The country that we can lose. How people live near the Astravets NPP (photos)

Everything seems to be going on as usual. However, reactors and lifting cranes at the new nuclear power plant, which can be seen from a few dozens kilometers, make the familiar landscape disturbing.

A correspondent of the "EuroBelarus" Information Service has visited the border area located a few kilometers away from Lithuania and learned about the locals’ lives.

"It will be like a second Chernobyl"

The gravel road to Bystrytsa village is used only by locals and cars of the border guards. We are driving to help with the local St. John spring that is said to have miraculous powers. We don’t know whether it’s true or not, but the spring is highly valued among the residents of Bystrytsa as well as the surrounding villages: the residents built a chapel in honor of St. John and held annual festivals and services there.

In general, Bystrytsa is a unique village and one of the oldest ones in Belarus. It was first mentioned in 1390, when Grand Duke Jogaila founded the Catholic Church of the Holy Cross there. This temple has never been closed throughout its history except for reconstructions.

- In Soviet times, people paid taxes to keep the catholic church open, and saved it, - said aunty Liolia, a local villager, with whom we stopped for the night.

After 40 years of working on the farm she is granted a pension of about £100, also helping her grandson, who is studying in Grodno.

Aunty Liolia lives 15 kilometers away from the construction site of nuclear power plant and can see it when she herds her cow.

- There will be a second Chernobyl, - the woman shakes her head.

Apart from the spring and the catholic church there is another attraction in Bystrytsa - an ancient water mill that still works despite the fact that the wheel mechanism is broken.

We also met the border guards in the village. Having checked our documents and permission to stay in the border area, they left the phone to call in case of meeting "non-Russians", i.e. refugees. Locals say that they really meet refugees from Ukraine from time to time.

Building new houses for the heads and building shops

After calling on in Slabodka village, we stopped in Astravets on our way back. It’s a nice and clean town with an orthodox church, two catholic churches, and a water mill with tidy flowerbeds, mowed grass, beautifully trimmed bushes and painted houses. There are more people on the streets during weekdays than in Minsk and many careless mums with baby carriages. City looks good now, but may become even more flourishing when the nuclear power plant launches. Everything reminds of the reactor in the city - the building of nuclear power plant information center, which was created "to implement awareness work with different groups of the society" on the subject of nuclear energy. In the meantime, locals haven’t felt any changes in connection with the construction of the NPP.

- The only difference is that the new houses and shops are being built. They must be building houses for the nuclear industry, but I think that they are rather for the heads. Nothing has changed, - the saleswoman one of the local shops said, adding that the locals are still a little afraid of the new station.

And there is something to be afraid: even the landscape itself looks menacing, which combines a beautiful refined catholic church and clumsy blocks of NPP. Eastern and southern Belarus is already covered with a black spot of radiation; so do we actually want to cover the west and north with it, too?..