The concept of “agro-towns” has become widespread in the territory of the Republic of Belarus after the adoption of the “State program for the revival and development of the countryside for 2005-2010”. This led to the complete reorganization of some villages, villages, the involvement of young specialists in the agricultural sector of the national economy.
Reasons for the appearance of agro-towns
Like many developing countries, the Belarusian Republic has been faced with accelerating the process of urbanization. The opportunity to earn more, and to lead a life easier led to the fact that young people left the countryside. The level of educational services, cultural activities, and opportunities for sports was significantly higher among urban residents compared with village residents.
This led to a decrease in the population in villages, a lack of qualified personnel in the countryside, and a decrease in agricultural production. As a result, the infrastructure gradually ceased to exist: schools, kindergartens, post offices, shops were closed. This accelerated the resettlement of villagers.
The advantages of agricultural towns in Belarus
The main goal of improving and creating modern settlements is to improve the lives of rural residents and improve the work of the country's agro-industrial complex. Both directions are interconnected.
Work in modern rural towns
Creation of jobs is a priority in the program for the modernization of villages in the Belarusian Republic. Agricultural towns in Belarus were created on the bases of strong farms.
Promising agricultural enterprises updated equipment, transport. Workshops were built for processing livestock products directly at the places of cattle cultivation and dairy production.
As a result, the need for personnel has grown. Boys and girls are actively invited to work in agricultural towns of Belarus after graduating from higher educational institutions. Actively employ everyone who wants to work in the presence of vacancies. Young people are attracted not only by a modern equipped place, but also by the possibility of obtaining a personal home in an agro-town, the availability of places for cultural recreation or sports.
Infrastructure
When creating settlements of a new type, special attention was paid to improving the lives of people living there. Differences of the agro-town in Belarus from the usual village:
- Large settlement. Modern rural settlements were given a new status and name if they are the center of an agricultural organization or village council.
- Gasification carried out. Many agro-towns have natural gas.
- Modernized power networks, almost uninterrupted power supply.
- Construction and re-equipment of central or local water supply and sewage systems.
- High quality mobile communications, Internet.
- Reconstructed roads.
- Created venues for cultural activities, equipping existing culture houses with modern audio, video equipment, opening cinemas.
- The availability of places for sports: the opening of swimming pools, ice rinks, gyms.
Particular attention is paid to the development of medical services. Many village outpatient clinics and feldsher-midwife stations were re-equipped with necessary equipment and staffed with medical personnel.
Housing
A great place to live and work is the modern Belarusian agricultural town. With the provision of housing in an actively developing village, even problems may arise.
Whole streets grew rural cottages for professionals and their families, who were needed by the agricultural enterprise. But they were quickly given to qualified personnel. Received them in agro-towns for free while working in the organization. Many experts were able to privatize them. For this, loans were provided for 20 years. Their receipt depended on the solvency of the villager and the period of work in the organization.
Agro-towns of the northern region
Vitebsk region is the northern part of the Belarusian republic. There are many lakes in this area, among which the popular resting place is Braslav Lakes. Cold climate, stony soil do not contribute to the growth of agricultural production. But there are also updated villages.
One of the large agro-towns of Vitebsk region is Akhremovtsy. During the Great Patriotic War, the village was completely destroyed. But she could be reborn. In 2018, there were about 1300 inhabitants.
In Akhremovtsy there is a peat briquette factory, an enterprise for material and technical support of the agro-industrial complex, a unitary enterprise "Braslavskoye", which produces whole milk products, cheeses.
In the village there is a secondary school, a kindergarten, a music school, a library, a culture center, a post office, a feldsher-midwife station.
The Grodno region
Successfully developing village modernization programs in the western part of the Belarusian Republic. Popular agro-towns of the Grodno region are located in each region of the region, but the largest are located near the regional center.
Obukhovo
The village of Obukhovo is located 13 km from the regional center of Grodno. In the territory of 20 villages there is an agricultural production cooperative named after I.P.Senko. It is named after the former chairman of the farm, who led it for more than 50 years and made it successful.
The company employs about 650 people. They are engaged in growing apples of early, autumn, winter ripening, production of cold pressed rapeseed oil. A special place is occupied by the production of meat products, the assortment of which has about 40 positions. High-quality products made from natural ingredients are in great demand in Belarus.
On the territory of the enterprise, livestock and crop production, including horticulture, are grown and processed. The farm has a feed mill.
Eight new apartments are commissioned annually, and houses built in the 80s of the last century are being renovated. For residents of the agro-town, there are industrial, grocery stores, a cafe with 120 seats, a Culture Center, a youth sports school, an art school, a pharmacy, an outpatient clinic, a bank branch, a bathhouse, and a communications department.
Skewers
The agro-town is located 12 km from Grodno. The population exceeds 3, 000. For a long time, the chairman of the collective farm in Vertelishki was the brother of the chairman of the enterprise in Obukhovo F.P. Senko.
A peat enterprise “Skewers”, a peat briquette factory and a narrow gauge railway are operating in the village. There is a secondary school, a kindergarten, a youth school, a culture center, a department store and other shops.
Minsk Region
There are many successful agro-towns in the central region. One of them - Dreams, is located in the Nesvizh district. The population of the village in 2016 was more than 2600 inhabitants. The main workplace of many is the agricultural production cooperative "Dairy Farm".
The company produces meat and dairy products. On the territory of the agro-town there is a pig-breeding complex with 36, 000 heads, a poultry farm with a broiler population of more than 700 thousand heads, cows with more than 15, 000 units of livestock, including 2, 850 heads of dairy herds.
Processing of products is carried out at the meat and dairy plant. The agro-industrial complex is developing a distribution network by opening stores in large cities, automobile retail facilities are being transported across the Minsk region.
In the village there is a cultural center, a secondary school, a kindergarten, a public house and a bath and laundry complex, a cafe, a beer bar, a hotel, and a swimming pool is being renovated.
Agricultural towns in the villages of the Minsk region are characterized by the presence of multi-storey residential buildings, developed infrastructure, congestion and lack of places in schools and kindergartens. Large modern villages near Minsk - Kolodishchi, Lesnoy, Ostroshitsky town.
