The legend is new but trust is few!
The article by Victor Bakharev,
The senior lecturer, Philosophy Doctor in Biology, Grodno city
Specially for the site "Belovezhskaya Pushcha — XXI Century",
November 25, 2003
Already 17 years is back as I parted with my first love for all life — Belovezhskaya Pushcha. I left but my soul and body remained their. Yes, be not surprised! I am looking for any occasion and slightest opportunity that to see it, to visit it, to talk to people. The people living in the Pushcha are peculiar. They do not like to speak much. They are externally reserved people. But if they open soul so big mine of humour, philosophy and everyday knack is appeared.
The Pushcha is unique therefore the attitude to this forest must be special. As a fact, the Pushcha has brought up unique generation of taxidermy masters. Professor V.S. Romanov, former rector of the Byelorussian Polytechnic Institute, started his profession in Pushcha. The people saved worm words of him till now. Nowadays he is the pensioner.
V.P. Romanovski, former deputy minister of forestry, the deceased at the present, worked here. At last, the son of Strelkov's family, local inhabitant, as the best sculptor was inviting in France for the purpose of creation of Napoleon bust on the Corsica island.
However, if I come in Pushcha now and talk to people I see the gloomy persons and sometimes tears in eyes. I state the question: WHY?
Why Belovezhskaya Pushcha is the object of managing of the people now who like much money? You see only Germans allowed them to carry out such large-scale cuttings of the forest in Belovezhskaya Pushcha during First World War as we see now. And note it was because they came here as temporary owners and wanted to take as much as possible. The same Germans already managed in other way after they occupied the Pushcha's area in 1941. They have decided to use the Belovezhskaya Pushcha as a base for rest of hero-officers of Vermacht and drawn up the general plan for creation of this base.
Why are local inhabitants who worried about Pushcha fired from the national park? There are many examples of this. Almost all Belarusian national newspapers wrote many times about it. I cannot still understand what was the reason for dismissing such most honest people as Grigory Dzik, the best master craftsman Vladimir Gritzuk and other workers of the timber plant. Notice, the timber plant is available in Pushcha!
At last, why one of most honest directors of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Evgeny Smoktunovich can be evicted from departmental apartments in the street because he has not "guessed« to privatize his departmental house in due time as he was general director of the national park like it was done by other chiefs. Previous directors were
I will not further list all most sore problems of a pearl of Belarus. Mass media described them many times earlier. What is interesting articles are written but problems are remained. What is the reason?
I consider that the reason of this is a lack of control and connivance. I remember other times from the history of Pushcha when the inspection commission consisted of experts from the team of recently elected president was ordered to the Belovezhskaya Pushcha for auditing the national park. Results of the work of this commission were abrupt but conclusions were correct. But that were still those times ….
For now the classics is alive. That is the text wrote by writer M.E. Saltykov (Shchedrin):
"Large and serious villainies are called quite often as the brilliant and are inscribed into the History like it. Small and comic villainies are named as the shame. They both do not mislead the History and do not get the praise from contemporaries«. The writer has written these words in a tale »The Bear is voivode« Yes, it is good Pushcha's tale when the »bear« (as interpretation he is director N. Bambiza) already started »bloodshed« in the Pushcha because of drunk »taliban« (locals granted this name for hired temporary workers, director employs them in the park nowadays). This situation is similar to the story about the Bear number 1 from the tale by Shchedrin. What is the final of this story? Read classics! It would not be desirable that the Belovezhskaya Pushcha repeated this story about the Bear number 1.