Barysau: police interrogate picketers from flooded suburb

The flooded suburb of Barysau Zalineiny is in the focus of attention of news sites for the third day already. Its citizens have stopped a passenger train thusly breaking the railway schedule at Minsk-Barysau segment. The water has already left the yards of Zalineiny. People fear that after the public interest to the event fades they will have to solve their problems alone. On the other hand, it became known that the police started to pay visits to the houses of the citizens who took part in overlapping the railway.

Since Monday Zalineiny has been visited by representatives of the city’s vertical with the deputy chair of Barysau City Executive Committee on building at the head, the director of the state enterprise Zhyllio (Accommodation) Valiantsin Iliushonak, doctors from the city center of hygiene and epidemiology and workers of the gas service.

˜There was a whole delegation here yesterday’ said citizens of the flooded houses to a correspondent of http://borisov-e.info. ˜We asked them whether it was a commission that was established to estimate our loss for further compensation. They answered that the question of compensation will be decided, but didn’t say who where and when will do it. Probably, they don’t even know it.’

After the rain almost all houses in Lineiny suburb need repairs. The kitchen gardens are covered with black oil, there will be no harvest. The suburb’s citizens have one more problem: the water they walked in was mixed with dirt, black oil and excrements. As a result half of them have itching ulcers on their legs.

On Sunday, when people overlapped the railroad waiting for somebody from the executive committee to come, there arrived its chair Vasil Burhun. He said the citizens were to blame themselves on the flood because it was them who stole bars from canalization and ordered the police to compose the list of those who waited for them near the stopped train.

˜We thought it was done in order to help us. We understood the real reason only when the police started coming to our houses,’ said one of the picket participants. Another participant said that policemen from Minsk had come to her house. They asked why the people went out and who organized the action. ˜I answered that all of us simply came out to the railroad because dirty water was up to our knees and we didn’t know what to do. They told me that we mustn’t be afraid of punishment for the action. I am not afraid. I need a life, not swimming in canalization!’ the woman said.

The authorities don’t promise to solve the problem. Recently they have covered the road with asphalt. However, it was done in such a hurry that in some places the asphalt was laid right over wet dirt. The local citizens think it was done because minister Sidorski could pay a visit. ˜Probably, the asphalt cover will survive till the time he decides to come’, they said.

The habitants of Zalineiny suburb have many times applied to Barysau CEC, asking the authorities to solve the problem. Their last application is dated 24 July, which means the authorities were to have answered by 23 August. Now they are collecting signatures under an appeal to the deputy of the Chamber of Representatives Leanid Kozik, threatening to start the procedure of revocation in the case he doesn’t help them. However, they don’t believe much in the success of this campaign, as they don’t seem to trust any authorities no more.

˜Before the election he promised to help us in the case we elected him. Everyone can promise, but it is high time to keep the promises,’ the citizens said.