Pushcha itself. We have such an opportunity. But I do not mean listening to the humming of the birds that populate the forest or the noise of the tree tops in the wind or the silence of the thickets. I mean the man. The man is capable to express by itself everything. Belovezhskaya Pushcha can describe its condition through the words of the man who was born in 1912 near its center, the Viskuly village, in a family of forest wardens. His name is Andrei Prokopchuk, you know him from one of my chronicles.
In 1930, Mr. Prokopchuk together with his family and a group of fellow countrymen left Western Byelorussia and took on a way to Paraguay looking for a better life. With their own hands they made the best of lives for them in a foreign land. But the call of the native Land cannot be eradicated. In 1996, after sixty six years of separation, the old man — a deep believer (he accepted the doctrine of Baptism before leaving to Paraguay) visited Belarus. In 1999, Mr. Prokopchuk published in Brest his autobiographical book «In perfect places» (the title is an expression from the Bible). Below the meeting of the old man with his native Land is described:
«We have already arrived in Viskuly. There are several houses. The director of the national park shows us a house that was my birth place. He explains: »This house is the oldest; it is more than 100 years old«. We do not have permission to enter the house. And at this moment I had a feeling of vexation, as never before in my life. My thoughts came out an I started talking: that is the place where you've seen light for the first time, here you said the word »mum« the first time and here you stood on your own feet. I was almost beside myself. I wanted to fall on the ground, to kiss it and to lay there for a while, but I restrained myself somehow … Near this house a perfect palace is situated, it is the palace where the Soviet leaders have disintegrated the Soviet Union. According to the director, meetings of influential people of the world are held in this palace. This place is considered as one of the safest in the world… Belovezhskaya Pushcha looks desolated. Germans and Englishmen have taken away the best trees. Only young wood remained. It is a completely different wood compared with the past, when, as a shepherd, I brought the cattle from the Zanoviny village here… Wild grass covers houses and nobody services streets« cleanliness. Modern civilization has not reached Zanoviny, and this village has turned into a settlement of long gone times. Why did it happen like this? Is the atheism of the authorities causing this? Leaving God by the nation? Oh, dear Belarus! How much you need peace with God!
The Property Management Department of the Presidential Administration of the Republic of Belarus manages the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. It also has other reserves and national parks of the country under its jurisdiction. As a matter of fact, Belovezhskaya Pushcha is placed on the same footing as a paper clip. In order to buy a paper clip, money needs to be taken out of the Pushcha. Besides, it is necessary to dress, feed, provide services and utilities to and militarize the «nation's father». Also it is necessary to satisfy the growing needs of the indefinitely increasing number of administrators.
Pushcha is a desired piece, which makes the authority salivate excessively. Belarus, as we hear, is building the «socialism with human face». This truly native socialism is based on the sale of natural resources and raw materials. Its face has been transformed by desire, it has the face of an omnivorous greedy pig that swallows the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. It swallows the Pushcha and does not choke!
What kind of ware is most popular in Belarus for a foreign buyer? Right, it is wood. And we have trees in the country which were planted after the war; the wood is entirely too young for harvesting and it has low quality for the trade market. The mature timber which, let's admit, is suitable for producing parquet planks, has been saved in Belarus sporadically on sites where timber exploitation was difficult. These sites were called «reserves» during Soviet times, and now the presidential authority renamed them «national parks». The new status has deprived reserves even of the inviolability that was declared with hypocrisy before. The new authority, destroying the
The main mystery of Belovezhskaya Pushcha is that it NEVER WAS RESERVED, even though it was always called a reserve, ever since the beginning of the written, more or less systematic, history of this region. If we leave aside the
The first measures for preserving nature in the Pushcha, reminding of the modern protection activities, were taken the in the
The favourite game of the princes was bison. Bison became a rarity in Europe in the
Naturally, princes wanted to live well and for this to happen it was necessary either to be at war, or to develop trade. They were at war a lot, and between wars they traded. Nickolai Gusovsky writes in «Song for the bison» (1522):
A wonder land is our great principality,
But there is not only beauty in its green world.
Our woods bring big benefits to the land-lords:
They are a pantry of soft resin and pitch for ships,
Of fur, of honey, of wax and game.
So a foreign merchant can untie his purse« strings
Without closing the hand at our plentiful offers.
Everything is here, like pine for ships, oak for handicrafts,
Logs for rich houses from kingdoms without forests.
Belovezhskaya Pushcha, remaining a place for entertainment of princes, has raised economic interests. Two purposes have opened a strong contradiction. Legislation was necessary to bring forestry and hunting to order in the lands of the Great Lithuanian Principality, therefore «Statute 588» was issued. The specification of «the care» governors should have in regard to the Pushcha provided the illuminated personalities with incentives to develop good rules of nature use in the state. However they did not analyze the correspondence between fashionable entertainments and these rules, therefore the wild Middle Ages were to stay within Pushcha's borders. At the royal hunt from September 27th 1752, 42 male bisons, 18 female bisons and 6 bison calves were killed. A little earlier the crown holding murderers have exterminated the red deer in the Pushcha.
After Poland was divided for the third time, Russia became the owner of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha (and Belarus) in 1795. The final stage of the destruction of Pushcha had started, and at the end of it is the question asked by ten year old Vitya «But where is the Belovezhskaya Pushcha? "
Covered by the shield of imperial hunting economy, the high-ranking businessmen administrated the unique woods; Pushcha became the property of their purses and was sold out to England, Germany and France. The naval construction department from Russia had cut down the best oaks and pines to use them as ship masts. Clear cuttings were conducted in the Pushcha. «The Bell», a newspaper issued by Hertzen (1861) had published an article under the title «Intense business», in regard to these problems.
Russian scientists tried to start researches in the Pushcha. They were successful in stopping clear cuttings, making the inventory of the forest, isolating the Pushcha by ditches and fences.
This progress was possible because Pushcha actually became the property of the imperial family. Traditional entertainments though, continued here. On the 6th and 7th of October 1860, 28 bisons became the victims of a mad imperial hunt. After having a good time, the hunters and casual owners left for the capital. But the imperial fence constructed around the Pushcha remained to tell peasants: do not go, do not touch. Being under its protection like under a letter of warranty, experts carried out botanical researches, restored the red deer population and fed the bisons. They were thinking at the future.
Casual workers have come back to the Pushcha together with the First World War. This time they were Germans. For over two and a half years occupants have taken from the Belovezhskaya Pushcha as much wood as almost all the buyers and thieves of Europe had during the ĠIĠth century. Germans got into inaccessible places, built there railways and took away the most valuable things (the chairman of the collective farm drove me to a German narrow gauge railway).
Using German railways (with a total length of 300 kilometers!) the Poles greedily took wood out of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha between 1919 — 1939. A patch of forest was named National Park; there Polish scientists have reintroduced the bison, contributing this way to the world culture. At the same time, Polish timber merchants struggled to fight culture, destroying the Belarusian Belovezhskaya Pushcha as a standard of natural forests.
During the Second World War, Germans continued to deliver wood from Belovezhskaya Pushcha to their country. To avoid being disturbed, they moved the local population out the Pushcha and annihilated 80 villages.
After the war the local population came back to the burnt villages and started to cut the Pushcha in order to build new houses. During the war, the Belarusian woods served people as a home, but after war came to an end, people did not feel compassion for the woods. They cut down its rests, which were economically valuable. They cut the Belovezhskaya Pushcha too, even though it became a reserve in 1944. A hunting palace for Supreme Communist leaders was also built here. In 1957 Belovezhskaya Pushcha was sanctimoniously renamed «protected game ground». Pushcha was raped in order to avoid the fair punishment. They have forced to it lie: I am a virgin.
Five centuries ago the poet Nickolai Gusovski wanted to revive the Pushcha and the nation simultaneously. He understood revival as a uniform process of ethnic, cultural and nature conservation. He was a Utopian, but his idea remains as perfect and as essential to this day. The present stranglers of the Belarusian Revival have taken away language, flag, coat of arms and Pushcha from the nation — all of them simultaneously.
The present authority, that assumed the governing methods of all former authorities and surpassed in hardware equipment all previous businessmen, roots us out of the native land, hems our ancient roots and deprives us of our future.
I cannot know what my personal future will be like. However, I can say about the future of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha with a sorrow: if the present tendencies will continue, Belovezhskaya Pushcha will share the destiny of the KOBRINSKAYA PUSHCHA in ten years. Readers, don't you know such a forest? But I know! It existed in the past. I have caught the times when it was still breathing on earth. Kobrinskaya Pushcha, contiguous to the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, is where I spent my childhood. In the next chronicle I will tell when, how and why the Kobrinskaya Pushcha left us.
And as finally I appeal personally to Mister Macuura.
You have to know that Belarusians do not perceive Belovezhskaya Pushcha as a unique place, which is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List from 1992 and is subject to strict and uncompromising protection. By the end of the twentieth century, Belovezhskaya Pushcha as a unique monument of nature was separated from the state, society and local inhabitants. Belovezhskaya Pushcha is considered and perceived only as a relatively large forest, whose economic potential is not fully used, and therefore attracts burning interest.
Belarusians have not formed in their conscience a link between Pushcha and the emotional image of the Mother Land; have not considered it a symbol of Belarus like, for instance, the Japanese consider the sacred mountain of Fujiyama, which is a traditional presence in the Japanese art and a place of popular and patriotic pilgrimage. Mister Macuura please tell about your Fuji to the President of Belarus, comrade Lukashenka, for whom Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the sacred peak of Belarus, is only a summer residence.
I inform You, as a person and representative of UN and UNESCO, about the tragic event taking place at the centre of Europe: Belovezhskaya Pushcha did not become the heroine of a
Mister Macuura, help Belarusians protect Belovezhskaya Pushcha from themselves!