Blooming socialism: milkmaids have to steel to no nourish their children

These days an ambulatory court session of the Bykhau District Court, presided by Dzmitry Hudyn, took place in the building of the Yamnitsy Village Soviet. The court considered the case of four milkmaids of the "Valadarski" collective farm who tried to steal 10 liters in the village of Yamnaye.

At first the court considered the charges against Tatsiana Karpenka, who has been working at the collective farm for more than 20 years without being caught on stealing before. As she confessed on 12 January she had really took away two liters of milk from the collective farm to feed her children, as the wage is small – 1.3 million rubles ($150), which is not enough to buy the most necessary foodstuffs.

The same reasons were called by the other three milkmaids. Their direct boss, the head of the collective farm in the village of Yamnaye Siarhei Novikau, described all of the accused as good and honest workers who hadn't stolen anything before.

The deputy head of the Bykhau District Police Department Aliaksandr Anfisau agreed that the wages were small, but added that it was not a reason to commit thefts. The judge Dzmitry Hudyna sentenced each of the milkmaids to a fine of 1 million rubles.

It remains unclear how the women will be able to provide their children with the necessary food and clothes if they pay these fines out of their salaries. The work of a milkmaid is considered to be very hard, it demands great physical efforts.

Meanwhile, according to Aliaksandr Lukashenka's words, in our country milkmaids are paid $700-1000, and since 1 January 2013 the officially determined minimal wage is 1,395,000 rubles.

Pitifully enough, the real wages of milkmaids at many collective farms of Belarus are so small that they have to steal not to leave their children hungry.