Two men resident in Baranovichi, Brest region, have been charged with stealing 11 valuable icons from the Holy Trinity Church in the Drogichin district in early August, the local police department told BelaPAN.
The two were arrested in a nearby village while looking for a tractor to get their car out of a ditch. Their loot was later found in the forest near the church, and one of the suspects started confessing. The police say that the two men are suspected of 17 thefts. Eleven of them were allegedly committed at various churches in the Minsk, Vitebsk, Grodno and Brest regions in 1995, 1996, 2001 and 2002. Both men have reportedly confessed to the 11 church thefts.
Eleven criminal cases where suspects include police officers are currently under investigation in Brest, the capital of southwestern Belarus, Colonel Vladimir Shafarenko said on August 21 at his first news conference as the Brest region's police chief.
In the first seven months of 2002, the number of disciplinary penalties imposed on members of the region's police force (UVD) grew by 80 percent as compared with January-July 2001, Colonel Shafarenko said. According to him, the most common violations are abuse of authority,
bribery and road incidents.
"We are trying to tighten control over our personnel," the police chief said. "Not a single crime committed by my subordinates must go unpunished. The penalties are strict. Officers get discharged from the force and stripped of their rights for three years." The colonel denied the allegations of an article that appeared on August 20 in the national newspaper Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta. It alleged connections
between Brest's law-enforcement authorities and the criminal underworld and conflicts between the Committee for State Security (KGB) and the police. Colonel Shafarenko dismissed the article as "mixing beans with peas." "The relationship between the UVD and the KGB is good. We maintain a good level of cooperation, and there
is no way that that article can provoke quarrels between us," he said.
The Brest Regional Prosecutor's Office has brought a large-scale fraud charge against Aleksandr Maksimenko, member of the Brest City Soviet (elected council).
The charge carries a prison sentence of 7 to 15 years and property forfeiture. Mr. Maksimenko headed the Brest City Soviet until recently.
He was sacked without any official explanation. Mr. Maksimenko is now bound by his pledge not to leave the country during the investigation and trial. He is the second elected council official in the region to face criminal charges this year.
In May, large-scale larceny charges were leveled against Spiridon Podshebyakin, director of the Belarus collective farm and a member of the Domachevo Village Soviet in the Brest region. Mr. Podshebyakin has been in custody for three months awaiting trial.
The Days of Ukraine's Cherkasy region opened in Brest on August 21 with the unveiling of a Taras Shevchenko bust at the boulevard named after the great writer. The event has been timed to Ukraine's Independence Day, August 24.
Taking part in the opening ceremony were Ukrainian Ambassador to Belarus Anatoliy Dron, other Ukrainian diplomats, official delegations from the Volyn and Cherkasy regions of Ukraine, Brest city government officials and representatives of non-governmental organizations. The program of the Days includes performances by Ukrainian artists, and meetings with representatives of the Ukrainian communities in Brest and Kobrin. On the morning of August 21, the Ukrainian delegation met
with senior officials at the Brest Regional Executive Committee.
Colonel Yevgeny Zaichenko has replaced Lieutenant Colonel Valery Sakhashchik as commander of the 38th Guards Red Banner Detached Mobile Brigade based in Brest.
General Major Lyutsian Surint, first deputy commander of the Belarusian Land Froces, introduced the new brigade commander to the personnel on August 20. Mr. Sakhashchik was in charge of the brigade for more than three years. The officially declared reason for his
discharge is ill health, although he is known to have extraordinary stamina. Several years ago, he set up a special competition for the title of Black Eagle among army and police officers and was one of the first to pass all the trials.The Brigade's staff decline to comment.
Authorities in Brest have ordered the city's health establishments to stop issuing free or discount prescriptions until September 15. The city
government runs up a 2-billion rubel (over $1 million) debt to the state-run pharmaceuticals supplier, RUP Farmatsiya. Because of the growing debt, RUP Farmatsiya limited the distribution of drugs on free and discount prescriptions on July 1. Doctors, however, continued prescribing free and discount drugs to their patients.
As many as 37 groups in Belarus are entitled to free or discount medications for 57 diseases. Free prescription drugs are now available in Brest only to World War II veterans, children, people with cardiovascular diseases, bronchial asthma, epilepsy and the Parkinson disease. The city government is set to settle the debt before September 15, a RUP Farmatsiya executive officer told BelaPAN.
The newly constructed Saint Michael Church has been consecrated in the village of Ryasna, Kamenets district, Brest region.
Attending the ceremony on August 8 were members of the Belarusian Exarchate and the Brest and Kobrin Orthodox Eparchy, faithful, NGO representatives and reporters. The church stands at the site where Ryasna's feudal lord Martin Matushevich, a writer and statesman, built a small wooden temple back in 1765. The church was destroyed in 1964. The villagers had no place of worship until a state-run local farm helped build the foundation of a new temple in 1991. Services were held in the cellar of that building since 1993.
Iranian Ambassador to Belarus Mohammed Musa Hashemi Golpaegani during his brief visit to Brest on August 8 went to the local free economic zone, the Technological University and met with the regional
governor, Vasily Dolgolyov.
In the first six months of 2002, Iran's trade with the region amounted to just $12,500. The region sold $8,500 worth of semiconductors and bought $4,000 worth of ketchup. Mr. Dolgolyov suggested that Iran could resume cooperation with the Baranovichi-based aircraft repair works, invest in pharmaceutical companies in Brest's free economic zone, and place orders for production of cheap carpets with the
carpet factory, Kovry Bresta.
Mr. Dolgolyov said that the region could sell high-precision and research-and-development intensive products to Iran, set up assembly plants in Iran and offer Iranian students an opportunity to undertake training at
Brest's universities.
The Brest region, the southeastern region of Belarus, finished harvesting grains and legumes on August 7. A total of 900,000 tons was reported harvested, with yields averaging 2.7 tons per hectare.
A collective farm called Novy Put in the Ivanovo district had the region's highest yields of six tons per hectare, followed by Belorusskaya Niva in the Stolin district with 5.9 tons per hectare. The Gantsevichi district was the last to complete its harvest, with all-out assistance from other
districts. The region's annual harvest festival, Dazhynki, will take place in the town of Ivanovo in September. Meanwhile, local farms have started sowing winter crops.
Two private city buses have begun operating on the busiest route in Brest. Vladimir Bazylchuk, who owns the Mercedes buses manufactured in 1979 and 1980, has signed a contract with the Brest City Executive Committee allowing him to operate the route together with the state-run company, GAP-1. Mr. Bazylchuk rents maintenance and parking facilities at the GAP 1 bus depot. He intends to boost his fleet to 10 buses by the end of the year.
The private operator provides services to passengers at the same fare as GAP-1, but unlike the state-run company he offers no discounts to students and some other groups. Belarus' first ever privately operated city bus service was launched in the city of Borisov, Minsk region.
23 August 2002