All forestry enterprises of the Vitebsk region have started collecting birch sap, as reported to a BELTA correspondent by Oleg Gritskevich, the leading engineer for secondary forest use and subsidiary agriculture of the Vitebsk Regional State Production Forestry Association (RPLHO).

The driver who lost control of his car on the Novopolotsk road was heavily intoxicated. For your information, the tragedy occurred on the night from Sunday to Monday. The young man lost control of the car, it was thrown into the oncoming lane, after which a collision with a concrete support occurred.

The previous afternoon, the Ministry of Emergency Situations received a report of a fire in a two-room apartment located on the fifth floor of a five-story brick residential building in Postavy via the "101" line from a neighbor who saw a column of smoke coming from the window. Upon arrival of the Ministry of Emergency Situations units at the scene, it was established that while the mother, born in 1984, was doing household chores in the kitchen, her four-year-old daughter, left unattended in the adjacent room, set bedding on fire with a lighter.

The Vitebsk Regional Endocrinology Dispensary received medical equipment through a grant from the Government of Japan. A solemn ceremony for the handover of the equipment took place today with the participation of Vladimir Terentyev, Deputy Chairman of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, and Mimori Shigehiro, Chargé d'affaires ad interim of Japan to the Republic of Belarus.

On September 6, Japanese volunteers will hold clown therapy masterclasses at the Vitebsk Regional Children's Clinical Hospital and the Velikolyetchansky Children's Home.

Memorial signs in memory of the feat of internationalist soldiers are planned to be installed in 2013 in Beshenkovichi, Dubrovno, and Senno, the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee's Ideological Work Department informed a BELTA correspondent.

For a quarter of a century, the village of Litousovo in the Senno district has been famous for its diverse valuable livestock, bred by the farm of Alexander Borisenok. How is this unusual business for the Dvina region developing today?

Following reconstruction and modernization, a modern operating unit with 6 operating rooms, equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, has opened.

Performers from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, Poland, and Germany will take part in the concerts of the XXVII International Festival of Ancient and Modern Chamber Music, which will be held in Polotsk from March 13 to May 2.

A virtual exhibition of investment and other business proposals will be organized for the first time following the already traditional forum. For this purpose, all exhibitors of the presentation program will be provided with an electronic platform on the regional business portal. In essence, the virtual exhibition will become not just a presentation, but a kind of contact exchange.

It has been six years since the city executive committee decided to erect a monument to Prince Alexander Nevsky in Vitebsk. The editorial office receives calls from citizens on this matter. We turned to the Deputy Chairman of the City Executive Committee, Petr Podgursky, for a comment.

The key to the effective development of the agricultural sector of the Vitebsk region, when using the equipment available to agricultural enterprises, should be the improvement of the general culture of farming and strict adherence to soil cultivation technology. This opinion was expressed by the chairman of the regional executive committee, Nikolai Sherstnev, during the regional seminar-meeting with the participation of scientists, specialists, and agricultural workers.

Photographer Valery Kovalyonok has been working at the Sharkovshchina Public Services Combine for almost 25 years. But thanks to the well-known Vitebsk ornithologist Vladimir Ivanovsky, he became interested in studying birds. He learned to band birds and distinguish them by their songs and plumage.