MINSK, 30 December (BelTA) – Minsk metro workers should appreciate meters not only below the ground but also above it considering what happened in the 1990s. Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko made the relevant statement during a solemn ceremony held on 30 December to inaugurate a new section of the Minsk metro, BelTA has learned.
The head of state shared his recollections concerning the Minsk metro. One of them was the decision to continue building the metro system despite financial difficulties of the 1990s. “It was necessary to give a nudge to the development of metro construction. I remember that we held one of the first subbotniks [voluntary labor days] in the metro. We built something under the ground,” he said.
His second recollection focused on an attempted strike by Minsk metro train drivers. “I was a very young president back then when your parents elected me. And we had a lot of chaos [in the country]. If police had failed, we would not have survived: vehicles were overturned back then and so on and so forth. And the opposition very actively exploited the metro system workers. I remember how they convinced your parents (it is a bad page, we don’t advertise it) to support the opposition and halt the metro system’s operation in summer. The heat was crazy: over 30C. But the metro wasn’t working. All the people were above the ground. Naturally, there were not enough buses. Everything was in short supply back then,” the president recalled.
Meanwhile, Aleksandr Lukashenko noted, the metro workers had decent wages against the background of economic hardships: 3-5 times above the country’s average.
“Minsk was flooded with people. It was scary to look at the streets. But I said we mustn’t bow to anyone. If they don’t want to work, it is fine,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. At the same time the head of state realized that it was necessary to get the metro system working promptly. He contacted the Belarusian railway company and received support. “Taking into account that railway workers are my friends. My mother worked for the railway. And the railway workers knew that the president is a railway man, figuratively speaking,” he said.
The management of the railway company had doubts initially and explained that they did not know how to drive trains below the ground. It was even more complicated to keep trains moving with intervals as short as 2-3 minutes. “I said: fine, make it 5, but get the metro moving. The interval went down to 2 minutes within 24 hours. The railway workers went to work,” the president said.
After a short period of time the metro train drivers, who were on strike, wanted to get back to work. “I was seated at the House of Government back then,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “I saw a huge number of people walking. Men in front. Women at the back. With brooms and sticks they were herding the men in front of them. I wondered what it was. It turned out that wives were forcing the train drivers to go to work. I said they don’t want to work and we are fine with it. I forbade letting them work for three days.”
“If you are gone, then you are gone! Just like the self-exiled opposition of today. They have gone to foreign countries. Medics and teachers are offered dishwashing jobs. ‘We don’t want to wash dishes. Well, then you will have no jobs.’ They want to go back to Belarus. This is why we have set up a commission led by the prosecutor general so that they could explain themselves. If you didn’t blow up things, if you didn’t set the metro on fire, god forbid, then come back and work. But if you committed an offence or violated the law, then you will be held responsible. This is exactly how it happened to the train drivers,” the head of state noted.
At the same time Aleksandr Lukashenko realized that by borrowing tens of the best train drivers from the railway company, he left it understaffed. This is why the metro train drivers were allowed to resume work several days later. “I understood that not all of those lost people are bad. I let them go back to work a week later. And those were the most reliable, the strongest, and probably the most loyal people,” the head of state remarked.
“So, I recall that time when the train drivers wanted to demonstrate that nothing can exist without them. But it can! Without train drivers, without construction workers, and without this president. Nature abhors a vacuum. Everything will exist. This is why remember it and appreciate the meters not only below the ground but also above it where we and our children will have to live,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
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