Renovation and modernization of apartment buildings in Kamenyuki, 2008-2009

Events, facts, documents and evidence: The village of Kamenyuki is the administrative and tourist center of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park. Route P-83 serves as an efficient transport link between Kamenyuki and the oblast center of Brest.

The village can be seen as composed of two parts, with the one consisting of modern two-storied brick apartment buildings built along the main road. The buildings in the middle of Kamenyuki were erected in the 1960's. The ones at the entrance to the village, in the so-called Damanski area, were built in the 1970's through 1990's. The Sovetskaya side street has two-storied, two-apartment houses erected in the 1990's as departmental housing and financed out of public funds.
The other part of the village consists of pre-, post-WWII and recently built wooden, and less commonly, brick houses. These are located along side streets.

Kamenyuki had the status of a model rural settlement in 1970's through 1980's thanks to the centrally located apartments meeting the highest standard of comfort and design for rural housing at that time. The construction of new housing was stopped after the break-up of the Soviet Union in the 1990's. In the 2000's the village entered a state of sheer dilapidation. The former model rural settlement started looking quite unsightly. The local culture venue was abandoned and later blasted and taken to a dump, the street lights broke down, the wooden fences decayed and collapsed, the asphalted sidewalks and side streets wore out, some of the facade and basement finish started peeling off, and many of the roofs sprung a leak.

The shots below show sights of Kamenyuki before it underwent an overhaul and renovations.

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(A sign with the name of the village, October 10, 2004)
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(The part of the village occupied by two-storied apartment buildings: 1 and 2 - August 4, 2004, 3 - May 5, 2006, 4 - March 10, 2005)
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(The part of the village occupied by two-storied apartment buildings,
February 27, 2005)
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(Two-apartment houses;
1 - March 31, 2009, 2 - March 8, 2005, 3 - February 7, 2005, 4 - June 23, 2004)
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(The part of the village occupied by wooden houses;
1 - February 7, 2005, 2 and 3 - March 8, 2005, 4 - March 10, 2005,
5 - May 10, 2005, 6 - December 5, 2004, 7 and 8 - October 6, 2004)
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(The part of the village occupied by wooden houses;
1 - February 7, 2005, 2 - March 8, 2005)
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(Decoration of an apartment building, June 14, 2004)
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(Newly built private houses in Kamenyuki;
October 10, 2004)
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(The home of a large family, acquired by the national park, September 28, 2009)

The plan of preparations for the 600th anniversary of Belovezhskaya Pushcha's protection provided for the overhaul of the apartment buildings with a total of 11000 square meters of space. The plan covered all the buildings located along the village's main street, which tourists use to travel to the national park.

The shot below shows an information sheet detailing the apartment building overhaul project.

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(A project information sheet, December 19, 2009)

The overhaul and modernization project provided for construction and replacement of roofs, coating of walls with a special heat insulant, replacement of all windows and balcony doors with modern PVC designs, and other improvement. The latter two would later be cancelled due to a shortage of funds. The work done on the buildings was limited to renovation of the roofs, installation of spillways, plastering and painting of the facades, staircases, landings and corridors, replacement of the front doors, renovation of the porches, and cleaning up and landscaping of the surrounding ground.

The shot below shows the overhaul and modernization project.

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(The overhaul and modernization project, November 3, 2008)

Construction of the pitched roofs began with building under number six in the November of 2008. A wooden roof frame was completed in two months.

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(A wooden roof frame as seen from the backyard, December 31, 2008)

By the beginning of spring, some of the other buildings located at the entrance to the village had received new wooden roof frames.

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(The wooden roof as seen from the street, March 2, 2009)

By that time, the building that was the first to enter renovations had received a metal shape roof.

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(The metal shape roof installed on top of a building, March 2, 2009)

By the mid-March of 2009, builders began work on metal shape roofs for other buildings located at the entrance to the village.

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(The metal shape roofs installed on the other buildings, March 14, 2009)

Meanwhile, builders began plastering the facade of the building that was the first to enter renovations.

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(Plastering the walls on March 14, 2009)

By the beginning of April, the metal shape roofs had been completed on some of the other houses located at the entrance to the village…

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(The metal shape roofs installed on the other buildings as seen from the backyards: 1 - March 26, 2009, 2, 3 and 4 - April 3, 2009)

… Meanwhile, work on other buildings was still underway.

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(The roofs on the other buildings as seen on April 3, 2009)

The shots below show builders installing roof railing (left) and overhangs (right).

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(A view from the backyard on April 3, 2009)

Once the roofs were completed and facades, plastered and dressed, the builders faced a choice of color for the buildings. The shot below shows a "trial" building. Painters stopped work after realizing that the new green color was a poor match for the red-colored roof.

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(The results of the first painting work as seen on April 24, 2009)

The builders ended up painting the facades of the buildings at the entrance to the village hues of pink, yellow and brown.

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(The freshly painted houses as seen on June 26, 2009: 1-6 - a view from the street, 7 and 8 - a view from the backyard)

By that time, builders had replaced the wooden balcony encasement on the building that was the first to enter renovation with a metal shape casing.

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(The renovation of balconies as seen on June 15, 2009)

The only buildings that were neglected until the middle of summer were numbers one and three.

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(The numbers one and three as seen on July 1, 2009)

As the builders finished working on the houses at the entrance to the village, they moved to the center.

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(Renovation of the buildings in the center of the village as seen on June 25 (1 and 2) and on July 2, 2009 (3 and 4))
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(Renovation of the buildings in the center of the village as seen on July 2, 2009)
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(A two-family house as seen on July 2, 2009)

Below: builders installing metal shapes on a building.

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(Installation of metal shapes as seen on June 25, 2009)

Below: painting of the facades.

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(Painting of the facades as seen on June 25 (1) and August 10, 2009 (2, 3 and 4))

These photographs show the renovation of balconies and installation of overhangs nearing completion.

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(The renovation of balconies and installation of overhangs as seen on August 12 (1) and July 20, 2009 (2))

Only one of the two-family houses on that street was renovated, as one of the families occupying the other one had long-overdue housing bills.

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(Single-family houses as seen on July 2 (1) and June 25, 2009 (2))

The owner of one of the houses opposite the bus station, apparently badly off, used the offcut of metal shape to make a new roof for his old lavatory and painted the roof a bright, contrasting yellow.

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(The house as seen on June 25, 2009)

The two-family houses on Sovetskaya St., which intersects Pushchanskaya St., was painted, too, but the painters used a totally different range of colors.

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(The houses on Sovetskaya St. as seen on August 9, 2009)

The nearby houses that can be seen from the main street underwent minor renovations and painting.

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(The houses located close to the main street as seen
on August 22 (1) and September 16, 2009 (2, 3 and 4))

The wooden house on Pogranichnaya St., known to the villagers as "the Pigeon Loft," used to serve as a temporary accommodation for national park employees who were on the waiting list or proper new homes. The apartments in the house have been privatized. The house was painted green as early as the spring of 2009.

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("The Pigeon Loft" as seen on April 3 (1 and 2) and September 15, 2009 (3))

The building of the housing management service was painted, too.

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(The building of the housing management service as seen on August 28, 2009)

The photographs below show some of the buildings at the entrance to the village as seen from the street in mid- and late summer.

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(July 1, 2009)
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(August 9, 2009)
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(August 22, 2009)

The photographs below show some of the buildings at the entrance to the village as seen from the backyards in midsummer.

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(July 2, 2009)

Some final touches: builders renovating the porch of an apartment building.

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(August 17, 2009)

By midsummer, builders had begun the renovation of the last remaining houses at the entrance to the village, the numbers one and three.

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(The renovation of the last remaining buildings as seen on July 20 (1) and August 22, 2009 (2 and 3))

These buildings were completed by mid-September.

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(The renovation of the last remaining houses as seen on September 8, 2009)

The shots below show deft and careful roofers at work.

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(Roofers at work, September 8, 2009)

No renovations were made to the apartment buildings located on any other streets in Kamenyuki, as that was not part of the project.

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(The buildings which were not renovated, September 15, 2009)


The photographs below show the renovated apartment buildings along Pushchanskaya St. in all their glory.

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(The renovated buildings as seen from the street in the late August and early September of 2009)
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(The renovated buildings as seen from the backyard in the late August and early September of 2009)

Only two buildings on the Pushchanskaya St. thoroughfare were left unrenovated (see 1 and 2). Compare these with a renovated private house in picture 3.

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(The unrenovated houses as compared to the renovated ones as seen on September 6, 2009)