The Way Byaroza Bureaucrats "Seek" Subsidized Apartments For Their Children

To build houses for their children, officials illegally take away homes and land from locals.

"All are equal, but some are more equal than others", these words of George Orwell written 70 years ago are still relevant for Belarus, Belsat report from the Byaroza district informs.

Almost three thousand people in Byaroza are waiting for housing improvements. However, this problem bypassed Dzyanis Narkevich, son of a former chairman of the Byaroza executive committee Yury Narkevich.

"I do not know how it concerns Byaroza. But I know that this person is registered in Brest. And I cannot understand how this person got a subsidized apartment," Nikita Yakushik, resident of Byaroza, resents.

Two years ago local authorities destroyed a private house on Pionerskaya Street in order to build a 60 apartment building. It was done allegedly for those who were waiting for an apartment. The son of a leading figure in Byaroza was found in the list.

"He got an apartment here. How impudent he should be to be not afraid of any law. It's a shame," a neighbor-to-be says.

Opaque Schemes of Bureaucrats

Byaroza executive committee refused to comment on the situation. However, soon after the apartment was received it turned out that the apartment was not the thing of the first necessity. After all, right after the construction was over Dzyanis Narkevitch put up it for sale for $41 thousand. According to him, he never lived there.

"Everything is new here. I do not need it. We are leaving," he told.

But he did not specified where. Perhaps in Brest, his father was sent there to run the business in the regional executive committee.

Activist Siarhei Pyatrukhin was the first who expressed doubts about transparency of schemes with apartments. On his blog "People's Reporter" he published information relating to the activity of bureaucrats.

"This apartments may have both legal or illegal nature. Bureaucrats do not provide reports on their assets and wages. And this should be checked. Moreover, I think, there are more such apartments in the house", Siarhei Pyatrukhin noted.

They took a house from a family to build a drive to their own

However, not only the apartment Dzyanis Narkevich is of interest, but also the history of how this building appeared.

"Our land and housestate needs. To build 60-apartment house. But the house was not built. The house was built nearby," Aksana Yakushyk, former resident of Pionerskaya Street, says.

Her husband informs that the house was ruined not because of the construction of other one, but rather to pave the road to houses of high officials of Byaroza.

Stealing, beating ... responsibility?

"The fact is that houses of local officials are built behind my land plot. Uladzimir Hohan, director of Teplopribor, and Dzemidovich, deputy of the regional council, are among them. There is no road to their houses, and they decided to use my land plot for this purpose," Vadzim Yakushyk, other former resident on Pionerskaya Street, says.

The Yakushyks did not agree with an eviction and started an open protest including slogans like: "This is not the place of Narkevich." One evening the family was simply beaten by the police. They explained it with disobedience on the part of the Yakushyks. It happened two years ago, since then Narkevitch is in Brest, and the police was not held liable for their actions.