Braslav: the lake region attracts not only with its amazing nature and talented creative people

In the Necklace of Blue Lakes

Braslav is called the pearl of the Belarusian Lake District. On Saturday, many guests will gather here – the regional festival-fair "Dazhynki-2019" will be held in the city. 

Braslav is surrounded by about three hundred lakes. The largest is Drivyaty. It resembles a sea. In Braslav region, more than anywhere else, you understand why Belarus is called blue-eyed – the water surface in the vicinity of the tourist town exceeds 40% of the area. About 30 species of fish are found here, including eel, zander, pike, and burbot. In the cleanest lake Volos Yuzhny, the water is visible to a depth of 10 meters. 

To fall in love with Braslav, it is enough to come once and climb Mount Mayak. You will agree with what you have heard from others and read in guidebooks: it is indescribable. Maybe there is no resort in Braslav, but there is definitely magic. You will definitely return there. And our heroes will do everything to make sure you have something to be surprised by.once every two weeks, no more often.


But you will definitely meet roe deer and deer, and foxes here run almost like cats, they are not even afraid of cars: in half an hour we met about three of them. In the enclosures near the park, there is a bear, wolves, fallow deer, and a lazy wild boar that poses for all photographers while lying down. Next year, a playground, a boat station, and other tourist amenities will appear here. And even without animals, there is something to see here – the landscapes are breathtaking.

Last year, 4,000 domestic and foreign tourists rested at the national park's bases. In total, 25,000 people visited the Braslav Lakes in 2018. 

Drive, Bliss, and Risk 

How are big festivals born in small towns? Yevgeny Labut from Braslav, one of the organizers of the nationwide famous Viva Braslav Open Air, has no precise answer to this question.The country doesn't know:


— There's complex mechanics here. The regularity of certain events, both random and non-random. Everything coincided – time, place, people. In the first year, we simply held a disco at the city stadium with the support of the international project "Bella Dvina". Looking back, I can say that the event de

it was literally done on the fly, we printed 600 tickets and never expected that more than two thousand people would come. Understanding of many things came later. There are some risks, sometimes it's better to have at least some experience. What saved us was that we created the festival together with my brother. After all, he is a close relative, there is complete trust, and a good team nearby.

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Back in 2013, Zhenya was the youngest head of a district department of sports and tourism in the Vitebsk region, understood something about organizing mass events, and Oleg Labut worked in Minsk and simply agreed to help his older brother hold "something for the youth" in their hometown. For about three years, the Labuts didn't think that the festival could be profitable:

— It was a hobby. We looked for sponsors, brought equipment and some artist. We made a profit – and that was great, — says Zhenya. — Once Vitaliy Artist, the lead singer of the band "Bez Bileta," said that everything here could really be rocked. We were just approaching the stadium – it's located in a hollow – I saw a dancing crowd from above. I still remember those goosebumps.


In six years, the budget and the number of Viva Braslav participants have increased tenfold. The number of festival guests is three times the population of Braslav. The sports and music festival is called the Belarusian Ibiza and one of the main musical weekends in the country.

For the brothers, the festival has turned into a job, and for the city – into the most large-scale event of the year.

— And what did your mother say to you?

— At first, nothing. She thought it wouldn't last long. Then, when she started finding out some figures on the expenses, she would clutch her head: "Why do you need this? You'd better buy yourselves a car." But we wanted to develop, we learned something new every year. It's such a drive. Of course, you can buy housing and a car. But all that can be done later.


I didn't have time to ask Zhenya what the authorities thought of the project – at an intersection, we met the chairman of the Braslav District Executive Committee, Alexander Bodanin:

— The guys are great. They managed to create a cultural brand —for the festival, thousands of people come to Braslav, the city has become more popular, the "Viva Braslav" sign has become a photo zone, it is recognized throughout the country. I hope the festival will be a message for other useful initiatives.


And who knows, maybe among the 30,000 guests there will be a future or current investor who will build a health resort complex here? We'll live and see. If we're lucky, we'll relax too. After all, who would have thought 6 years ago that thousands of people would pay money to listen to music on the beach and spend the night in a tent 240 kilometers from Minsk?

In a Prime Location

Baker Vladimir Sviridenko is a local celebrity. His golden-brown loaves and breadmobile have been featured on all Belarusian TV channels. Regular customers have also "youtubed" themselves, as they joke here. And he has plenty of regular customers: in the half hour we spent at the counter, about ten people came. White wheat loaves were the best sellers, some buying two. Many, especially young people, immediately broke off a warm heel. We and the photojournalist couldn't resist either.


"Do you like bread yourself?" I ask the seller.

"Not the one I sell. I've been baking the most popular item for about three years. By now, the taste has become so familiar that I bake something else for myself."

"And what do you like more – baking or interacting with customers?"

"I love doing everything. It involves many stages – kneading the dough, fermentation, shaping, baking, and there are many such cycles at night. If you think about it, selling is a form of relaxation. You work and work, and here you relax and communicate with people. You get not only money for your labor but also a lot of positive emotions. They tell you how delicious it was, how their child..."ok, I ate a whole loaf of bread dry. Yesterday, Americans came for bread. Last summer, my bread went to Vladivostok. There were guys from Murmansk, they ordered three boxes of long loaves for the road. They reached Verkhnedvinsk, they call: "Listen, there's no third one left, do you have any more bread?"


Vladimir had been fond of home baking before, but he earned a living as a carpenter. Three years ago, he broke his leg. Months in a cast prompted him to experiment with a bread maker. Everyone praised it. Presidential Decree No. 337 of September 19, 2017, providing preferences for individual entrepreneurs, also prompted Volodya to turn his hobby into a business. And for a year now, he has been delighting Braslav residents and city guests with fresh bread. He, by the way, does not call his occupation a business, he modestly calls it a "craft". Now he is preparing for the rainy season, has moved to another place, under a roof, and plans to expand the assortment:

— In the summer, sales are brisk, and in the off-season, there is time to try other recipes. I want to make buckwheat bread, and in general, there is a lack of dark bread. 

— What is the most difficult thing in your business then?

— The only problem is sleep. To get to the market by 12 o'clock, I bake all night. I try to sleep from six in the evening to midnight. I've almost gotten used to it. Maybe it sounds pretentious, but if you are doing what you love in the city you love, you give it all your time and don't get tired.

Weave your story

There are many artisans and talented people in Braslav. But there is only one folk master, a representative of a dynasty — Vladimir Lukyanets. Like his father, he weaves furniture from local willow. The products can be seen in the Museum of Traditional Culture, located in the building of a stone mill. There is even a bed there, and in the hotel attached to the museum, there are armchairs — the calling card of Vladimir Konstantinovich. But now he makes them a little differently:

— A friend bought a farmstead here and found armchairs in the attic. They were dirty, broken, and about 45 years old. He brought them to me and asked:"Can it be restored?" And I told him, "It's better to make new ones." He refused. I washed them twice in the bathtub in hot water, my wife put up with it. I replaced the legs, fixed them. And I decided to take measurements – they were very comfortable. I started making them, taking them to exhibitions – I hadn't seen anything like them anywhere.


— Do you harvest the vine yourself?

— Who else would? Soon the leaves will fall, then we can start harvesting. The vine for furniture grows in the floodplains of the Dvina. Sometimes it grows up to two meters by autumn, if beavers don't gnaw it down. You can't drive to the river by car. I go, tie a bundle weighing about 20-25 kilograms, put it on my shoulders – and walk half a kilometer, sometimes a kilometer and a half you have to carry it. If I prepare about 50 bundles – I'll have something to do in the winter. You need to boil the vine, peel it, prepare it for work. Dry it and sort it by size, and the one that will be used, soak it, then work with it.

Vladimir Konstantinovich also weaves baskets, flower stands, and boxes for storing various utensils, but he loves making furniture the most. Different materials, different weaving techniques, and more imagination are needed. The workshop is in the attic. For 20 years now, he has been sitting there every day and remembers how his father used to say: "Study better, there's no need for you to weave baskets." But he listened to his father and watched his fingers carefully. When he started working at the school, he decided to make flower stands with the children, and then he started weaving furniture. He has introduced his son to the family tradition. He is sure that his father lived to be 90 years old thanks to his useful hobby, and now the vine helps him live.

"Mayak" for Valentina

Valentina Tavkin, the chief agronomist of the leading farm in the district, "Mayak Braslavsky," came to these parts over 30 years ago. She, a young graduate of the Gorki Agricultural Academy, was literally bought out from a collective farm in the Bryansk region:

— At first, I asked to come here myself, I wanted to see the Vitebsk region. I had seen others, but not this place. I studied well, and I was the first to go for distribution. "Mayak" and "Teterki" were in Vitebsk. "What a beautiful name," she said.but in the commission, — let's go to "Mayak". I met my future husband here. We were going to live in the Bryansk region, a house was waiting for us there, my husband — a car from the farm, my father was sure that I would return home. We just arrived in Braslav to resign, the chairman put me in the car — let's go, I'll show you the house. Can you imagine? The agronomist was great then, Anatoly Pavlovich Galay, he persuaded me to stay. After the student practice, he and his supervisor did not forget me, they were waiting. Then they found out about the scholarship from my home farm, they returned the money to them.


In general, Valya took a day to think and stayed in Braslav. She wrote a letter home, but she says she was ashamed in front of her father all her life. But he made her an agronomist: he worked as a foreman, dragged his daughter with him through fields, forests, roads.

She fell in love with the village forever, she cannot live without the river, trees, gardena, preserves, and the eternal rotation of jars. She even keeps a cow to this day! The only one, by the way, among all 15 specialists who attend the meetings.

It's unclear when she manages to do everything – from April until the New Year, she only comes home to sleep. The farm is huge, over 7 thousand hectares of arable land, every day the chief agronomist covers about 200 kilometers in the fields, and knows that harvests are not received, but grown:

— You can't deceive the land. If you don't put anything in it, you won't get anything out. We had an average yield of 36 centners, and 42, when per hectare of fertilizer.renium were applied at 340–380 kilograms. And now we apply half! There is no reserve in the soil. Chemical weeding and care are good, but without microelements, do not expect high results. And the climate does its job. This year, there was no rain for a hundred days in a row. Winter crops and rapeseed suffered greatly. But our average yield is 27.8, which is not lower than the regional average.


The agronomist calls the Braslav Lakes "balalaikas" – they are very small. In her homeland, there are plains, and it takes an hour and a half to drive from one edge of the field to the other. Here, they buy special equipment to plow one and a half hectares among the bushes. But Valentina Viktorovna has never regretted her choice:

— I often visit my homeland, I miss it a lot. I've seen for a long time: agriculture is dying there, I wouldn't want to live to see that here.

As long as there are such enthusiasts in the village, the village will not die. And at "Mayak," the chief agronomist recently got a young assistant. Believe me, next to Valentina Tavkin, she has no chance of falling out of love with her profession.