Lukashenka’s "Hockey Friend": We Just Fell Into Abyss

Mikhail Zakharau stated that the "the country’s main ideology" had stopped working.

Minsk Yunasts head coach Mikhail Zakharau, also known as Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s partner on the rink and harvesting, has recently got a new position: he headed the Belarusian Hockey Federation coaching council, Salidarnasts writes.

He gave an interview to Trybuna in his updated status, where he vibrantly used verbs and other parts of speech. In particular, it turned out that:

"We have just fallen into the abyss." The current state of hockey is worse than in 1998, seriously. Then it was bad, but not to such an extent.

The piquancy of the situation lies in the fact that it was in 1997-1998, when Aliaksandr Lukashenka became keenly interested in hockey. On that occasion, special attention was paid to this sport in Belarus. All available resources were thrown on the hockey’s development: meetings at the highest level were held, state financing of clubs grew substantially, ice palaces were built ...

But, according to Zakharau, existing schools are not functioning effectively: "For 12 years, not a single hockey player of a really high level has appeared. I'm not even talking about stars like Salei, Hrabouski or Kastsitsyn. There are no players who would get to the CHL themselves, without Dynama’s help."

Lukashenka himself has repeatedly given evaluation of what happens in the flagship projects – the national team and Dynamo Minsk, – and, as a rule, it was varied between "shame" and "disgrace."

Therefore, Zakharau's conclusion is quite logical: "The system has not worked at all." But why, if there has been given so much attention by the head of state? Paradoxically, but maybe that's why? Perhaps, because the management system in the country as a whole is built in such a way that it is not able to solve effectively even those tasks that it has identified as priorities itself?