You will wake up at dawn…
Vladimir ABRAMOVICH, "Respublika" (The Republic) newspaper, No 132, July 21, 2006
According the data of the Ministry of Sport and Tourism of Belarus, 72 village farms of the country really accommodate the holiday-makers.
"This is very easy to explain. The very beautiful sites are available in Belarus", Victor Arhipovich said. "Lakes, rivers, woods… I recently visited the Rossonsky district to open the village farm "Beaver hut". A three-storeyed house is situated on a coast of lake which already borders with Russia. As a standard, there are five rooms lived in the building. Many services are providing. Tennis courts, a sauna and wood are nearby… What is about the "Krolova hut"? It became already famous outside Belarus. The people from abroad go there to have a rest and to be alone with nature. The sensations are unforgettable. By the way, the foreigners prefer to be uniting with nature while the native people like more active rest - boats, rafts, bicycles …. The inhabitants of the Rossonsk district sometimes joke that they have three thousand lakes while their population totals only twelve thousand. It's equal one lake per a family. You can see that potential to develop rural-ecological tourism are big.
How many tourists do the village farms accept? The statistics is absent since, in accordance with the law, individual businessmen are not obliged to report this data. However, the Ministry of Sport got prognosis. The best village farms accommodate about three hundred guests per one year. If to take into account that the activity of the tourists lasts no more than thirty rest-days, about ten people have a rest per day. The work is big because, as a rule, the only owner and the members of his family provide the service. Few owners employ a temporary staff.
But the quality of service does not suffer, Mr Yankovenko noted. We provide strong control. No, we don't meddle in the business of village farms because there are other bodies for this purpose, for example financial and law-enforcement ones. The government recently ratified a standard contract between a visitor and owner of village farm where the rights and obligations of the parties are stipulated. The developers tried to avoid restraining anyone's rights. I consider the document is rather liberal. Nevertheless, it provides obligation to observe civilized norms and set the rules of law. An owner and all workers should take medical survey. We look what programs are offered to the visitors and, except for meals and overnight stay, what services are available… We get respect for those people who are engaged in rural-ecological tourism. At least, we do not find those whose main purpose is to grab as much money as possible. Although maybe later, when this kind of tourism will get wide circulation, such the people will also appear. But now the only people with serious purposes came to deal with this business.
The former teachers, chairmen of collective farms and experts of agricultural enterprises including the townspeople who originated from the cities opened today the village farms. In the ministry are sure that a decree about support of rural tourism signed by the head of the state in June will increase the number of those who wish to engage in this business.
The decree gives big privileges, the head of the department continued. It was earlier necessary to haunt offices' thresholds. Now, if you are a village inhabitant and you own a house, please come to a village soviet, write an application and pay one base tax of 31,000 Roubles. No one other branch has such the privileges. However, clauses of the decree do not concern to holiday resort's zones. Those who have registration in the towns and urbane-like areas cannot use these privileges. They must get registration of an individual businessman. There are already the dissatisfied townspeople who have houses in villages and invite the tourists. What is the solution? This is to get registration in a village. An inhabitant of the capital Minsk, who has a village house in the Puhovichi district, said me the following "I am already ready. I am going to move in the village to get permanent address". It would be very desirable to use privileges to a full extent.
The TASIC projects are also currently under realization in Belarus. For example, 12 village farms to accept the tourists were created in Belovezhskaya Pushcha by financial means of one of these projects. The country will gain 400,000 Euro in the frame of the TASIC Program "Tempus" to develop routes for bicyclists in the Belarusian Lakes' area. Not only routes will be developed but also the necessary infrastructure will be created.
We compare our village houses for the tourism's purpose with houses of other states, Victor Yankovenko said. We lose in the number of houses, for example, to Lithuania. But if to analyze carefully, the most of them in the neighboring country is located along the sea coast. We haven't the sea. The village houses area created on coasts of lakes, at banks of rivers and near to woods… There are very many places where is possible to develop rural-ecological tourism. The fact that many owners think of the future of their business give hopes.
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