Information has emerged that the Siedlce police are checking a report about an unknown boy who was driving into the city, hiding in a truck, and then ran away.
Photo: widefon.com, for illustrative purposes only
In the 20th of September, an as yet unidentified truck driver contacted the local police via an electronic communication form and said that on one of the previous days (more precisely, the police did not identify it), a child climbed into the cab of his car, which was presumably then parked in the Lyubartovsky district - a boy who appears to be about 10 years old, dressed in dark clothes. According to the driver, the child hid in the sleeping compartment of the truck, covering himself with a blanket.
The truck driver did not see the child at first, but when he discovered that he was carrying a “hare,” he tried to talk to him, but the boy did not answer his questions. Then the driver stopped in a parking lot in the town of Bialki to tell the police about what had happened, but the child jumped out of the cab and ran away. The man reported the incident to the Siedlce police via the website.
The city is located about a hundred kilometers from the Polish-Belarusian border. Local police, of course, are aware that a 10-year-old child has disappeared in the border Belarusian region. Police representatives explain that they are not officially looking for Maxim Markhaluk, but all information and leads on him have been communicated to every police officer in the neighboring voivodeships. According to a representative of the police press service, these two reports - about the disappearance of a Belarusian child and an unidentified boy of the same age hidden in a truck - are considered here as possibly interrelated.
This could hypothetically be connected with your [missing in Belarus] child. We pay attention to any unaccompanied children, but so far no street children have been identified on our territory,” the press service of the Siedlce police said. - We are checking any information regarding children, including this message about a boy in a car. Therefore, we posted relevant information on local websites to find eyewitnesses. So far, the story of the child who escaped from the car has not been continued.
On the territory of Poland in Lately no children were missing, police said.
Investigative authorities are working through all possible versions of the disappearance of Maxim Markhaluk - even if they seem unlikely. It cannot be ruled out that the child may be in a remote locality in Belarus or even in another country. The investigation of the criminal case continues, the search is ongoing, - a representative of the Investigative Committee department for the Grodno region told TUT.BY Sergey Shershenevich.
Photo: Katerina Gordeeva, TUT.BY
Let us remind you that Maxim Markhalyuk was on the evening of September 16th. At about 20.00 he rode his bicycle towards the forest near the village of Novy Dvor and disappeared. Later, police found the child's bicycle in the forest. So far, the search for Maxim has not yielded results.
Photo in article: Onliner.by
So. Before delving into such a hair-raising topic, I simply have to make a number of clarifications. The next paragraph is dedicated to exactly this. You can sleep for now.
I didn’t want to write about this topic, but you can’t help your heart. For the last two days, I, like many other Belarusians, have been captured by one huge detective. The whole country sincerely worries about the boy, although the mind has already understood everything a long time ago (I would like it to be wrong). This is not an attempt to hype a hot topic. But when a text has been written in your head willy-nilly for the last 48 hours, it’s impossible not to let it out. Anticipating many questions: yes, he helped the search, transferred money to the Angel PSO.
I tried to abstract myself as much as possible from conclusions and value judgments. I won't blame anyone. All coincidences that happened in the past, are happening now and will happen in the future are random. I don't have any inside information. None of the versions (except the official one) from this text should be taken into account by law enforcement and other related authorities. I, like all of you, hope for a successful outcome. All my work on this topic consisted of me, armed with a tablet and plenty of time, collecting information on the Internet, Special attention giving comments, reading even the wildest ones. The result is a list of versions, each of which I will try to cover in a variety of ways. Go!
- Version oofficial: the boy is lost
In favor of the version:
Well, look, after all, where it all happened! On the edge of Belovezhskaya Pushcha! I repeat: BELOVEZHSKAYA PUSCHHA! For a second, one of the largest (if not the largest) relict forest in Europe! All the nonsense about how the boy “couldn’t get lost”, “knew the forest like the back of his hand”, “led out mushroom pickers” (I can just imagine how the boy, instead of rescuers, runs into the forest to lead out mushroom pickers). Those who cannot swim never drown. For he does not climb into the water, but sits on the bank, dangling his leg. And only good, experienced swimmers drown. Because they are self-confident. Even adults get lost in three pines, and this is a child! The video from the scene clearly shows how overgrown the forest is in those places. And the wording “They searched everything within walking distance of the child” does not stand up to any criticism at all. Who measured it, that reach. If he wants, he can walk 100 kilometers. Adrenaline and stress do their job. Several traces were found, although it is difficult to say that they definitely belong to Maxim. But there were many tracks of bison in the place, which could have frightened the boy and he rushed away from them into the thicket.
Version vs:
There’s no need to even say anything here. Just look at the map.
Despite the fact that the village is surrounded on all sides by forest, it is not that big. Even YandexMaps shows that there are enough white spots in the forest. Add to this a huge number of paths, clearings, wandering rangers and foresters, camera traps and so on. Even if the boy just starts walking in one direction, in less than 24 hours he will be released into the light of God. They started looking for him almost immediately, shouting and signaling, but no answers. According to volunteers, the forest was eventually encircled and completely combed. That is, the boy simply cannot be in the forest, either alive or dead. The only exception is that the child could drown in a swamp - although even in this case there should be at least some traces! And why would a child go into the forest at dusk? We add here the brother’s testimony: “He did not go anywhere far alone.” How this fits in with “I knew the forest like my pocket” is still unclear. The purple line on the map from one point to another is only 16 km long. Regarding the bison: why did he run not towards the village, along the road along which he arrived, but into the Pushcha? Did the bison learn tactics and encircle the child, cutting off his escape route?
2. Semi-official version: the boy is hiding
In favor of the version:
There were several witnesses who clearly testified that they had seen the boy. Alive and healthy. A mushroom picker saw him once literally immediately after the boy disappeared. Allegedly, he asked him why the boy was walking through the forest alone at such a time, to which the boy, without saying anything, rushed to run away. Then two more times the volunteers said that they saw a boy running in the distance. Each of us knows stories about how children, afraid of what they have done, do not go home. The boy could simply be afraid of punishment when he saw the scale of the search. Again, remember about the tracks. Also in the forest they found places where the boy could presumably spend the night. Maxim’s friends remembered some secret dugout in the depths of the thicket. The boy may be there. As a branch of this version, I put forward the theory that the boy could have gone on a journey. Theoretically, even cross the border with Poland.
Version vs:
Still, 10 days have passed. You can hide for a day, maybe two or three, but not a week and a half. And who saw the witnesses who noticed him? Either it’s a fiction, or they didn’t see it. Moreover, in one of the cases of “witness testimony” the boy ran across the road and slipped through the soldiers in chains. I know the people’s opinion about the army, but there are not total (and at the same time deaf-blind) idiots serving there. Haven't you seen or heard? Unlikely. The child has absolutely nothing to eat or drink. He has nowhere (most likely) to sleep, and the nights are cold. All buildings where the child could have spent the night have been checked - he is not there. Crossing the border is not very realistic - it is guarded on both sides.
3. Criminal version: a crime has been committed
In favor of the version:
It's all pure guesswork here. Why did the child throw the bicycle on the ground without even leaning it against the hut (according to fellow villagers and parents, he loved the bicycle very much). What kind of strange broken basket stands next to the hut, where, as if to divert attention, they threw the first mushrooms they came across with the garbage? According to dog handlers, the boy’s trail is confidently followed by dogs to the highway, where it evaporates in an unknown direction. If a child goes out onto the track, then there is absolutely no point in saying that he got lost. Do you think there are a lot of paved roads in those parts and the boy didn’t know where he was? Nothing was found in the forest at all, that is, literally. None of the crumbs that were found can exactly relate to the boy. They say that in those parts, half the population makes money from poaching, and the other half from moonshine. The boy simply could see something wrong. Or become a victim of an accident: at dusk, be hit by a car or shot by mistake with a gun. God forbid, of course. Or be deported to the same Poland.
Version vs:
The police were at the scene from the very first hours. I believe that all the necessary criminological measures at that time were carried out. I once saw a search for a missing person. They turn the house and buildings upside down, shake all the witnesses and neighbors, and restore the path of the missing person. Don't think that the police made a mistake this time. And any crime leaves traces. Explicit or implicit. Blood, signs of a struggle, pieces of clothing, some other evidence. This time nothing was found at all.
4. Conspiracy theory: something doesn’t fit here
In favor of the version:
The inconsistencies start from the very beginning. When did the boy disappear? Someone says that he warned about mushrooms (elder brother), someone says that they knew nothing about mushrooms (mother). The friends also differ in their testimonies: either the boy called them, but they refused, or they went together, and he moved on. And the story about mushrooms itself looks very strange. The boy allegedly went to pick mushrooms at the edge of the forest at around 19.00 in the evening. For the sake of experiment, gentlemen, go outside today at 19.00 pm and look at the light level. Next: mushrooms at the edge of the forest. While the hut where the bicycle was found is located either five hundred or eight hundred meters from the edge of the forest. That is, the child went overnight looking into the forest a kilometer away (within the forest this is a lot) in order to pick mushrooms by touch? Some witnesses say: the boy was timid, he even stuttered, he could be scared of animals and rush into the thicket. Gentlemen, who is not one of the timid: would you risk going into the thicket at dusk a kilometer deep? I’ll say right away that I couldn’t. It's scary. Next come completely ambiguous versions. Allegedly, a local village madwoman approached the members of the search party and quietly muttered: “Look and search, you still won’t find it.” Someone talks about Maxim’s friends fainting while being questioned by the police, and that one teenager’s parents simply do not allow him to be questioned, insisting that there is no criminal case. Allegedly, someone saw a teenager, one of the missing boy’s acquaintances, returning from the forest at night. What he could see there is unclear. There is even talk about some mysterious house that volunteers tried to break into, but it was locked from the inside. When the door was broken down, there was no one in the house. There are so many inconsistencies that the post threatens to turn into a sheet.
Version vs:
It is quite possible that all this is nothing more than hyperbole of our people. Since childhood, we have all been prone to inventions and fantasies. Moreover, nothing can be checked in the comments at all. People simply copy-paste erroneous versions into more and more public pages. I don't think it's all that confusing. And the seemingly unrealistic versions are simply not sufficiently covered in the press; often people are content with such forums and fragmentary tales of volunteers who visited the site. Stories about crazy houses locked from the inside (who in their right mind would break down the door of a house where the curtain on the window just swayed?), nightly adventures of children seem even more unrealistic than the mysterious disappearance itself.
5. Military version: we have exercises
In favor of the version:
All this can be nothing more than exercises in the interaction of civil society and various services. According to rumors, no one saw either the boy’s parents or his brother. Journalists do not communicate with them, where they are is not clear. It is quite possible that there simply was no disappearance. Rumors of this kind were once confirmed in Russia. And, by the way, remember that same girl from Mexico who allegedly fell under a collapsed building and who they tried to get out of the rubble for days. As a result, the girl turned out to be a fiction, created to distract people from trouble. A completely wild version, also inspired by the exercises: the boy accidentally saw a reconnaissance group of fighters from some foreign state, which was returning after observing the exercises. During such meetings, no one is left alive, and the bodies are carefully hidden. Moreover, it is near the border with Poland, through which the fighters could pass.
Version vs:
I don’t believe that the state would do such a thing. This is too much. It was possible to come up with some other way to gain search experience. Thermal imagers, helicopters, the army, equipment - all this is money. It’s also hard to believe that he was killed by enemy saboteurs. This is all very incredible. The idea that all this was invented to distract people from something important also does not work. Nothing important has happened in the country yet.
Perhaps we should end here. I tried to process all possible versions that I found on the Internet and present them in accessible language. I hope I accomplished something. The picture is, of course, incomplete, however general idea gives.
The grandmother heard crying in the forest, someone’s footprints were found in the swamp, psychics see that the child is alive, but it is difficult for him to move. Why does the search for an 11-year-old schoolboy yield no results and is there any chance of rescue at all? The search for the boy is surrounded by new mystical rumors that cannot be confirmed. The VG journalist went on a night search for the missing Maxim Markhaluk and saw the activities of the search teams from the inside.
The boy took refuge in an old house
For four days now the whole country has been following the search for 11-year-old Maxim, who got lost in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on Saturday, September 16th. The misfortune of a rural family consolidated the entire Belarusian society - perhaps, in the history of a sovereign country, this is the first time when people drop everything they are doing and rush into the forest as volunteers, and those who cannot, pray for Maxim. They even created a petition on the Internet to oblige the media to do the main news about missing people.
During the days of searching, the boy’s fate became surrounded by rumors and even legends. People retell them in search engine groups. Rescuers check everything, even the most crazy ideas. A grandmother from a neighboring village went to pick mushrooms and heard crying. Another woman witch said that the child was thirsty, he was alive, but his legs hurt. A psychic from abroad, whom people contacted via the Internet, said that the boy would be found on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, another version appeared from a Bulgarian clairvoyant that the boy found refuge in an old house under a roof, next to a road, many dogs and other animals. There is a large puddle of water nearby, Maxim is scared and his arm hurts.
There is no headquarters, no unity, and the village council is closed
A Tuesday afternoon search involving police, foresters and volunteers was unsuccessful. But search and rescue teams do not give up and invite volunteers for night searches. In the group of the search and rescue team “TsentrSpas” we write that we are leaving Grodno and are ready to take two more people with us. Not even five minutes pass when a girl wants to go on a search with us and asks us to wait until she picks up the children from training. We agree to pick her up at Olshanka. 30-year-old Zhanna is a mother of two children. When asked why she is going to the forest for the night, she briefly answers: “My son is 9 years old.” Everything becomes clear.
The 110-kilometer road to Novy Dvor takes almost two hours. Participation in the search is a first for us, but despite our inexperience, we are sure that we will be useful. On the way, we imagine that we will now arrive at the village council, where there will be a search headquarters and clearly organized work, that in a few minutes we will be divided into groups and sent on searches. But the picture looks different...
There is no headquarters, no premises, no lighting. There is no single leader to whom information from the police, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the forestry department, schoolchildren and volunteers would flow. The feeling is that everyone who is looking for Maxim is working separately and is not trying to interact with anyone. The village hall is locked, and people are standing in groups in the parking lot. There are a lot of people here dressed in camouflage. The volunteers, on average, look to be about 30. The men smoke cigarettes one after another, drink energy drinks and remain silent. The girls are also silent. Cars drive up to the village council, tired people get out and shrug their shoulders guiltily - nothing.
Other volunteers argue with the search party commanders and rush into the forest. Local residents, some already drunk, suggest going there. The conversation takes place in high tones. The men are not embarrassed by the presence of girls and swear loudly - these days of searching have greatly exhausted people, and their nerves are simply at the limit. We change clothes and talk about our readiness to help.
Guys, let’s wait for our group from the swamp and then we’ll decide,” Christina reassures everyone. During the day, information appeared that footprints had been found near the swamp. The search engines rushed to the place with a thermal imager, but found nothing. Then, in their minibus equipped for searches, the guys from the “Angel” squad illuminated the forest with strong spotlights and tried to identify themselves with noise in the hope that the child would see the light or hear the sound and follow it.
Knock on any house - you will be accepted for the night
We wait impatiently, but then the bus pulls into the village council and exhausted people fall out of the car. It seems that they have not slept for several nights, and spend all this time on their feet. But the search again brought nothing. Commander Sergei Kovgan came out to the volunteers and said that all the rumors and leads were not justified. The commander admits that there are not enough coordinators for the search who could direct people.
“You have nothing to do in the forest at night, you’ll just get lost, and in the morning we’ll have to look for you,” explains Sergei. - Whoever stays overnight and continues the search in the morning should go and rest. Sleep in cars or knock on any house, they will welcome you for the night. Those who have work tomorrow and are ready to work now will receive assignments.
We are given fragments of a map of the area, they name the villages and ask us to check all the abandoned buildings, stacks of straw, in short, all those places where the boy could have taken refuge at night.
The high beam of the car picks out a dirt road along which field mice and foxes run across. The forest is getting thicker. The night, although starry, is dark, and, as luck would have it, there is no moon.
The child was found, but lost again?
The first village of Shubichi does not look abandoned: the lights are on in the houses, there are lanterns on the street that are visible from afar. We walk through the village and find nothing. We drive further to the village of Bolshaya Kolonaya, turn off the engine and turn off the headlights. The houses are plunged into darkness. There is no wind, no rustle, only in the distance, somewhere in the forest, a moose screams very terribly. We feel terrible, we imagine what it must be like for him, Maxim, there in the forest, where there are only wild animals around...
A flashlight of light catches an abandoned house. The walls had rotted and the roof had fallen to the ground - not a bad place to spend the night! We climb inside, we see straw, but there is no one else. And why would the boy hide if he went to the village. Here, if you knock on any house, they will immediately help you, because the whole country is intensely following the search and waiting for news.
Our night searches in Stasyutichy and Zalesnaya are also fruitless. There is no boy along the stream flowing from Belovezhskaya Pushcha: we assumed that the child should stick to the water, this is his chance of salvation...
We call the “Angel” number 7733, report the results and go to Grodno. On the way home, information appears that the child has been found. We dial the phone number, the woman says that the school said that the child went out to some village at 21.40. This news gives hope until the morning, but on Wednesday neither the police nor the search engines found Maxim. It seems that during these four days the whole village went crazy with grief.
The search for Maxim continues. In search teams, volunteers write about their intentions to come again. Car drivers talk about free places and encourage you to join. There is a feeling that this search will never end... They pray for Maxim and believe that they will find him alive.
On the weekend of September 23 and 24, several thousand volunteers from all over the country and even abroad came to the agricultural town of Novy Dvor to help in the search for a 10-year-old boy who disappeared in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The Euroradio correspondent turned into a volunteer for one day and joined the largest search operation in the history of Belarus.
CAMP, about 9 am
In total, on Saturday, September 23, about a thousand volunteers from all over Belarus gathered here. The morning is cold and cloudy, everyone is worried that it won’t rain. Everyone is wearing reflective vests, which are distributed free of charge. Someone wraps their legs with cellophane and tape.
The camp of volunteers and the search and rescue team “Angel” is located on the territory of the school stadium. Here they hand out food, pour hot tea and coffee, give out water and something to snack on. All this is done by volunteers. People hand over whole bags of cereals, canned meat, instant puree, coffee, tea, sugar, and water. The school and the local executive committee allowed the use of their premises on weekends, including the kitchen and toilet, but only until 16:00, then they close.
This is where volunteers are sent to search. Each group has from 20 to 80 people, depending on how large of an area they will be checking. In addition to volunteers, the detachment always includes representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and foresters.
The entire area around the village is divided into squares to make it easier to distribute them for inspection. Volunteers are sent to check only the forest, the swamps are occupied by rescuers and the military, and the reservoirs are occupied by divers.
Every now and then they announce over the loudspeaker that they are looking for experienced trackers, hunters, or at least those who can simply use a compass and navigate on a map among the volunteers. Unfortunately, Angel was not prepared for such an influx of volunteers, and they did not have required quantity coordinators, radios and ammunition.
Helicopters from the Ministry of Emergency Situations fly overhead; they circle the forest all day, trying to spot the boy among the trees. At night they also check the surrounding area using a thermal imager. However, so far the search has yielded nothing.
Everyone feels impatient before going out into the forest and feels slightly excited. Some have been here since Friday, others have just arrived. But everyone is cheerful, drinking coffee from plastic cups, discussing the latest rumors.
Rumors spread quickly here and are most often completely unreliable. Allegedly, a boy was seen somewhere at the edge of the forest, but he ran away upon noticing the volunteers, or that a guy was seen from a helicopter hiding among the trees. All these conversations and rumors are not confirmed in any way and are most often officially denied, but this does not prevent people from believing in them.
I end up in a squad of 80 people. We have only 8 coordinators and three radios. The coordinators are young boys and girls, about 25 years old, from the regional branches of the “Angel” search team.
We were divided into cars and drove to a given square in a column.
ROAD, about 10 am
Finding ourselves in the old UAZ of the regional Ministry of Emergency Situations, we, bouncing on the pits, head towards the desired section of the forest. Driving through the village, one of the rescuers remarks:
- Look, the locals don’t care anymore, only visitors are participating in the search.
- Well, life goes on, and the potatoes haven’t been harvested and the mushrooms have been eaten like mad.
- We drove people from two regions. I heard that the special forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and soldiers were sent to check the swamp. And yesterday, all night long, helicopters were circling over the forest with a thermal imager, they say they found a couple of points, and then they sent us there. And there was nothing there.
- What about volunteers?
- They didn’t touch the volunteers, just us. We statesmen, we are allowed, we are on salary.
The conversation is interrupted and they begin to discuss the volunteers:
- Did you hear what they said today? Drive the guy like a “beast.”
- Yes, we’ve reached the point, he’s already like a beast to everyone. They want to drive him out of the forest like an animal.
- Look at them, they all have knives, they’re not shy about anything.
- Well, what did you want, they tell everyone that there are lynxes and wolves here. We have a lynx on every tree, which is trying to jump on someone.
SEARCH, around 11 a.m.
Our square turns out to be about five kilometers from the village.
A chain of 80 people forms along the road. It stretches for 400 meters. Every 10 volunteers there is a coordinator. But there are only three radios, two on the sides of the chain and one in the center. During the instruction, they explain how to move, when to stop, what to check and what to pay attention to.
In the forest, the chain of people constantly breaks, someone runs ahead, someone, on the contrary, lags behind, sometimes scattering from each other, sometimes huddling together. Most volunteers are participating in searches for the first time; they are inexperienced, capricious and believe that they know how to do it right. How bigger group, the more difficult it is to coordinate it, and if there are few radios, then it is almost impossible.
We move forward slowly, we stop often, this irritates many. From time to time, disputes break out with coordinators; someone doesn’t like the way they lead.
“Vanya, turn off this radio and let’s go as we go, we won’t stop, otherwise we’ll be walking one kilometer all day long,- the guy with the inscription “Ivatsevichi Ultras” on his T-shirt is indignant. - Have these coordinators even finished school? Or at least an army? We recruited from advertisements.”
Vanya doesn’t listen to him, although he gets angry and argues with the coordinators. People move forward, but after a minute they stop again.
We pass the first section of the forest and enter the field. People ran away from each other so much that the last ones left the forest about ten minutes after the first ones appeared. We walked a little over a kilometer and it took about half an hour. Searches in this square yielded nothing. The coordinators decide to break into several small groups of 20-30 people and check smaller areas.
We reach the clear field pine forest. The wind blows through it, there are no bushes here, only moss and tall pine trees. There is nowhere to hide here. A jacket is found at the edge of the grove child size, which spiders have already managed to inhabit and make small webs there, shoes are lying nearby. And although the jacket and boots do not fit the description, some people begin to play detective:
- So you think it’s normal,- asks one of the girls, who loves to voice various “terrible” versions of what happened to the missing boy, - Why are some children’s clothes just lying around in the forest?
- What, do you think there is some kind of pagan cult operating here, like in “True Detective”?- one of the volunteers convinces her.
The girl falls silent, but clearly remains unsatisfied. Coordinators take a photo of the jacket and boots, mark the location on the map and move on. After passing through the pine forest, we find ourselves on the field again. Now we unite with the second group from our squad. The people who went to their cars did not return.
In the distance, on the outskirts of the forest, a figure in a red vest is visible. According to the descriptions, the guy was just like that. The coordinators send one of their own to check. It turns out that this is one of the military.
We enter another grove, a complete windfall. And then shouts from somewhere to the side:
“AAA, *****, ******* MOTHER, AAAAH!”
The cracking of branches is heard, someone from the thicket breaks through to the field without making out the road. Well, I think we ran into a bear. A roe deer flies out of the forest and jumps away from us.
Mikhail, about 30 years old, an experienced hunter, came here from Grodno, says that his ten-year-old son was eager to join him, but, fortunately, he did not take him and does not regret:
“We talked to the guys here and came to unanimous opinion: our search is not so much the hope of finding him alive, but generally finding out about his fate. It's unlikely he's still alive. Because it can’t be that so many people have been looking for him for more than a week and couldn’t find anything.”
Towards evening we set off on the return journey. After checking a few more areas of the forest, we go out onto the road and are already walking along it.
“This is the first time in our memory that such a complex and massive search has been carried out. Usually, our search involves a maximum of 30-40 people, but this time the numbers are already in the thousands. Of course, the organization is chaotic, no one has dealt with so many people,- says the coordinator. “We searched for five days, when my grandmother got lost in the forest, we later found her alive, sleeping peacefully in some hollow, and all these days she ate berries and plants.”
Let's return to the cars. During almost seven hours of searching, we found several unidentified footprints, several jackets, one of which was a child's, and old size 40 boots that were unlikely to belong to a 10-year-old boy. According to representatives of the Angel squad, other groups also found nothing. The boy disappeared, as if he had been swallowed up by the Belarusian chthon.
CAMP, around 6 p.m.
Meanwhile, life is in full swing in the camp. Hot meals were delivered. Everyone was tired, covered in cobwebs, covered in mud, despite the fact that the weather was warm and there was no rain, the forest was damp and there were a lot of puddles. The school closed and cut off volunteers' access to water, electricity and toilets. Fortunately, during this time they managed to deliver dry toilets. Water was heated on portable gas stoves and in kettles, connected to a single gasoline generator.
During this time, a Belkoopsoyuz auto shop appeared in the camp. For some, volunteering and free help, and for others, business.
Closer to 19 o'clock the military arrived with field kitchen and secured the camp hot food. Those who have been here since Friday are about to leave, but new ones are taking their place. Most spend the night in cars, others in tents or stay with locals. Why the school couldn’t provide at least a gym for overnight accommodation is unclear, especially since there are no classes on weekends anyway.
There will be no attacks at night. The Ministry of Emergency Situations plans to once again check the entire forest using a thermal imager on helicopters. This search, like the previous ones, will yield nothing.
In the evening I take a passing car back to Minsk. Many stay for the second day, but few hope to find the guy alive. We drive out onto the main street of the agricultural town of Novy Dvor, local residents stand near their fences, looking at the volunteers’ cars. The sun is setting. Tomorrow there will be new searches, which will also bring nothing. And life will go on for everyone else.
10 year old Maxim Markhalyuk, a resident of the village of Novy Dvor, Svisloch region, has been searched since September last year, but so far to no avail. Local residents are asking for help through Belsat.
“I appealed in order to establish justice. Appeal to the head of state so that all these scoundrels who wanted to hide their tracks intentionally, or unintentionally, are brought to justice,” said a resident of Belovezhskaya Pushcha and a former huntsman Igor Akulov.
Ten-year-old Maxim did not return home on September 16, 2017. A boy's bicycle and his basket were found in the forest near the house. Thousands of people took part in the search.
“I think it was on this road that something happened to this child. Because there is no trace, nothing left of this child. Officials are skating, he could have gone out and voted in the evening, and it would have been a tragedy,” Akulov is sure.
They started looking for the boy at night. The entire road was dug up by the wheels of the participants of the Belovezhsky Bisons trophy club, who were invited to search. The road leads from the village of Voitov Bridge, where there is a hotel with a bathhouse, which belongs to the Presidential Administration, through Novy Dvor, where the boy lived, to the lake, which is rented by the SPK.
“Officials and local nobility often rest in that hotel. They rush along this road like crazy, drunk,” testifies a former huntsman.
Special road
For officials, a paved road was laid here, not marked on maps, with security and surveillance cameras. It connects the hotel on the Voitov Bridge farm with the village of Borki and leads to the airfield in Klepachi.
“It was necessary to search immediately not according to the version of the disappearance, but according to the crime, I think. Because we searched so much, but there were no results,” says another local resident Mikhail Sushko.
The conduct of the investigation raises questions among experts
“From the very beginning of Markhaluk’s disappearance, the investigation dragged on for a long time - 10 days. Why was it delayed when it was necessary to react to this?” the former investigator points out. Oleg Volchek.
The boy could not get lost in the forest without a trace.
People in the village are afraid to talk about this topic. Are officials afraid of journalistic investigations?
“Everything needs to be neat. And rightly so!!! Because there were a lot of interpretations. You have arrived, you have arrived with different channels, television, radio. There needs to be one interpretation! Because they take from different people who have been deprived of parental rights, and you are interviewing them, they are spreading dirt there. We must do all this carefully... Do you understand? (Smiles). Let’s hope that you will do everything right...,” said the chairman of the village council Vladimir Zdanovich.