Hockey fans need accomodation: Minsk students evicted from hostels for period of championship (video)
Hundreds of Belarusian students have been deprived of their hostel rooms: foreigners who are coming to see the Ice Hockey Championship in Minsk will be housed there. What will the students have to face while the Belarusian capital is hosting the mega sports event?
They are highly likely to encounter certain difficulties: even now a considerable amount of the city’s studentship are living on their trunks and looking for a flat or bed. Why? The Minsk city authorities decided to lodge foreign tourists in students’ hostels during the championship.
ALESIA, student:
‘There are better conditions [in the hostels] in Dzerzhinsky street. Those hostels are new.’
English subs:
{movie}Hockey fans need accomodation: Minsk students to be evicted from hostels for period of championship (ENG subs)|right|16157{/movie}
A lot of students had to move to such hostels from the students’ village. To put it mildly, the conditions leave much to be desired here, the dwellers say.
ANTON, student:
‘We got accustomed to residing in the students’ village. There is a shower and kitchen in each room. And here we have cockroaches!’
That’s why they call this hostel ‘cockroaches’ oasis’: as these insects feel homey here, one can come across them day and night.
ALESIA, student:
‘There is no shower, the loo is in bad state. There are five of us dwelling in one room.’
Inconvenience hardly promotes good academic progress, students say.
ANTON, student:
‘The exam session is at hand, and we have to move to another place … But we should prepare for exams and do our term projects instead!’
According to the law, everything should have been organised in a different way.
ALIAKSANDR, student:
‘I happened to look through the agreement on renting hostel rooms. All the technical and health conditions are to be observed, the document says.’
Such inconvenience is said to be temporary; but some dishoused students have been recently informed they will never go back to the ‘comfortable’ hostels.
{movie}Hockey Championship in Minsk: Hostels to be in demand? ENG subs|right|16158{/movie}
Yan Babitski, In Focus
