Myths and legends of Belovezhskaya Pushcha
Eugeniy ZAHAROV, Marina DUDARENKO, "Gomelskie Vedomosti" (The Gomel Gazette) newspaper, No 115-116, July 28, 2005
Two weeks ago our newspaper published the best of creative papers written by children in the frame of the completion "Conserve our land living and green". Let's remind that the editor teams of "World of Animals" and "Gomel Gazette", as well as the Gomel Regional Committee of Natural Resources and Environment Protection were organizers of this action. An excursion-travel to Belovezhskaya Pushcha which was took place last week has been proposed a major prize for all participants of the contest.
The distance between Gomel city and the National Park is over 500 km therefore fife o'clock in the morning was scheduled to depart. But the travel really started earlier because majority of participants, who joined the excursion and were afraid of being overdue, came to the gathering place well in advance. The often occurred road maintenance works, crashed cars laying in some places along the road and . almost total absent of signs at road forks contributed to make our trip a little more diverse. The last circumstance led to the cases as we "explored" surroundings of the Kobrin city for about half an hour, circling around and looking for the right direction to further move. In the end we managed to find a turning to local gravel-covered road and near the noon the tourists were making a landing at the main entrance in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
The citizens from Gomel began to get familiar with diversity of flora and fauna of the National Park carefully exploring ... stuffed animals and dry plants. The visiting the Museum of Nature was scheduled the first point to start the excursion. The Museum building was constructed in the late 50-s by permission of Nikita Khrushchev, USSR General Secretary. He, great naturalist and amazing hunter, visited the summer residence in Viskuly nearly each year therefore creation and development of tourism infrastructure is considered one of his deserts. The Museum was construction in well time because taxidermists (who make stuffed animals) managed to save some species of animals became extinct later in Belarus for ever, like all over the West Europe.
The examination of expositions could not replace the uniting, at least contacts with nature therefore the next logical step of the program was a bus trip within the Regulated Nature zone's area of the National Park. The route distance was about 60 km while an ordinary excursion is limited only the visiting the Grandfather Frost's residence and the possibility to look a king-oak tree, one of the greatest trees within the Park.
The excursion in the most big and integral woodland located on the European lowland was turned to a fascinating show-entertainment. Native legends, interesting stories and anecdotes painted a unique picture of the travel and even made a myth mystery to some extent. Tourists listened to stories about sorceresses and old man-recluses, as well as unusual traditions which were borne for Belarusians thanks to Pushcha's existence. The fascinating beauty sports was not limiting to view through a bus window and many people themselves could appreciate the truth of native legends, for instance to remove the evil eye at an alder tree, test pitch of a king-pine tree which attract women and marriageable girls and, of course, breathe extra-clear forest air.
The only bad was we could not see bison, "owners" of Belovezhskaya Pushcha and its visit card, in the natural environment. Despite of big dimension and internal might, these animals are quite careful and do not go to be close to a tourist pass. But living in fenced enclosures, they got into the way of patience of human presence and pay little attention to the groups of people around the fenced area. Elks and red deer have the same behavior while the lynx does not want to make contacts with people, even living in a fenced space, and go out of a specially constructed house only for the night walking.
Not only inveterate city-dwellers but also ecologists with their scientific approach to explore the matter got an overall rang of pleasures from the travel. Before the bus departing, they listened to an alternative lecture given by Heorhi Kazulka, independent ecologist on Belovezhskaya Pushcha. However, even we, being tied from unaccustomed difficulties at the end of the travel, preferred a cup of tea in a comfortable cafe, instead in the open air. Here we broadened our knowledge on the ancient relic forest where rare species and communities are still living, became extinct in woodlands of the entire continent. This forest is nearly out of human intervention and still keeps its originality and peculiarity, patterns and enigmas. This kind of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha forest was seen by the winners of our contest. Perhaps, our descendents will want to see it in such the quality. The only can be absolutely sure - all who visited the area of the unique Park will make everything in the future to achieve this standard.
Comment of the website editor
We pay the readers' attention to the fact that the final conclusions made by the authors of the article "Myths and legends of Belovezhskaya Pushcha" do not match the real situation and just contradict the written by other participants of the trip to Belovezhskaya Pushcha. In particular, the authors assert that (it is quoted) "Here we broadened our knowledge on the ancient relic forest where rare species and communities are still living, became extinct in woodlands of the entire continent. This forest is nearly out of human intervention, and still keeps its originality and peculiarity, patterns and enigmas" (underlined by the editor). A ground to make such the statement about "nearly out of human intervention" is not clear. This is not right at all since Belovezhskaya Pushcha was and continues to be (especially last decades) under a strongest human intervention such as large-scale land drainage, wood fellings, intensive hunting management, agriculture, dense road network etc.
The authors' outcome "This kind of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha forest was seen by the winners of our contest" totally contradicts the written personally by other participants of the trip who have seen Belovezhskaya Pushcha in degradation and decline conditions, instead of progress and strict protection. Moreover, the second author of the article, Marina Dudarenko, has written completely another in her personal reporting, in comparison with this article.
In our opinion, the case of such discrepancies and misunderstanding can be explained with the fact that the Gomel Municipal Executive Committee and Municipal Deputies' Council, i.e. bodies which are under strong control of the Belarusian government, are founders of the newspaper "Gomel Gazette". Freedom of speech is absent in mass-media and press in the present conditions. It is nearly impossible to publish objective and independently critical materials in the governmental press, where reality is often simply embellished. All above mentioned, apparently, was the reason of discrepancies and misunderstanding intentionally made in the issued article.
Heorhi Kazulka,
Ph.D. of Biology,
Kamenyuki village, Belovezhskaya Pushcha