Edge of Belarus. South: Kamaryn

Kamaryn has been known since XIV century. The village was the property of the Vishniavieckija, a large and powerful magnate family.

A bus arrives at round site near tent-like bus station. The town is on the top of reversed geographical triangle: Kyiv region is to the left, Chernihiv region is to the right and Kamaryn is situated near Brahin in Homiel region.

Milk farm builders instead of tourists

Two storey panel box of Dnieper hotel. A soviet building with a cosy sofa at reception. The hotel seems old yet well-groomed.

The receptionist went to a shop giving me a 40 minutes’ wait. “What room would you like? A single-bed room or a room with a fridge?” she asks.

A room with one bed and a bathroom goes for 50, 000 rubles ($6 per night).

Tourists never stay here. The main visitors of the hotel are milk farm builders and milking unit installers. I haven’t met other there people during my four days’ trip to Kamaryn. They all work at farms next to Chernobyl zone.

They set off for the job early, return late and then drink — a typical Belarusian ‘business trip’.

My neighbour in smoking room Kolia fails to understand why I came here. I did not clear out anything more from his boozed talks. Kolia is absolutely drunk and his colleague helps him to het to bed.

I enter the hotel courtyard. “Don’t be late — I will be asleep then,” the receptionist warns me at my departure for an evening walk.

Kamaryn’s streets are straight and possess typical Soviet names. The town is squeezed between the Dnieper and the highway to Chernihiv and Chernobyl.

At this time, the banks of the Dnieper are flooded. The river’s centre is the border with Ukraine. Sometimes custom officers detain fishers who incidentally violate the border. Most of them are not locals.

Abandoned or not densely populated villages around Chernobyl Exclusion Zone begot new tourism type: hunters and fishers buy left houses for a song and turn them into lodges. Business active one rent them.

Guests sometimes are so excited by the quietness of the abandoned villages that they forget about hunting lock themselves in their rooms and drink days and nights.

When shopping, it is easier for Kamaryners are to get to Ukrainian Chernihiv then to Minsk or Homiel in Belarus. Furthermore, it is cheaper in Ukraine.

I met a tattooed man on a street. He was loudly announcing he was going to currency exchange office on the phone.

Currency exchange? Here? I know it just plain life situation but, as I thought, more common for larger places.

The man — named Ihar — was with his son on the shoulders. Ihar is divorced. He was a weightlifter, was getting ready to pass the Master of Sports test. Trainings, special food… “It all went wrong,” Ihar says. Ihar lives in Kamaryn and takes his son for a few weeks. He works in Moscow and is quite rich considering local wages.

Those who work abroad are not rare here: all they have good money. The choice of jobs in Kamaryn relatively poor: forest workers, farmers, municipal employees… Previously, people was selling gasoline and alcohol abroad, but this ‘golden age’ has passed.

It takes 40 minutes to visit everything in Kamaryn: a hospital, a village administration, a school, a house of culture, a house of arts, a sauna, a fire station, a post office, an ATM, a currency exchange office, several shops, a hotel, a bar and some cafes next to the highway. However, this is already too much for the 2,000 Kamaryn with constantly reducing number of dwellers.

A town in ‘Zone’?

“Can you see Chernobyl?” A usual start for a talk of two employees of the administration for liquidation of consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. They are on duty on ф 30-meter observation tower. The good weather brings the view of Chernobyl nuclear power plant’s fourth reactor. But I was not a lucky one.

Most Kamaryners are sure their town is a part of 30-kilometr exclusion zone: it is 28–29 kilometers away from the town. However, radiation is low here: the cloud of radionuclide did not covered Kamaryn.

Only strangers like me care about radiation level today.

Those who left right after the explosion died earlier than those who stayed,” says Ivan Mikhajlavich, who evacuated people from Prypiat and surrounding towns to ‘clean areas’ on his bus. He was given a certificate of disability for this. His wife Maryja was working at military registration and enlistment office. He is nervous when telling about evacuation hustle. She also blames the officials who registered their families’ members as the liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster and received state apartments for this.

Being resentful against them is a feature of all dwellers of near-Chernobyl regions: all suffered from radiation but some people used their position to make a profit out of the situation.

Few people attend a PE class at school stadium. Most of children are at health resorts. They finish the academic year there. Thirty kids went to Italy: travelling abroad is a common fact of radiation polluted regions.

‘Swing for Kolia’

I noticed Kamaryn unlike most Belarusian villages and small tows is quite well groomed: well-laid asphalt on central streets: just like in Minsk. A good fence separates them. A restored House of Culture boasts with its new windows.

Kamaryners say it all was done before Lukashenka’s visit to the Chernobyl area in 2009. The whole town was renewed waiting for the presidential trip. They also tell about the swing installed together with a shed and a bench at the recreation zone next to the highway near Kamaryn. Lukashenka who was making his trip by helicopter was considered to bring his son Kolia together with him.

However, the swing turned to be out of the reach of local kids and Kolia did not come that time. On my way to Minsk I did not manage to see them it from a bus window.

• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0