Belarusians Responded To Lukashenko's Proposal

• 30.09.2026, 17:21

Why doesn't anyone want to go to the countryside?

Lukashenko stated that residents of Minsk and other cities need to be prepared to help rural areas. He made this remark while discussing a “reasonable approach to consolidating farms.”

“You’ve probably noticed that I’m increasingly calling on industrial workers and city dwellers to help the countryside. You know perfectly well why. Everyone wants to live in comfortable, well-appointed apartments in the cities. We’ve pretty much depopulated the countryside recently, especially when it comes to the workforce. Well, we have to pay our debts, as we’ve always said. “That’s why Minsk residents and others need to be prepared for this,” he said.

Belarusians reacted to Lukashenko’s remarks with criticism on social media. In comments on the news at Threads, they explained why they don’t want to live in the countryside, while some offered suggestions on how to stop the exodus from rural areas.

Many users believe that the main problem is the lack of jobs. “No one would move to Minsk if there were jobs in regional and district cities. I won’t even mention the villages. Give people jobs and good salaries, and no one will go to your Minsk. 90% of people in Minsk live along the home-to-work route. So what difference does it make where you live along that route?”—wrote one commenter.

Another believes that what matters more than jobs are the conditions for private enterprise: “Give people transparent and effective laws on private property and land leases, affordable loans for agricultural equipment, and, most importantly, leave them alone for about 30 years. And, lo and behold, people will provide for themselves and others.”

Quite a few comments focus on the state of rural infrastructure. “I’d love to buy a house in the countryside if villages weren’t dying out. There are almost no stores anywhere, public transportation doesn’t run, the power might be out for a couple of days, and internet and cell service are unreliable,” writes one user. “Bus routes to the city are being cut, schools and rural health clinics are closing, there are no jobs, stores mark up prices heavily, transformers and power lines are old, gas isn’t available everywhere, and cell service is getting worse. How are people supposed to live? By subsistence farming?” another user asks.

Users are also sharing their personal experiences. One woman said she’d like to live in a country house, but 20 km from Minsk there are no decent roads, schools, stores, or internet, and her letters to the authorities were met with nothing but form replies. Another commenter said he bought a house in a village 25 km from the capital: there are no paved roads, stores, or public transportation, and the electricity supply is only 5 kW. “Go live in your own villages,” he concluded.

Another user recalled that in his village, they had demolished the community center, the medical clinic, a store, a former school, an office building, and several solidly built houses, including a two-story building with four apartments. A man who moved to Minsk explained his decision by citing the lack of high-speed internet in the village, which he needed for work.

Some compare the situation to Poland: “When you visit a village, you find a ‘Lidl,’ a ‘Biedronka,’ a ‘Zhabka,’ a school with sports programs, and a train that runs every half hour to major cities. You buy land outright, not rent it. Belarus, as mentioned above, only manages to tear down clubs.”

A woman spoke about her mother, who moved from Minsk to a rural town and works at the local school. According to her, the salary there doesn’t even reach half the regional average, and now they’re cutting the pay in half because the school has 13 fewer students than needed to be fully staffed. “The salary will be 600 rubles at best. Is that even money? Give people decent conditions and wages, and many will gladly return to their homeland,” she wrote.

Some commenters drew attention to the authorities’ policies. “How many years ago did he shout, ‘Stop building more Minsk’? And what do we see every day? New building after new building. The villages are left with pensioners he doesn’t need, while the young people have left for the cities to escape poverty,” writes one of them. Another wonders why the largest enterprises of recent years, such as “Velikiy Kamen” and BNBK, were built in Minsk and the Minsk Region rather than in the provinces: “People go to Minsk to earn a living. If salaries in the regions were the same as in Minsk, no one would go there.”

There are also specific proposals. One user calls for introducing tax breaks for entrepreneurs and companies operating in rural areas and for lowering property taxes: “The property tax on a house in a village is higher than the property tax on an apartment in the city! And then you’re surprised that people don’t go to places where there’s no industry or infrastructure.” Another is convinced that the countryside will thrive with the development of private farming, since “no one wants to work for pennies on collective farms.”

There was no shortage of irony. “I just moved to the city—are they already going to send me back?” asks one commenter. “I’ll believe his words and intentions when he sends his own children and grandchildren to work in the village—on pig farms or in cow barns,” writes another. And a resident of a village where the bus runs only on Wednesday, Saturday morning, and Sunday evening asked: “Alexander Grigoryevich, how am I supposed to get to work? Leave on Sunday evening and come home on Saturday morning?”