A young Belarusian overcomes state obstacles to carry out a dream environmental project
By Pavel Antonov
Victar. No spelling mistake here, just a proper name: Victar Makovchik. Victar likes his name spelt with an 'a' — the proper way to write it in Belarusian, he emphasises. Any arguing that the name actually derives from Latin, not Russian, won't help; it just brings an innocent, jolly smile to his face, and the inevitable: "Yes, yes, I know."
Tilting at windmills?
Victar, 33, is not a nationalist of any kind, and certainly has nothing against Russian language or culture. He even won a recent essay-writing competition in Russian to study business at a Moscow university. Rather, the point he's after is one of being different, of standing for one's identity, even against the tide when necessary.
Making such a point in today's Belarus isn't easy, and it gets Victar into trouble every now and then. But it often brings him luck. Most recently he's managed to get a windmill-related project off the ground after struggling with it for a year. In January, shortly after the Orthodox Christmas, Victar organised and delivered his first environmental workshop for teachers in his home town of Beloozersk in south-western Belarus.
The workshop marks the end of a long and difficult wait to begin working with EUR 67,000 in grant monies from the EU to help solve some pressing environmental problems in Beloozersk. Financing came from EuropeAid, as part of a funding scheme for municipalities situated at the eastern borders of the European Union. The Tacis Cities Award Scheme (TCAS) made available a total of EUR 1.6 million for environmental improvements in border municipalities of Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. The purpose of the scheme was to support local efforts to improve waste collection and disposal, and to deal with other urban challenges concerning air and water quality. One side benefit of these activities is encouraged partnership between civil society and government officials, which is a challenging task in some of these target countries, including Belarus.
