Changing courtyard on your own in Belarus not an easy task


Hrodna citizen Alyaksandr Spirydonau is in a red tape ‘war’ with officials and would not let them replace the green zones with parking spaces. The Mira street in Hrodna is not an elite area, but it is far from being the worst one. Cobblestone streets, views of the Nyoman and old castles on the other side. But in the backyards of the postwar buildings passions are running high.

A resident of the house on 8 Mira street, Alyaksandr Spirydonau decided not to wait, as the majority of the dwellers, but take the matter into his own hands. He ordered a project worth four and a half million rubles and took it to communal services office. The design has a perfect garden: with benches, flowerbeds, flowers, stands for laundry drying, bicycle parking etc.

It turned out, however, that it is not so simple. To start the reconstruction of the backyard, even for the own money, he needs the consent of the other tenants. Here the differences began. A part of the dwellers, albeit a smaller one, required … to reduce the green zone and make a parking lot instead. So that the cars, they say, would be parked right in front of their eyes. At the same time, Mr Spirydonau’s opponents did not prepare their own plan and are waiting for the scheduled maintenance.

“The yard should be for people, not for cars, – complains Alyaksandr. Not for dogs or alcoholics, but for the children, who now have no place to play.”

Indeed, the only “sandbox” in the yard is made of the sand drifts that the communal services left behind after another yard landscaping redecoration… But the tenants are in no hurry to change anything at their own risk. According to the law, for each unauthorized flowerbed they could get a penalty. Each small document is to be approved by gas and water heating services, in case there are utilities under the potential flowerbeds.

“I believe that the state does not care for the flowers near the house, said Alyaksandr. It is better for it to put there asphalt everywhere just to forget about the issue. And flowers require extra care and extra resources…”

To be fair, it should be noted that a court in the 7-8 Mira street already differs from the rest of the neighborhood: it is greener, and the cars are not parked on the lawn. Alyaksandr Spirydonau smiles and says that people even used to fight for parking spaces in the courtyard, so the current calm was “paid for with blood.” Thus, to reconstruct the court, the dwellers need to break through the inertia of the state institutions and that of their own neighbors.

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