The Presidential Residence is not an entrance to a back yard
The article by Elena Tribuleva,
Published in «Vecherniy Brest» (The Evening Brest) Newspaper, #55(963),
July 09, 2003
A camera and a net in the hands of a scientist were the reason for throwing him out of Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
Belovezhskaya Pushcha is actually a top secret site. Journalists writing the «wrong» articles do not have access there because they only create trouble. The governmental residence Viskuly, despite frequent appeals from tourism agencies in Brest, is still closed to foreigners wishing to see the palace. As the director of the reserve put it «the presidential residence is not the entrance to your back yard». Now access to the Pushcha is restricted for local inhabitants too, even though they grew up there. Recently a local person took a camera and a net for catching butterflies and went in the forest on bicycle. Later he was announced that he roughly infringed the nature protection legislation and that he will suffer all the consequences implied by such breaking of the law: he will be taken out of the forest, will be filed with a report, will have to pay a fine, and on top of this he has also been promised to get beaten if he comes back another time. So this is what the administration understands by protection measures in the Pushcha…
It is necessary to explain that here we are not speaking of any poacher planning acts against local fauna or flora, but about a teacher from the village school. Further, we have to emphasize that he is not the least an ordinary teacher, while he has the scientific degree of Philosophy Doctor in Biology. Until November 2001 Heorhi Kazulka worked in the Reserve as deputy director on science but, like many other former employees, he did not agree with the approaches and management methods of the new administrators of the Reserve, and was urgently compelled to train for a new profession. This was the man whom the local forest warden «tied up» when seeing him running across a glade with his camera and a net, trying to catch butterflies. The forest warden stopped him, put down some remarks in a notebook and then released him. Strange? Certainly!
The Director of the Park Nickolai Bambiza together with associates, seeing his former deputy director within the protected area, also suspected him of doing something wrong. The Director punched the scientist as hard as he could in the jaw (according to words of the victim) and ordered him to get out of the forest. «Well, I took the bicycle and moved towards the Park's gate…», Heorhi shockingly said to the author of this article. «Choosing to fight with director is a bad idea. The director's car moved behind me and constantly tried to make me ride to the side of the road. » Then Mr. Datzkevich's car appeared from the opposite direction. He manages the protection service of the Park. «Stop! he said, but I thought that stopping was dangerous and that it would have been better to reach the post near the Park's entrance gate as soon as possible because there are people there. I was not able to run away though. They rammed my bicycle with the car and then they put me through an interrogatory. They said: we saw your camera, let us have the film. In the beginning I thought of telling them I threw the film away. But when they threatened to start a search, I took it out and exposed it to light. It's a pity, because there were family pictures on the film as well…»
«The film became the main count of indictment for the accusing party: if I exposed the film to light it meant I wanted to erase some forbidden pictures I took, for example of bark beetle infection centers. They thought so because the different methods to control the beetle infection were the reason for the first big conflict between the new director and employees of the Reserve.»
What were Mr. Kazulka's reasons for taking pictures of bark beetle infection centers in the director's view? Right! Mr. Kazulka was preparing to give the next compromising material to the press. They even stated this in the report of the administrative offence: « the infringer was detained in quarter 741 of the Korolevo-Mostovskoye forestry where he engaged in photographing bark beetle infection centers and collecting materials for the press (!) without the approval of the Park's administration ». On coming home, while still under shock, Heorhi looked through a pile of juridical normative documents trying to understand what kind of stipulation of nature protection laws he broke. He did not find anything. Yet he was convinced once more that an approval from the Park's administration is not required for visiting the Regular Nature Protection Zone of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park and neither for photographing something within this area. But what is the crime then?
However, the lack of legal base did not become an impediment for the administrative commission of the Kamenetz District Executive Committee, which took in consideration the report, and imposed the Philosophy Doctor a fine of 14 thousand roubles (~ 7$). Heorhi lodged a complaint to the justice court appealing the decision of the administrative commission. And he won. The Kamenetz District Court did not find evidence of his infringement of nature protection legislation and therefore it subjected the commission's decision to cancellation and closed the judicial action.
This stupid story would be considered closed unless the representative of the National Park promised irrepressible Kazulka, just after the end of the trial, to wring his neck if he sets foot on the territory of the Reserve again. It is irrelevant whether he violates legislative acts or not. Disregard shown to his person by the Park's administration is sufficient reason to forbid him from visiting. Even if he has an innocent net for catching butterflies…
Is this because he can unintentionally see something that outsiders should not find out?