Belarus is dreaming to reach for the
outer-space, to occupy a part of Antarctica, exploring the South Pole of the Earth and to compete with
the SiliconeValley. This is the future that the Head
of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko dreams of…
Belarusian
town Glubokoye has not become Las Vegas
“Imagine
airplanes from all over the Europe that land in Glubokoye”, advertised his idea a Deputy of
the House of Representatives Vasily Khrol. Not every Belarusian citizen knows
where Glubokoye is located, let alone other potential tourists from Europe. Deputy Khrol’s idea was that all
business connected with gambling should be reorganized and taken away from
Minsk thus creating European Las Vegas in Gubokoye. Even though his idea was
met with laughs, it also serves as an evidence that the higher echelons of power
of Belarus are exploring the thought that a not
very rich country with ten million of population is the World Empire…
Belarus is a Space country
“Whether Belarus may become a space country?” asks a
question the newspaper “Sovetskaya Belorussia”. “Yes! And I am happy for this
reason”, replies a cosmonaut Vladimir Kovalenok…
Yet in the
times of the USSR Belarus was elaborating bases for modeling flights, starting
from Belka and Strelka. Two Belarusians, Petr Klimuk and Vladimir Kovalenok
have been in the outer space. After the break of the Soviet Union there was a quiet period. However the
today’s Head of the country wants Belarus to become a space country. In 2006
there was an unsuccessful attempt to launch the first Belarusian space
satellite “BelKA” off the conversional rocket carrier “Dniepr”. The rocket fell
after several seconds after its start from the cosmodrome Boikonur (Kazakhstan). The Satellite “BelKA” was built
by a Russian space-rocket corporation “Energia” and was insured for USD 16
million. However that did not stop the authorities of the country.
Finally in
the end of 2009 it is planned to launch a new Belarusian space satellite. It
will provide the full coverage of the territory of the country with the high
quality space shots. The Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of
Sciences Mikhail Miasnikovich said that the cost of the satellite itself will constitute
38 million Belarusian rubbles. He underlined that “Belarus while elaborating the new satellite
was trying not to replicate “BelKA” but to make the new one better”. A task to return
the cost of the satellite within 5 years and to make it profitable was also set.
The Head of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences said that “Belarus needs to learn to trade space
information in a right way for the benefit of third countries that already
today make interest for Belarusian technologies. Indirect economic effect of
that is that such countries as Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Iran place orders
in Belarus for making equipment and mathematical models that are used in the
course of the elaboration of the Belarusian satellite”.
Belarus will have its own Silicon
Valley
Silicon Valley is a non-official
name of a region in San Francisco district in South California, USA. The region got its
name from the fact that it hosts a huge number of high-technology companies. The
name of the Valley comes from the word “silicon”, as this chemical element is
the major material for making electronic chips. The main areas of activity of
the companies of the Silicon Valley are electronics, space technology, biotechnology, computer equipment
and software development.
The idea of
creation of own “Silicon Valley” was brought to discussion yet in 2004. On 22
September 2005 the President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko signed a Decree no 12 “On
setting up a Park of High Technologies”.
High-Tech
Parks are functioning in many countries of the world. Such Parks unite a number
of companies working in the area of creation of communication technologies and
software for computer equipment. The level of professionalism of Belarusian
programmers is highly valuable abroad, therefore a large number of them work particularly
outside Belarus.
Whether the
Park of High Technology will be able to create its own trade-mark
of IT-technologies will become a proper trade-mark of Belarus abroad? The Deputy Director of the
High-Tech Park (HTP), Aleksandr Martinkevich is convinced, “The American
marketing company Trastel group that questioned the leading top-managers of the
North
America
and Western
Europe,
found out that 22% of them named Belarus as the most perspective country from
the point of view of software development. For instance, Russia was named by 30% and China only by 18%”.
The HTP
immediately received a special status, it was created under the auspices of the
President and it is the President himself who appoints the heads and approves
the founding documents. Aleksandr Lukashenko appointed Valery Tsepkalo, former
First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ex-Ambassador of Belarus to the USA, as a Director of the High-TechnologyPark.
The Prime
Minister of Belarus Sergey Sidorsky believes that the creation of the Park of High-Technology will allow to produce software
products bringing the annual income of USD 359 million within 3-4 years already
and to employ 15 thousand people in this sphere.
The income
from HTP in 2008 was 260.5 billion Belarusian rubles which is double of the
amount compared with 2007. Today there is 61 experts working in the BelarusianPark of High Technology.
The idea of the
Belarusian Silicon Valley de facto was downgraded to an off-shore zone.
Belarus explores Antarctica
The country
has an intention to open its own Polar Station in Antarctica. What for? According to a State TV
presenter the world empires are waiting for the moment to divide this continent
among themselves. Belarus should not be left behind. Yet in
2007 the Belarusian government planned to start scientific work in Antarctica. Antarctica has enormous supplies of oil, gas, metals
and other sacred resources therefore bearing this in mind, the work of
Belarusian scientists would be really beneficial and useful.
In the
South Pole Belarusians will be researching gas and aerosol components of the atmosphere.
Our compatriots will be located in the region of the Mountain Vecherniaya at the
shore of the Sea of Cosmonauts. Their base will be a station that
Russians gave to Belarusians for free. It is located within 14 kilometres from the
Russian station “Molodezhnaya” and bears the same name.
In January
2009 a Belarusian group of polar researchers were studying a region of Antarctica that is adjacent to the Mountain
Vecherniaya. A representative of the polar researchers Oleg Smorchkov said,
that Belarusians were making geophysical measurements, explored the path
towards the shore of the bay Lazurnaya in order to collect samples of zooplankton,
sea organisms and plants. The Antarctic field base “Gora Vecherniaya” a meteorological
station was installed that will allow to watch the changes in the weather and
to track the influence of the weather conditions on the natural environment of Antarctica.
Ice Arenas
Starting from
1999 Belarus started a “trend”
of opening of Ice Arenas, when the first Ice Arena was opened in Minsk on Pritytskogo
street. Today there are over 15 arenas around
the country. Surprisingly the largest Arena in Belarus, IcePalace, is located
outside the capital city, in Bobruisk (“Bobruisk-Arena”).
The palace was built to host 7 thousand viewers. It was built extremely fast.
The construction was supposed to be finished within three years, in November
2009. However Aleksandr Lukashenko demanded to speed up the construction process.
Two thousand construction workers worked in three shifts. It is unknown how
much money was spent on the construction. It was planned that in 2013 Belarus will host the
World Hockey Championship. “Bobruisk-Arena” was listed in the application form
as one of the possible places to host this championship. That was also the
reason behind such rush in construction. The right to host the World Hockey
Championship in 2013 however was awarded to Sweden.
Within the conditions of economic
crisis in 2009 Belarus is planning construct 19 ice
palaces. Eight of them in Mogilev oblast. Where and the type of
arenas that should be built in the near future is identified by the Decree of the
President Lukashenko “On approval of the State Investment Programme for 2009”.
In Brest oblast ice
arenas are planned to be built in Dragichin, Luninets, Kobrin, Baranovichi, in Vitebsk oblast – in
Glubokoye, Lepel, Novalukoml, in Grodno oblast – in Volkovysk,
Lida, Slonim. The leader is Mogilev oblast. There
the construction of ice palaces is planned simultaneously in eight regional
centres – in Glusk, Gorki, Klichev, Kostukovichi, Krichev, Osipovichi, Chausy
and Shklov. In the meantime there might be only one ice arena in Gomel oblast, in the
district of Gomel “Gomselfmash”. Around 70 billion Belarusian rubles were
allocated for the construction of 19 new ice arenas. It is not excluded that bearing
in mind recent devaluation these amounts will be increased.
More over, the
Chairman of the hockey Federation Vladimir Naumov, said that the construction
of a new large ice palace with three grounds will start this year in Minsk. Mr. Naumov said
that the “project “Chizhovka-Arena” is very interesting. It is being financed
by the United Arab Emirates funds”.
