There are several dozens of quarries in the country, some of which are flooded with water. These artificial chalk lakes in Belarus have become a tourist attraction for which tourists from Ukraine, Russia, Latvia and Lithuania come here. Belarusians themselves do not deprive them of attention: every year in the summer, thousands of people have time to relax in quarries. For all that, the places are dangerous: the banks are high, the water is deep, the currents are unexpected.
“Belarusian Maldives”
It was the Volkovysk (d. Krasnoselsk) reservoirs that received such an enthusiastic name - and not in vain, since the water here is a pale turquoise color. Combined with white shores, this creates an amazing ensemble - so beautiful that the Krasnoselsky chalk lakes in Belarus may well compete with the tropical “bounty”. The depth in the quarries reaches 15 and more meters, the total area is 4 km (all these are two groups of 4-5 reservoirs in each).
Not much can compare with the impression made by chalk lakes in Belarus. Reviews of people vacationing there are full of emotions. They write about the beauty of the water, the charm of the wild beach, that the color of the water changes depending on the lighting: one under the bright sun, the other during the rain.
In 2015, the management of Krasnoselstroimaterialy took serious measures against "wild" rest: they broke a part of the asphalt road, dug ditches, installed concrete blocks in improvised parking lots. At the entrance and exit is the police. Access to the lake only by passes. The territory is patrolled by employees of the enterprise.
At the disposal of the police there is a tow truck, so that vacationers' cars can be towed to the penalty parking. In addition, due to reclamation, the water is no longer blue - dirty green, and the shores have become completely unsuitable for recreation.
Klimovichi
Just 10 km from the district center in the Mogilev region there is the so-called Blue Quarry - an impressive pond with uneven edges, overgrown with trees, islets, and clear, blue-turquoise water. Fishermen are well aware of it - carp, bream, and river catfish are found in the “pond”, where you can successfully fish.
According to the “tradition” already familiar to such objects, the Blue Quarry is not alone. Klimovichi chalk lakes in Belarus (satellite images show a chain of ponds of larger and smaller diameter) - a complex of 13 "craters" of varying degrees of purity and suitability for swimming and fishing.
The blue quarry appeared after chalk was mined here 30 years ago. After finishing work, spring springs were scored at the bottom, and the reservoir was gradually filled with water. The depth, as in other lakes, is not the same - in some places the bottom drops to 15 meters.
Lyuban
No less famous (at least among the citizens of the republic) are the Luban chalk lakes. In Belarus, Lyuban is a small town located on the Oressa River and surrounded on all sides by a forest. It has a Museum of Popular Glory, with a rich collection of archeology, numismatics and bonistics, and in the area there are “craters” of chalk developments filled with water.
Closest to them, according to reviews of tourists visiting those places, the village of Urechye is about 10 km in a straight line. These are also chalk quarries, and as in the case with Krasnoselsky reservoirs, the water in them is of a pale turquoise color. There are only two reservoirs, but large.
Here you can find other lakes:
- on the road from Slutsk to Lyuban near the villages of Kupniki and Mordvilovichi;
- 1 km southeast of the village of Khotinovo; 12 km northwest of the regional center Lyuban;
- Zagorjata, between the villages Zagorjata and Koptevichi;
- Kamenka, Krichevsky district, Mogilev region.
Birch
Still man-made chalk lakes in Belarus - rest on them is even better than on Krasnoselsky ones, they are more taken care of - they are located near the city of Birch, in the Brest region. Locals say that the quarry began to be developed back in 1930. However, the flooded quarry, which is there today, is the result of the Novo-Berezovsky lime plant, which worked from 1961 to 1990.
The peculiarity of the second of the lakes there is a calm, gentle shore, due to which it looks more like a natural formation than a place for the extraction of chalk. The maximum depth is 18 meters. Moreover, the spring water, however, is not the turquoise color that attracts people to Krasnoselsk.
These chalk lakes in Belarus are relatively old, with the exception of the third. The reservoir appeared only 3-4 years ago, so it still retained typical features: blue-blue water and sheer banks. The same and the most “extreme” - the depth in some places reaches 40 meters. It is dangerous, but beautiful and exciting - this can be described as a man-made miracle.
In fact, at the beginning there were four “craters” - two of them over the past decade merged into one.
Grodno
Sinka and Zelenka are chalk lakes (there are actually a lot of them in Belarus) located near Grodno. Another of the little-known sights of the Belarusian Republic.
In summer, the water in them warms up significantly, in addition, it has a higher density compared to fresh lakes. Around there is a pine-juniper forest.
Careers are very popular among local residents, but they are still on the balance of the Grodno KSM. Talk about what to do with them gradually turned into action: Sinku began to fall asleep in the sand. The management plan - to completely cover the "crater" with land and plant on top of the forest - will require many years of work and effort. This step provokes the indignation of local residents, but it is still better than filling up a reservoir with garbage as originally planned.
The fate of man-made "resorts"
What future awaits other lakes remains a mystery. According to experts, almost each of them is a technical object, swimming there is dangerous for life and health and therefore prohibited. But this does not stop people, on the contrary - jumping into the water from a ten-meter cliff shore is considered a special valor.
The authorities continue to look for a way out: the most desirable for visitors - turning into a tourist zone - is at the same time the most expensive. A lot of work will have to be done: to strengthen the coast, equip pedestrian roads around the lakes and convenient access to quarries for cars.
But the difficulties are not only in monetary amounts - all these works will take time, and the color of the water in the quarry will gradually change: from such an exotic turquoise to quite familiar green.
There are also proposals to turn some of the quarries into hydrological monuments - however, this also requires considerable sums. Therefore, the cheapest, easiest (and undesirable for tourists) is a plan to fill them up - and it is good if only with sand, because the idea of garbage has its supporters among the authorities and bureaucrats.