In 2016, the HTP approached a billion dollars in annual revenue. Over 10 years, Belarusian software exports have grown more than 30 times. If in 2006 per capita export of computer services Belarus was almost four times behind India and five times behind the USA, today the country is ahead of the USA by 1.5 times, India by 2 times, South Korea by 1.5 times. 2.5 times. Belarus entered the top 10 countries in the region of Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Africa, which are the largest providers of services in the field of custom software development, and ranked second after Israel in terms of the share of information technology development in GDP per capita.

Here is what Valery Tsepkalo himself said about the IT industry:

On this topic: “I had one joint that cost the company $8 million.” Oleg Khusaenov's conversation with businessmen

“In a short time, an industry has been created in the country, which today largely forms the image of Belarus. This happens because we have a number of products that are in the most prestigious - consumer - segment of the market. That is, they are used by hundreds of millions of people around the world. This is a well-known messenger, game, application. All this made people talk about Belarus in Business Week, Bloomberg, Euronews, Reuters and other leading world media.

Graduate of MGIMO, Ambassador to the USA, the ideological inspirer of the future HTP

Valery Tsepkalo, a graduate of the Grodno secondary school No. 14 with in-depth study of the English language, entered MGIMO on the second attempt, and received an institute diploma with honors. After studying, he remained in graduate school, which he also graduated with excellent marks, taught, and became a candidate of legal sciences. The work of Valery Tsepkalo at the USSR Embassy in Finland fell on the difficult years of 1990-1991 - the period of the collapse of a large country. In 1994 he was appointed First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus.

On this topic: Belarusians who tamed artificial intelligence. Seven Cool Hackathon Projects

For the next five years, Valery Vilyamovich worked in America as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the United States and Mexico. It was there, in the USA, that Tsepkalo visited Silicon Valley and decided that something similar should be created in Belarus. In 2005, Valery Tsepkalo became the project manager for the creation of the Hi-Tech Park, starting a new business, essentially from scratch.

Over the years, under his leadership, much has been done to create favorable conditions for the development of information technologies in the country, as well as to concentrate human resources, scientific, investment and financial potential. “We started with the fact that we wanted to create a cluster: as a concentration of organizational, human, and, subsequently, financial efforts in one direction. This approach has already proven effective. Everyone knows Silicon Valley,” recalls Valery Tsepkalo in an interview.

On this topic: Post of the day. “If in the USA there were orders like in Belarus, or why we don’t have Apple”

Tsepkalo is an expert of the UN Secretary-General on information security - a member of the Strategic Council of the UN Global Alliance for Information Technology and Development.

Recently, the former head of the HTP spoke about the conditions for doing business in Belarus: “I will say this: the general “feeling of guilt” greatly demotivates people and deprives them of moral satisfaction from the results of their work, pride in their work.”

Many believe that Valery Tsepkala could have been released because of the “underbillion”
money earned by the HTP, liberal statements in which the former director of the HTP proposed to remove illegal business activities from the Criminal Code.

Recently, the IT industry was criticized by the head of Belgazprombank Viktor Babariko, who noted that “Belarus is turning into a community of high-tech vocational schools”, and Dmitry Gursky, director of Idionomics and partner of the Haxus investment fund (among its projects is the famous MSQRD), who expressed the opinion that some benefits for the development of the industry is no longer enough, "we need a whole program of action, but the benefits will not give a big growth."

Yuri Zisser on his Facebook

A new place of work opens up great prospects for many. But at first, the employee has a fear of not living up to expectations, lack of self-confidence and fear of doing something wrong. And in an attempt to quickly get used to a new job, offensive mistakes are often made that worsen the situation.

How to facilitate the period of adaptation to a new workplace?

Psychologists divide adaptation into 3 stages:

1. Addictive. There is a process of acquaintance with the rules of the company.
2. Self-expression. With the help of their professional qualities you occupy a certain place in the team.
3. Integration. You are already becoming a full member of the team. your experience and professionalism valued by colleagues.

In practice, things are different. There are only two aspects here: skill to interact with guidance and Everyone wants to be appreciated at work.

Have you coped with the difficult task of the authorities in a new place? If yes , then you will be able to adapt easily and quickly .

You just need to familiarize yourself with the following tips, and you will definitely know how to behave in a new team:

1. No flattery. In the first few days, the new employee will be under close scrutiny. Even if you liked your colleague's new shoes, you shouldn't immediately tell everyone about her good taste. Better get to know her better.
2. redundant self-confidence can only spoil the relationship in the team.
3. Learn to control your habits. If you like to think aloud, constantly open the window to ventilate the room, or often talk on the phone, you should first find out if this is not disturbing those sitting next to you.
4. You should not compare your old place of work with the new one in front of everyone.
5. refrain from

Valery Tsepkalo, director of the High-Tech Park administration. "Nasha Niva" recalls the remarkable pages of the biography of one of the most extraordinary representatives of the ruling elite.

Valery Tsepkalo (right) and US President Bill Clinton.

Childhood in Grodno

Valery Tsepkalo was born in 1965 in Grodno. His parents - William and Nina - came to the west of Belarus for the construction of a nitrogen plant. His father graduated from the Odessa Polytechnic, his mother graduated from the Kharkov Engineering and Economics.

As a result, the parents worked at the plant all their lives. Mother worked as the head of the labor department, in 1986 she was awarded the medal "For Labor Valor".

Tsepkalo Sr. received the unusual name William from his parent teachers. At the plant, he became deputy head of the chief mechanic's department. In retirement, he was engaged in diagnostics of computer equipment.

On the Internet you can find a patent by William Tsepkalo: "Method of evaporating aqueous solutions of urea and an evaporator for its implementation."

Valery's early years were spent in Dovator Lane, he was the only child in the family. In an interview with Grodnenskaya Pravda, mother Nina Petrovna said that she felt guilty before her son because she was constantly busy with work and spent little time with her child.

“I love Grodno very much. It is always a pleasure to return there,” Tsepkalo himself said.

MGIMO and the Finnish language

Valery Tsepkalo was an excellent student at school, although he himself says that he never sat behind books all the time. “I was chasing the ball, the puck, like everyone else. When his parents wanted to send him to a music school, he rebelled, ”he says about his childhood. But already in the middle classes there was a passion for the book.

Tsepkalo wanted to enter MGIMO, but after school this was not possible. Therefore, I went to study at the Minsk Technological Institute. After his second year, he was called up for military service. He served in the Strategic Missile Forces. “These were the years of the demographic hole, they took everyone off course,” he recalls.

After the army, I still managed to enter MGIMO. In the Soviet system, there was no choice of which language to learn. Tsepkalo was distributed into Finnish. “Finnish is so Finnish, thank you for not being Albanian,” Tsepkalo says that it is impossible to master the language well without love for the country in which it is spoken, so I read Kalevala, Finnish periodicals.

At the end of the existence of the Soviet Union, he worked a little in the Soviet embassy in Helsinki. After the collapse of the USSR, he decided to return to Belarus, and not stay at work in Russia.

Work in Shushkevich's team

In 1993-1994 Valery Tsepkalo was an adviser to the Chairman of the Supreme Council Stanislav Shushkevich. Then Anatoly Mikhailov (former rector of YSU) was on their team. However, before the presidential elections, Tsepkalo joined the team of Alexander Lukashenko, this happened around December 1993.

It was he who organized the visit of Alexander Lukashenko to the State Duma of Russia. This happened due to connections with the Liberal Democratic Party, since there were quite a lot of MGIMO graduates in this party.

After the elections, Tsepkala was appointed First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. At that time, the diplomat was only 29 years old. It is extremely difficult to imagine something like this in Belarus today.

NN's sources say that the then Minister Vladimir Senko strongly resisted such a decision, but could not do anything. In general, Tsepkalo of those years was notable for its conflict-free nature.

Founding of the Hi-Tech Park

Andrey Davydchik, dev.by

At the age of 32, Valery Tsepkalo becomes the Ambassador of Belarus to the United States. We note again that an extremely responsible position goes to a rather young man. It was in America that Tsepkala could come up with the idea of ​​creating a Belarusian "silicon valley". In 2002-2005 Tsepkalo was an assistant to the president, he managed to convey to the head of state the importance of creating a High Technology Park (HTP). In 2005, Tsepkalo headed the HTP, whose administration is located in the Uruchcha microdistrict.

The HTP is a special economic zone, its residents are exempt from paying a number of taxes to the state budget. And the income tax for employees is not 13% as in the country, but 9%. The residents of the Park are such IT monsters as EPAM Systems, as well as Game Stream, a partner of Wargaming.

The company's products are thundering all over the world - this is Viber, World of Tanks, and MAPS.ME. There was also MSQRD. Most of the companies work for foreign customers.

“If we talk about a dream, we basically want to make Minsk, and maybe the whole republic, a big technology park where people would sit in a cafe and discuss how to create a new startup,” Tsepkalo shared his dreams.

There was a time when the HTP provided more than 10% of the country's balance of payments! “For me, ideology is the ideology of modernization, the ideology that we can be as successful as the Americans, the Japanese, the Germans - like any other successful people,” Tsepkalo said.

Last summer, Valery Tsepkala had a conflict with the Prosecutor General Alexander Konyuk. In one of the interviews, the HTP director said that Steve Jobs would have been arrested in Belarus for illegal business activities. To which Konyuk replied that Jobs was engaged in the same thing that was called speculation in Soviet times.

Author of a book on the death and resurrection of man

As head of the HTP, Valery Tsepkalo blogged on LiveJournal. It is curious that it was signed by only three people - political scientist Yuri Shevtsov, Ukrainian banker Tigipko, and Russian public figure Skurlatov.

In 2005, Valery Tsepkalo wrote a book called The Code of Immortality: The Secret of Man's Death and Resurrection.

“Can a mortal man gain immortality? Is it possible, on the basis of the vast cultural and religious experience of mankind, to find the key to the re-creation of man in his true form? Are there any scientific reasons for this? This book tells about unraveling the mystery of a person's death, his temporary departure from the earthly world, about the possibility of his bodily return and spiritual resurrection. The most amazing thing is that there is nothing mystical here,” the annotation says.

In 2009, the publication was translated into English.

“The end of the world, if we combine it with the anthropic principle, puts equality between man and the universe, that is, the point is that a person with his mind is able to understand the universe, realize it, and therefore contain it. It was Hegel who was still trying to find out that the mind is akin to the universe. When a person dies, the entire universe is destroyed, and then there is a return, a resurrection, it remains only to remember. Remember from Pasternak: “We must remember in order to resurrect,” to resurrect means to remember,” Tsepkalo said on the occasion of the release of the book.

Today, on March 2, it became known about the unexpected decision of the president: to release Valery Tsepkala from his post. Valery Vilyamovich himself does not give any comments. In the meantime, Belarusian programmers and businessmen in the IT industry are shocked by an unexpected decision, we offer the readers of Komsomolskaya Pravda an interview with the head of the Belarusian "Silicon Valley", which we did last year. Then the Hi-Tech Park celebrated its tenth anniversary. We talked with Valery Tsepkalo about the history of HTP development, its current work, personnel, plans and prospects. Valery Vilyamovich told us about how he sees the Park in 5-10 years.

This year, the Belarusian Silicon Valley celebrates its tenth anniversary - this is the name of the High-Tech Park, which is located in the Minsk district of Uruchcha. Now the HTP unites 159 IT companies under its wing, which, by the end of the year, are expected to bring the annual volume of exports of products and services to one billion dollars! Valery Tsepkalo, who was at the origins of the creation of the HTP, spoke about how the park was born and how exactly it was possible to achieve such results.

Work on the creation of the HTP began in 2005, says Valery Vilyamovich. - The park was immediately considered as a project with extra-budgetary funding. Thanks to the assistance of the President of Belarus, we received a commercial loan of 312 thousand dollars - at 17% per annum. And two years later we returned it with interest - everything went even better than we expected.

Now the HTP has 159 registered residents, and 25,000 IT specialists work here. Every year the number of employees increases by three thousand people. The income of the park administration is made up of deductions from residents in the amount of 1% of their total revenue.

In terms of revenue, we are growing by 30-40% per year - these are very good results, - says Valery Vilyamovich. - Especially considering that the global growth of the IT industry in the world averages 3-4%. 10 years ago, the creation of the park could be called a start-up. Now, every year, startups are born in our park that make a splash all over the world. Among the most striking examples of such products are the World of Tanks game, the Viber messenger, the MAPS.ME map service and the sensational MSQRD application - the very one that Facebook founder and owner Mark Zuckerberg recently bought out.

It is no secret that over 90% of Belarusian software products and IT services are supplied abroad, the main consumers are in Europe and the USA. Belarusian companies have customers to match the scale of the park: Google, Microsoft, Coca-Cola Company, Bank of America, Oracle, Bosch, IBM, Deutsche Bank, Reuters, Airbus and others.

The share of the CIS market in the export of our residents is now only 4.8%, although two years ago this figure was 12.6%, says Tsepkalo. - The decline can be explained by two factors. The first reason is related to internal Russian problems - first of all, this is the fall in energy prices. The second reason is the law adopted in Russia on the so-called national software producers - we are talking about import substitution. This means that we are forced to reorient ourselves from the Russian market to the markets of Europe and North America. Nevertheless, there are still many large Russian companies among the clients of our residents. For example, our resident OOO Sberbank-Technologies, a subsidiary of Sberbank of Russia, creates its own banking software products. LLC "YandexBel" has been participating in the creation of Yandex services for five years. Omegasoftware develops software for large industrial enterprises in Russia. Among their customers are Uralvagonzavod, Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, MZ Arsenal, Ural Locomotives, Neftekamsk Automobile Plant and a number of others. The brand "Galaktika" is also known in Russia. The central office of the Galaktika Corporation is a HTP resident UE Top Soft. It is the largest developer of "full cycle" economic software.

One of the most important issues in building a successful enterprise is employees. No wonder there is a saying - cadres decide everything. Especially when it comes to IT. Tell us about the park's experience in finding suitable specialists.

Indeed, we are building our growth on interaction with the education system. Our greatest merit is that we were able to restore the prestige of engineering education. Math and physics are starting to gain popularity again in Centralized Testing - it's worth a lot. In the field of education, we work in three directions at once. First, our companies open laboratories jointly with universities. Now 80 such structures have already been created. Secondly, based on the Israeli experience, we have created an educational center in the park. He works with adults who are interested in IT, but have a different education and want to get an IT specialty. In this center for the period 2011-2015. over 4400 people have been trained. Education is paid, but companies are ready to reimburse the cost of education for those graduates who have successfully completed the courses. Thirdly, there are numerous courses based on IT companies that take suitable people from the labor market and retrain them. Finally, we have created a business incubator in the park, which allows young people to attend various IT events, gain knowledge, share experience in the field of IT, and also find a team for a startup.

- How do you see the Belarusian Hi-Tech Park in the future? In a year, three, ten?

We intend to improve the ecosystem that we have built here in ten years. We want to continue to encourage young people to come into the IT industry so that it grows and accumulates a critical mass of development engineers. And if we talk about a dream, we want to basically make Minsk, and maybe the whole republic, a big technology park where people would sit in cafes and discuss how to create a new startup. Not somewhere far abroad, but in Belarus, where some of their compatriots have already been able to turn their small firms into large global companies. Using the example of HTP, we show that you can repeat this path of success, you can achieve a lot with your mind and work!

Late yesterday I talked with the director of the Minsk High-Tech Park (HTP) Valery Vilyamovich Tsepkalo, whom the leadership of the Republic of Belarus sent to Moscow to explain the Belarusian position in the "gas conflict" with the Russian Federation. A more suitable figure is hard to find. Valery Tsepkalo worked as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, spent several years as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the United States, then was an assistant to the President of the Republic of Belarus and his representative in parliament, then to him as the author of the books "Belarus: By the Way of the Dragon" (on the application of the experience of modernization of the Eastern Asia in the conditions of post-Soviet Belarus) and “The Code of Immortality: the Mystery of Death and Resurrection” (on the prospects for the development of the “knowledge society”) entrusted the most important task - to ensure a post-industrial breakthrough for the republic.

I recalled that the share of Soviet Belarus, if counted per capita, was the largest personnel, geological exploration, technical and organizational contribution to the development of the hydrocarbon resources of Western Siberia and the construction of pipelines from there to the countries of Eastern and then Western Europe. Belarus has the full moral right to receive oil and gas on the same terms as Russian users. There should be no "hydrocarbon wars" between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus in principle. And the planned provocation once again confirms that Putin will not allow the rapprochement of our countries. This is the geopolitical super-task he professes. In order for the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus to unite in a single Union State, Putin must be removed from power.

Before that, I read an interview with the Secretary of State of the Union State Pavel Pavlovich Borodin ""No matter how they interfere with us - the Union will be. There is no bad weather for Russian-Belarusian integration" in the latest (July) issue of the Russian Federation Today magazine (Moscow, July 2010, No. 13, pp. 2-3). "Who interferes personally?" - Yury Khrenov, the editor-in-chief of the RF Segodnya magazine, asked over and over again, but Pavel Borodin did not directly answer, but with his appearance and intonation he made it clear that they were interfering from the very top of Russian politics. I won’t denounce - as much as possible, I have already written hundreds of notes, and everything is so clear for those who understand or want to understand reality, and it is such that it requires strength of mind to understand it, but few people in Russia today have this strength .

In addition, I expressed confidence that since Belarusian President Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko is not a selfish person and sincerely seeks, first of all, to improve the life of the people who trust him and turn Belarus into a modern prosperous state, even if the Russian Federation suddenly disappears from the face of the earth and all ties between Belarus and the Russian Federation - the republic will continue its breakthrough into post-industrialism and find ways to obtain the necessary resources from other countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and even the USA. Valery Vilyamovich confirmed that cooperation between the Hi-Tech Park and the United States has already been fully established, and the Park's products primarily serve the American market, and in general, the Republic of Belarus, no doubt, can live without the Russian Federation, but why does the Russian leadership need it - to push its the only ally, to insult the Belarusian President in every possible way. In response, I tried to explain the essence of the regime, which, unfortunately, had established itself in Russia, and advised me not to build illusions and modernize ourselves without much hope for Russian understanding and support.

We also discussed the proposed reform of science and education in the Republic of Belarus. Valery Vilyamovich generally wants to integrate the National Academy of Sciences and universities. Now scientists are cut off from students and graduate students, and teachers, due to lack of time and isolation from scientific work, are forced to neglect the improvement of their qualifications. I asked what is the average teaching load per teacher in Belarus. "Approximately 800-850 hours." "But this is wrecking! - I said. - With such a load, the degradation of university teaching is inevitable." "Not sabotage, but misunderstanding," Valery Tsepkalo cautiously remarked. Further, I outlined my position on the planned grandiose academic and university reform (it was substantiated in a number of my previous texts).

They also discussed joint Internet projects and prospects for international expansion. Unfortunately, until now, through my fault, the blank of the program document is not ready, and also it is necessary to pull up the companions-orgoviks.

News agencies report the following about today's speech by Valery Vilyamovich Tsepkalo in Moscow - "The lesson of the gas war: Belarus needs to create intellectual-intensive industries":

"The most important lesson of the recent gas war is that Belarus should not only diversify energy supplies, but also actively think about creating intellectually intensive industries. Such an opinion was expressed by Valery Tsepkalo, director of the administration of the High Technology Park, today in Moscow at a press conference dedicated to the Belarusian-Russian energy dialogue, BelTA correspondent reports.

Valery Tsepkalo also did not rule out that in the future Belarus would move its energy-intensive industries outside the country.

The expert is convinced that Belarus can resolve the issue of diversifying energy supplies in a fairly short period of time. As an example, he cited Finland, which back in the late 1980s was 100% dependent on oil and gas supplies from the Soviet Union.

Valery Tsepkalo said that at present Belarus is actively exploring the possibilities of alternative energy sources. In particular, the Belarusian side fully supports Poland's projects related to shale gas production. "With its gas war, Russia has taught us a lesson, making it clear that such conflicts may be in the future," he said.

"Russian economist Andrei Bunich called Russia's criminal policy towards Belarus
Raw material psychology dominates in Russia - the opinion of a Russian political scientist.
Gas and other wars negatively affect integration processes - Shukhno.

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko is confident that there are political reasons behind the Russian-Belarusian gas conflict. He stated this in an interview with the Euronews TV channel, BelTA has learned.

“$200 million is not the kind of money when the dispute should come to this. But, you know, a certain chain has been built recently: Belarus did not recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, then you did not join the Customs Union, you sheltered former President of Kyrgyzstan. That is, everything was not done the way Russia would like. Are there political reasons behind this gas conflict?", a TV channel correspondent asked Alexander Lukashenko.

"I'm 100% sure of this. But I want to ask you a rhetorical question: why didn't we recognize Ossetia and Abkhazia? Kazakhstan didn't recognize it either. But they Kazakhstan, which produces 90 million tons of oil, consumes only 11 of them, they (the Russians) supply them with oil at half price,” the Belarusian leader said, “I ask the “tandem” in the Russian Federation: why do you behave in this way towards us, if at the same time you behave differently towards another member of the Customs Union, selling oil at half price, in fact, without duty? There is no answer. So, there are some other questions here...," Aleksandr Lukashenko noted. "Apparently, they once again want to rebuild us, and Europe through us. It is their practice "Perhaps they are worried about the fall in oil prices and, as a result, for gas. Such conflicts are always dangerous for a market economy because they push up prices. This was the case in the conflict with Ukraine. But it is surprising that this has not happened now. On the contrary, oil price for the last three days fell."

The President of Belarus stressed that "gas is a reason." "They say that this is a 'dispute between business entities'. What a dispute, if during the meeting with Medvedev we agreed that he would sort out all issues, including gas and oil (duties and so on) , will call me and tell me the result. Two days later I see a scene from the film, a few shots: Medvedev is sitting, Miller is sitting, and he gives him an instruction (it was staged anyway): an ultimatum - to pay in 5 days. How to pay for 5 days, if you owe us more?! Why don’t you pay?” the head of state asked. “That is, there was no reason for the conflict, there was absolutely no reason. They had to pay $260 million – we would have transferred $187 million to them at once,” Alexander Lukashenko said.

In his opinion, perhaps Russia thus wants to keep Belarus in its sphere of influence. “We don’t need to be kept in our sphere of influence, we were absolutely pro-Russian, we did everything to make Russia feel good. This is not the way to pull countries closer to us and keep them in our sphere of influence. "Israelis establish relations. And I often spoke to Putin and Medvedev about this. Please, let's establish such relations as the Americans do with Israel, and you will always have your interests in Belarus, and they will be sacredly respected," the Belarusian leader said.

"Imperial thinking consists in taking, wrapping, tilting, pressing, throwing a noose. Otherwise, they don’t know how. Well, and probably some victorious successes today are needed. This is also very important for large states, victory But Belarus is not the place where you can roll up your sleeves and win today, because the Russian people do not accept a fight with Belarusians, I know this for sure," Alexander Lukashenko concluded."

The text of Alexander Lukashenko is eloquent - “DO NOT ALLOW BREAKING OF BROTHER TIES: The President of the Republic of Belarus - to A. A. Prokhanov” (Tomorrow, Moscow, June 30, 2010, No. 26 / 867 /, p. 1):

Dear Alexander Andreevich!

I consider it necessary to inform you about the real situation that has developed over the so-called "gas conflict" between the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation.

This is due to the fact that over the past week, a distorted view of this issue has been actively imposed on the citizens of our countries and the entire world community by Russian politicians and the media.

What is the true state of affairs?

Indeed, over the past period of the current year, the debt of Beltransgaz OJSC to Gazprom amounted to 186.7 million US dollars. This was due to the fact that, paying for gas at the price of 2009, the Belarusian side consistently continued negotiations on the terms of the contract for 2010. We agreed on this with the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, back on December 10, 2009, at a meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State.

I want to emphasize right away that the negotiation process, through the fault of the Russian side, was actually disrupted. Although we always took a flexible constructive position, offered various options for a mutually beneficial solution to the issue, and were ready for acceptable compromises. Belarusian initiatives were ignored, and our representatives, including high-level government members, were forced to sit for hours in Gazprom's reception rooms.

For some reason, Russian politicians and the Russian media are silent about this.

Not a word was said about the other side of the conflict - Gazprom's debt for gas transit through the territory of the Republic of Belarus. But it significantly exceeded the amount of our debt, amounting to 259.8 million US dollars. Moreover, unlike OJSC Beltransgaz, which paid for gas, OJSC Gazprom has not paid for transit at all since the end of 2009.

We deliberately did not raise the issue of this debt, because, being in the negotiation process, we seriously counted on the solution of all controversial aspects in the spirit of real partnership, which the Russian political elite constantly talks about.

In a similar vein, we spoke with the President of the Russian Federation and the Prime Minister of Russia quite recently, on June 11, 2010. And we agreed that the Russian side would carefully study our proposals and inform about its position within a few days.

Imagine our surprise when the Russian leadership did not communicate its decision directly to us, its partners, but staged it on TV in the form of a "gas" ultimatum.

But an even greater shock for the Belarusians was the fact that the ultimatum and the start of the "gas" blockade were scheduled for June 21 - on the eve of the 69th anniversary of the start of the operation to enslave the Soviet people by the Nazi invaders.

Russia did not act like this even with less friendly countries. Everyone knows examples when OAO "Gazprom" silently looked at the billions of debts accumulated over the years by other states.

And such a blow in the back to the fraternal people was made in conditions when the debt of the Russian side significantly exceeds the Belarusian debt.

Our people took this step as an insult to the nation and a betrayal of historical memory.

It turns out that, speaking in words about the inadmissibility of revising the lessons of history, the Russian leadership actually evaluates the holiness of fraternal ties in cubic meters of gas and barrels of oil.

We are absolutely not against pragmatism in economic cooperation. But it should equally concern both sides, take into account the entire spectrum of bilateral relations and correspond to the spirit of ongoing integration processes.

And, of course, be based on the strict fulfillment by all parties of the obligations assumed, without exceptions, restrictions and arbitrary interpretations.

Do Gazprom's latest actions correspond to such approaches? After all, even after we timely paid for the May delivery of gas, and the next day, on June 23, we paid off all the existing debt, OAO Gazprom did not fulfill its contractual obligations in full.

Instead, he began to look for various tricks in an effort to reduce the amount of his debt and delay its payment. But we have in our hands the acts signed by him, which clearly indicate the tariffs for transit.

Let's be honest: is it really only monetary interest behind the actions of Gazprom in this whole story? Can a couple of hundred million dollars be decisive for the financial position of one of the largest transnational corporations?

I am sure that everyone knows the answer. The underlying reason for the conflict is completely different. He is only a part of the unfriendly policy that has been systematically pursued towards Belarus over the past years. Suffice it to recall the recent "dairy", "meat", "sugar", "oil" and other wars. I'm not talking about the line deliberately pursued by the majority of the Russian media, which has acquired the character of a real informational aggression.

The goal is obvious: to "rebuild" the leadership of Belarus, to force them to make concessions to the detriment of the national interests of a sovereign state, to get tidbits of Belarusian property.

We, in Belarus, see all this and evaluate it accordingly. As a result, among our citizens, unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer supporters of deep integration with Russia. Belarusians are beginning to treat the country closest to us - Russia - with caution, expecting the most unpredictable blows from it.

We, politicians, can and must do everything to prevent the breaking of fraternal ties and the rupture of allied ties that have been painstakingly formed over the centuries by many generations. Under no circumstances should these sacred values ​​be sacrificed to individual ambitions and momentary interests.

I hope for your understanding and support, for your ability to objectively understand the lies and slander that have been splashing out recently on the pages of the Russian media.

Sincerely,

Alexander Lukashenko

If you read an interesting interview by Pavel Borodin on the current situation in the Union State of the Russian Federation + Belarus on the website of the Russian Federation Today magazine, then Mikhail Zadornov's sidebar is striking on the right: "... Having been in Minsk, Vitebsk, Mogilev, Borisov, I made the main conclusion for himself: Russia is unfairly behaving towards Belarus. Newspapers, television scoff at their Old Man, over the fact that they supposedly have nothing but potatoes, sticking the label of Soviet backwardness to Belarus. But in fact, today Russia can learn with my neighbor. In all the cities where I have been, new stadiums have been built, every school has sports grounds. The sidewalks are so clean that you can walk at home in street shoes. There are no terrorist attacks in Belarus, after the collapse of the Union, she has not been with anyone fought. It does not have such a number of young drug addicts as in Russia. There are no oligarchs here who influence the politics of power. There are no godfathers and godfathers who keep the provinces in fear ... "