Bulbash-Hall set to open in Kurapaty despite ban - reports

The recreation complex near the Kurapaty Tract is about to open. The object also known as “Bulbash-Hall” will be put into service in January 2018, belsat.eu reports.

Making a video report dedicated to Stalin’s mass shooting in Kurapaty, the TV channel reporters noticed that works were in progress on the premises of the formerly abandoned complex. The object is about to be put into service, the guard who approached the Belsat journalists said.

The site is owned by BelRestInvest company, which rents it out to Ansibel. Foreign investors who used to participate in the construction “do not want to invest into it anymore” due to the scandal caused by the construction, BelRestInvest explained.

Ansibel told journalists the company does not rent the object situated at the 51st kilometre of the Minsk ring road. 

The scandal caused by the construction of “Bulbash-Hall” started in the autumn of 2012 when civil activists learned that a recreation complex with a restaurant would be built next to the mass graves in Kurapaty. The developer violated the law becuase the buildings were being constructed in the protected area of Kurapaty, the activists said. The Belarusian General Prosecutor’s Office admitted the fact and Minsk Region Executive Committee ordered “to liquidate the violations of the law on protection of historical and cultural heritage” at the end of 2012. The construction was suspended.

The Ministry of Culture took several decisions to reduce the protected area in Kurapaty in 2013-2014. The borders were actually adjusted to allow the construction of “Bulbash-Hall” (the territory was no longer part of the protected area). Reports about the opening of “Bulbash-Hall” (under a different name) appeared in mass media several times but it did not happen either in 2015 or 2016.