Protest In Sviatlahorsk: Workers Prepare "Warm Welcome" To Lukashenka

The local authorities fear that the activists might "organize a revolution."

Needless to say, that it is not the sunny Emirates, but our native Sviatlahorsk. Though it is gray, wet and cold, but life is in full swing here! At least, in the territory of the local bleached sulfate plant and around the enterprise. Construction brigades have come here from different cities. People are working diligently, Belsat reports.

Belsat asked the builders what they were doing there and whose visit they were preparing for. The answer was: "Lukashenka’s".

Rumors about the fact that Lukashenka will come to Sviatlahorsk to acclimatize after the sunny Abu-Dhabi are confirmed by the enterprise employees.

The Belarusian ruler got fond of wood processing long ago

One day he invests millions of dollars in its "modernization", another day he forbids the industry workers to quit. He has been repeating about the need for the pulp production in Sviatlahorsk for at least 15 years. In January, this year, he set a task: to commission a bleached sulfate plant before November 7! As they say, in the name of the revolution!

According to the authorities’ plans, the joint Belarusian-Chinese enterprise will be able to process 2.5 million cubic meters of timber and produce as much as 400,000 tons of sulphate-bleached pulp annually.

Why has the golden chicken become a long-delayed construction?

"The plant was supposed to be launched in 2015. The postponement for two years shows that the plant has been built without an approved project and that there have been technical problems," – Anatol Zmitrovich from the initiative group against the construction of the plant says.

Local activists sounded the alarm from the very beginning of the construction and recorded numerous violations of technology while building dangerous production. The big rush before Lukashenka’s arrival also affects the quality of construction work.

"I talked to the workers. They said: if they had given us at least three months, we would have done a better job. If to take those streets, which have been asphalted – there is not a single stormwater drainage there! In winter, when the water melts, it has nowhere to go – and in the morning there is a sleet! What will they do with it?" – Anatol Zmitrovich is indignant.

Not only builders and the cellulose plant staff are preparing for Lukashenka's arrival in Sviatlahorsk. Since Monday, local law enforcement officers have started to "invite" aggressively local activists for the "preventive talks": so that not to allow another revolution on November 7.