The Moscow Military History Museum last week donated to the Brest Fortress Defense Museum 600 photocopies of formerly top-secret documents pertaining to the construction of the fortress. The donation took place with the assistance of Russia's consul general in Brest,
Aleksandr Smirnov.
The Brest Litovsk Fortress, as it was formerly called, was built in the 19th century as a strongpoint for the Russian army on newly acquired territories, by order of the Russian emperor. The layout of the fortress was suggested by two renowned Russian generals, Maletsky and Opperman, and Colonel Feldman.
Since Brest became part of Poland and later of Belarus, all fortress-related documents were preserved in Moscow. Before January 22, the Brest museum staff had to go to Moscow in order to study the documents, which are kept in the Moscow Military History Museum. Now the photocopies are here to help them do renovations.
Although, the Moscow museum had donated similar documents before, the Brest museum's staff referred to the recent installment as "an invaluable gift." They intend to use it in restoring the fortress, cleaning up canals, and renovating forts located away from the central complex.
The Moscow government has promised to donate more than $120,000 this year for the renovation of the Brest Fortress memorial.
Georgy Kozulko, the former deputy director of Belovezhskaya Pushcha, has chosen not to take part in the January 29 expedition of journalists to the national park because, as he says, authorities threaten to
sack him from his job in a local village school where he teaches biology, geography and ecology.
The expedition was initiated by a group of Belarusian and Russian journalists, led by Valery Dranchuk, chief editor of the newspaper Belovezhskaya Pushcha and leader of the newly established association Terra-Konventsiya.
The journalists intend to verify reports about commercial logging in the unique forest. They proposed Neil Buhne, UN resident coordinator in Belarus, to participate in the expedition and he reportedly accepted the proposal. Mr. Kozulko was supposed to participate in the expedition,
Mr. Dranchuk said, adding that they considered him to be the only person able to show them logging sites and give competent explanations.
The management of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha is actively preparing for the forthcoming expedition; they have ordered to clear the possible route of the expedition from felled trees, an employee told BelaPAN, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Mr. Dranchuk said that he and reporters of a number of independent publications also might be barred from visiting the park.
The Brest regional government is still undecided as to whether to authorize the sale of a controlling stake in the local brewery to Russia's Ochakovo. Ochakovo President Aleksei Kochetov has postponed his trip
to Brest, originally scheduled for February, because of the
uncertainty, Galina Grekova, the Russian company's public
relations officer, told BelaPAN.
In its bid to expand to Belarus Ochakovo has not advanced any further than signing agreements on intentions with the brewery in Slutsk, Minsk region, three years ago and the Brest brewery last year.
"There must be some hitches in your state system that contain progress," Ms. Grekova said. The Russian company wants to acquire 85 percent in the Brest brewery, pledging to spend up to $25 million on its upgrade to boost annual output to 5 million decaliters by 2006. It intends to produce about 2 million decaliters of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beverages in Brest.
"Considering Baltika's bad experience in Belarus, Ochakovo will not rush to invest in the Belarusian brewing industry without proper guarantees that the money would be used in accordance with the contract," Ms. Grekova said. Ochakovo is among Russia's top three leading brewers. The company produces more than 100 brands of beverages exporting its products to 60 provinces in Russia, Belarus,
Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Prominent Belarusian musician Igor Olovnikov on January 23 gave a recital on the organ newly acquired by the Holy Cross Exaltation Church in Brest.
The performance, comprising several compositions for the organ and choral preludes by J.S. Bach. Attending the recital were Romuald Kunat, Poland's consulate general in Brest, and local government officials. The instrument was installed on the eve of last year's
Catholic Christmas. The church used to have an organ before, but it disappeared after the Soviet authorities turned the building over to the Local History Museum 50 years ago.
In the early 1990s, when the building was returned to the Catholic community, the then parish priest, Zbigniew Karoljak, began looking for a new organ but failed. Having learned accidentally about a year ago that a church near Munich planned to replace its instrument, his successor, Kazimierz Wielikosielec, asked to hand over the old organ to the Brest church.
Dr. Adolf Hampel, the German theologian who offered the instrument, told the recital audience that this organ was part of his life, as his parents' funerals and his brother's wedding service had been held to its sound. "The organ has brought the spirit of the past into the church," noted Dr. Olovnikov, a professor at the Belarusian State Academy of Music.
The court of Brest's Leninsky district on January 24 ordered the forfeiture of a shipment of imported cigarettes lacking excise stamps, which was valued at $12,000. In addition, the court imposed a fine of
240,000 rubels on its 27-year-old male owner.
Officers of the Brest Office of the Committee on Organized Crime and Corruption Prevention discovered and seized a total of 1,850 cigarette blocks during a raid on an apartment on Clara Zetkin Street in Brest on January 23, Viktor Vasilevsky, spokesman for the Brest regional
interior ministry's office, told BelaPAN. This has been the largest shipment of cigarettes with no excise stamps seized by the Brest police in recent months, he said. The police had to use a minivan to transport it.
The last remaining sobering-up station shut down in the Brest region earlier this week.
Until recently, the region's police run seven sobering-up facilities, Arkady Kostyuchik, chief of the regional police department for crime prevention and law and order, told BelaPAN. Six were closed on January 1.
The stations' personnel have been transferred to other police services. The police will use the buildings for other purposes, except for the one in Pinsk, which is likely to be handed over to the city government. People arrested for drunkenness will now be taken either to health establishments or to police stations.
The Brest regional government has ordered district authorities to raise "donations" from state-controlled industrial enterprises to help supply collective and state farms with fuel.
The Pinsk city government has been ordered to collect 2,540 tons of fuel or the money equivalent. The Pinsk government is to supply 1,870 tons to farms in the Pinsk district and 670 tons to farms in the neighboring Stolin district. The Pinsk district authorities are to raise 220 tons of fuel. The city authorities in Pinsk ordered some 130 enterprises
to give fuel in proportion to the number of workers. For instance, a company employing 120 workers would have to "donate" between 15 and 20 tons. Expenses on the fuel roughly amount to a monthly payroll. The fuel is to be collected by May.
Managers have been outraged by the order as few enterprises have free cash to donate. Managers fear that the fuel donation order will be followed by a directive obliging enterprises to help farms build up
stocks of cattle feed like it was in the last few years.
Beltransgaz, Belarus' state-owned gas pipeline operator, plans to increase the daily capacity of the Pribugskoye subsurface gas storage facility in the Brest region to 6 million cubic meters of gas.
The facility, located near the village of Volchin, Kamenets district, is designed for storing gas for use during the fall and winter period, as well as in the event of an emergency. Last week experts of Beltransgaz and the Giprospetsgaz design bureau in St. Petersburg visited the site to study the technical and economic aspects of the facility's capacity increase.
The facility operated in a trial mode throughout 2001 and 2002 and was said to have no harmful effect on the environment. The current capacity allows it to pump 2.3 million cubic meters of gas out of wells a day. Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian experts are considering the possibility of increasing the capacity to 6 million and are expected to draw their conclusion this April. If they approve the plan, Beltransgaz may begin reconstructing the facility as early as 2004.
Belarus consumes 60 million cubic meters of gas in winter. The capacity of the country's largest and oldest storage facility in Osipovichi, Minsk region, that has been in operation since 1976 cannot be increased any more, whereas the Pribugskoye facility has a potential for enlargement, experts say.
Almost half of aspirants for seats in city soviets (councils) in the Brest region were nominated by political parties.
According to the Brest regional election commission, 221 nominees intend to compete for 106 seats in cities' soviets. Parties are represented by 87 nominees, with 25 being members of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party "Narodnaya Hramada."
As many as 615 people intend to run for 573 seats in district soviets. Most of them were nominated by "workers' collectives" and only 33 by parties.
As many as 112 people are going to compete for 60 seats in the Brest Regional Soviet. Twenty-seven of them were fielded by the Communist Party of Belarus, the Belarusian Party of Communists and the Liberal Democratic Party. The Belarusian Popular Front put forward one candidate. More than 60 people were nominated by "workers' collectives" and 23 through signature collection. Sixteen nominees were
elected to soviets before. Only 15 of those who want to run for the Brest Regional Soviet are women. A total of 3,974 people were nominated to compete for 1,682 seats in soviets of various levels in the region, according to the regional election commission.
The candidate registration stage will be held between January 21 and 31.
The authorities satisfied the demands of the staffs of two factories in Pinsk, Brest region, who staged strikes in December.
The strikers at ElKis, which employs sight-impaired people, complained against the factory's management that had paid the university fees of the daughter of a deputy head of the Pinsk City Executive Committee out of the enterprise's funds. The law-enforcement and control agencies found the workers' complaint justified. The official chose not to wait until the inspections conducted by the State Control Committee and the prosecutor's office came to an end, and repaid the 4.2 million rubels to the factory.
The workers of the Pinsk Canning Factory demanded clearing the pay arrears for the past five months, almost equivalent to the enterprise's basic assets. The cannery managed to pay the delayed wages thanks to a bank loan given to the heavily indebted enterprise against the government's guarantee.
28 January 2003