Village charm has a price
Dmitriy PATYKO, "Respublika" (The Republic) newspaper, No 130, July 19, 2006
The rural tourism is developed for only some years in Belarus but the first enthusiasts have already managed to prove that our simple rural landscapes affecting by primordial nature, historical relics, talent and hospitality of the ordinary people can be not less attractive than Alpine or Flemish beauties and refinements of household of foreign village service. The value of this kind of tourism's services is not only to earn money and to make employments in this field but also to develop villages and to protect nature.
Having understood that someone is interesting in the people and their land, the peasants and inhabitants of small towns begin to view around with other eyes. Without orders from the top they take under protection everything valuable and they become the hot-supporters and active executors of local programs on restoration and arrangement of settlements of urban types and natural sites. A foreign practice confirms that rural-ecological tourism contributed to growing very many regions which were before in depression. Due to skillfully presented and underlined patriarchal character which began to be perceived in completely another way, they became attractive to the foreigners and, what is especially interesting, to the townspeople of the own country.
This phenomenon was a topic of the scientific seminar "Rural-ecological tourism in sustainable development of local communities: foreign practice and prospects for Belarus" held in the National scientific and technical library. The heads and coordinators of the project, the pioneers of the Belarusian rural and ecological tourism, who developed the new branch at one's own risk and many of them were able to make unusual for us business at a quite high level, gave talks for the representatives of travel agencies and local managing bodies which should develop this sphere.
A special project of two year's duration in the frame of the UN Development Program undertaken in the frontier areas of Belarus and Poland contributed much to their progress. After taking part in a competition of business-plans and gaining the victory, the enthusiasts got one to two thousand dollars to improve comfort of their village farms and to raise it to a necessary level. Each of them was only guiding by own fantasy and imagination on what is necessary to offer to the foreign visitors. That is why no one of the village hotels was similar against each other.
Both a specially constructed luxurious cottage for accommodation of two or three tens of guests and an only slightly maintained rural log hut of the late eighteen century can be the rural hotel. An offered program of rest can also be completely different. Walking to pick mushrooms and berries, as well as fishing can be added with teaching the Belarusian cookery, training the bases of national crafts, driving in a sledge, foot- and water travels in reserved and historical places, and participation in folklore festivals. The owners of the village farms, not the professional guides, who have grown in these lands, are aware of a surrounding nature in details and can show the things which are easy to escape the eyes of a stranger. Because the village intelligentsia most often offers this kind of services, the owners are not in need of an interpreter.
A tourist can find the detailed description of all sights of the five areas contiguous to a reserved zone on the website of the UN Project "Ecological sustainable development of the region “Belovezhskaya Pushcha”: combining nature protection and sustainable development", and also in the directory "Rest in a village house". There are also pictures of village farms and their interior, addresses including e-mails, and telephones of the owners with possibility to agree beforehand upon organization of rest. The very different variants are offered.
The farm "Veres" in the village of Kozlovichi of the Zelven district, leader of the Belarusian rural tourism, for example, has a capacious hall for celebrations. There are a sauna, fire-place and kitchen modernly equipped. The village farm "Korchma" of 30 beds designed in a national style is nearby. Its area is a good model of design of the landscape created by the owners Irina and Michael Makeev.
The farms "Pushchanskaya" in the village of Nemerzhanka of the Svisloch district, the "Lesnaya" (Wood) located in the village of Belaya (White) of the Kamenetz district and some others cannot rival the "Veres" on scales of services but they can provide the same conditions concerning comfort. They are located in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. They can accommodate only few people. But there is no need to gather a big group to have rest in silence, avoiding disturbance of peace of this woodland and without trampling down a reserved ground. The owners realize it very well and do not plan to increase the number of the visitors, against the possible financial benefit.
There was also taken care about informational services in the Vitebsk region, in the Lepel district where a green route was made for the tourists. Both natural beauties of the land of lakes and acquaintance with the world of the Belarusian national culture are waiting for the travelers at this path where comfortable places for an overnight stay and village catering are set up. The other organizers of village tours also use such the approach because, according to available practice, not all tourists are ready to be along for a long time even in the most picturesque place, while they soon begin to yearn for and require the changes of impressions. Besides, a brought variety contributes to make more complete opinion about the country, customs and character of the Belarusians.
It's obviously that this like any innovation cannot avoid troubles of the growth. The first domestic suppliers of services of rural ecological tourism very suffer because of gaps of legislative base.
However, it seems that the Decree "About measures on development of rural-ecological tourism in the Republic of Belarus" signed by the head of the state cancels many of the revealed problems. It allows the peasants officially to be engaged in rendering of such the services as an announcement's principle, without the state registration. It is only necessary to pay a single annual tax.
This long-awaited document opens space for the active people but it does not remove all problems. The work to eliminate blanks in the legislative base will therefore be continued. The participants of the seminar generalized their offers which take into account domestic and foreign practice to organize this sphere of services and they are expecting that their achievements will be used for perfection of the normative base. According to the practice of the neighboring European countries, the most favoured conditions for development of village tourism always lead to its explosive growth, increase of the level of services and abrupt extension of finances revenues to a local budget. But no money are possible to measure an effect gained from the growth of self-consciousness and self-respect of the peasants, but a kind memory which remains in soul of the foreign visitor who has opened and has grown fond of the country new to him.
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