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National end-of-harvest festival held in Kobryn

Dazhynki 2009, a national end-of-harvest festival, was held this past weekend in Kobryn, a city of 50,000 residents in the Brest region.

The festival was mainly intended to honor the districts, farms, crews and individual machine operators who had achieved the best results in agriculture and harvesting.

A big concert involving more than 200 professional singers, musicians and dancers was staged.

In his address to the gathering, Alyaksandr Lukashenka emphasized the need for speeding up the modernization of all farms and the entire farm produce processing industry.

“We can see how hard the situation is in the world food market which is characterized by the unpredictability of prices, bankruptcies of farmers, speculative trade and hunger riots,” the Belarusian leader said. “The number of people who suffer from hunger throughout the world has already exceeded 1.5 billion. In short, it is unenviable to be a nation that suffers a lack of food and is dependent on foreign suppliers. It was right of us to rank food among state priorities at an All-Belarusian People’s Assembly and to consistently raised our farming and processing sector from its knees and improve the life of village people.”

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) puts the number of hungry people at one billion, one-sixth of the world's population.

“This is something amazing,” said Belarusian-born Soviet cosmonaut Pyotr Klimuk, who was among guests of honor at the festival. “I feel as if I’ve found myself in a fairytale. The streets are paved and tidy. Everything is refurbished. This is the first time I’m attending a Dazhynki festival and I’m proud of what Belarus has done.”

Mr. Klimuk, born in a village near Brest in 1942, flew three space missions – in 1973, 1974 and 1978 – spending a total of 79 days in orbit.

Syarhey Vyalitski, a Dazhynki prize-winning combine operator at Astramechava, a large diversified farming company near Brest, told BelaPAN that his win had been achieved through self-sacrifice. “I had to sacrifice time and energy and cultivate a strong will, as I didn’t want but had to rise with the sun and go to my combine,” he said. “Everyone asked, ‘Why are you the first to come in the morning?’ I replied, ‘Cause I have to in order to win. This is the only way to finish in first place.”