Today is the anniversary of the Chernobyl tragedy. 36 years have passed since the most terrible man-made disaster. This week is traditionally devoted to solving problems of further development of the affected areas. What has been done over the year? The President met with the responsible officials at the Presidential Administration, the Government and the key ministers. The subject of Chernobyl never leaves the agenda of the head of state. 5 programs on overcoming the consequences of the tragedy were implemented. In total, since 1991, $19 billion has been spent on Chernobyl-related activities from the budget alone, plus about the same amount from other sources.
Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus: "I would like today, before going there, to get information on how those plans and those instructions that I gave during recent meetings with people and visits to the Chernobyl region are implemented.
The issue number one for the head of state is the social sphere, No matter how successfully the affected territories are developing today, the original problems remain in people's memory, the President explained. "What is the situation and how are social issues being addressed?" he asked.
"The second issue is the economy. We've done a lot for people's lives. A lot of time has passed by now, more than 30 years, and we have seen that we have made the right decisions, that we have not abandoned vast areas of our country. People live in those cities and towns. Moreover, they work well, especially in agriculture," Alexander Lukashenko said.
The third issue is land reclamation and its involvement in agricultural turnover. "Little by little, wherever possible, without straining the situation and without forcing people to work on lands that are difficult to work today," said the President.
The head of the state paid special attention to reforestation and wood processing. The relevant instructions had already been given to them earlier.
"Among other things, people are very interested in fishing, trophy hunting. We caution people, we do that. Safety measures must be observed. We need to control it so that it would not be dangerous. We talked about ecological tourism, bee keeping and horse breeding. As experience and practice have shown, this business can be run there and it gives good results. That is, a number of specific problems which were raised on the spot during my visits were addressed to specific agencies and specific people,” the President inquired.
By the way, the President announced a trip to the southern regions. Every year at this time, Alexander Lukashenko sees for himself how the affected areas are restored and what people are concerned about. The priority is to strengthen the potential of these areas and create jobs.












