‘Kolya Lukashenka Arrived By Bicycle. Police Blocked Roads’

This is how Kopys looks like after several months of demonstrative works on provision of urban amenities.

On the Shklou-Vorsha road, journalists turn right and drive in the famous Alexandria. Right after it, there goes a bridge across Dnieper and the urban-type settlement called Kopys, where Lukashenka was born in 1954, Solidarity writes.

This spring, about 500 workers laid new asphalt roads here, changed engineering communications, built children's and sports grounds. The settlement should become a model for other small populated areas, the dictator said.

In the center of Kopys, everything looks new and toy-like. Here you can see a post-office, an eatery (it works only since 3 p.m.), a shop and a market. There is also a memorial shield to the local tilework masters opposite the eatery.

Locals near the shop appear friendly and talkative on the topic how happy they are about the changes that happened recently. They say that everything in the settlement is brand new, starting from asphalt roads ending with fences and flower-beds. A curious fact is revealed in the course of the conversation:

- Kolya came to our place when he was cycling with his friends. They came round to the shop and visited the Piatrouski Arbor. The police blocked all the roads.

The Piatrouski Arbor is a reconstructed ancient settlement of the 11th-17th centuries, where wooden towers were recently erected, from which a view of the Dnieper and the agro-town of Alexandria on the opposite bank opens.

Now, the central street of Kopys looks like this:

The arrival of the youngest son of a ruler in Kopys on a bicycle does not seem surprising. The village of Alexandria-2 is located only a few kilometers away from here. Near it, there is a helipad.

In the village, there is the plot of land where Lukashenka's mother's house and his residence once stood: the dictator stayed there during his visits to the patria chica.

In the afternoon, Alexandria-2 looks deserted. However, the cars parked in the yards show that people do live here.

Outside the village, there is the cemetery where Katsiaryna Lukashenka is buried.