A strange disappearance in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Will he be found? Missing children who were found alive after a long time Run away from home

The Internal Affairs Directorate of the Grodno Oblast Executive Committee stated that facts had been established about the dissemination of false information about the search for Maxim Markhaliuk, who disappeared in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, reports "SB". The report says that news was published on certain resources that the boy was found dead in a noose, that rescuers noticed him from a helicopter, and he ran away from them. It is noted that this information is false. Now all possible versions are being worked out, the information that comes to the headquarters is being checked, the Department of Internal Affairs stressed. _ On Saturday, September 23, more than 2,000 people took part in the search activities, the already combed places were re-checked, and the foundation pits that are nearby were examined. Law enforcement officers once again examined all the houses in the village, examined attics and wells, housing and communal services workers - sewer manholes. On Sunday evening, TUT.BY phoned Sergey Kovgan, commander of the Angel search and rescue team, to find out what the 9th day of the search had brought.

- Nothing. Unfortunately, no new traces of Maxim were found over the weekend. The search area has been expanded, about 300-400 people are still (as of 18.00 - note TUT.BY) in the forest. The rest of the volunteers are slowly curtailing and most of them go home - tomorrow is a weekday, people go to work. Yesterday and today, people were fed by the field kitchen of the Ministry of Defense, thanks to them for this, - says Sergey.

As Alexander Shastaylo, deputy head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Grodno Oblast Executive Committee, who oversees searches on the spot, said in the program "Main Air" on BT, the criminal version of the child's disappearance is not a priority so far.

- We think his animals scared him. All the locals think so, ”Alla Goncharevich, director of the Novodvorskaya secondary school, where Maxim fifth-grader studied, said in a TV report. - Bison could frighten him... More than one bison - a herd.

That night, as before, drones and helicopters of the Ministry of Emergency Situations with thermal imagers were working over the forest - people were not allowed into the forest for their own safety. The search continues.

GRODNO, September 27 - Sputnik, Inna Grishuk. Maksim Markhaliuk, who disappeared in Pushcha, had been thinking about running away from home for a long time. This is told by the inhabitants of the village of Novy Dvor, in the surrounding forests of which they have been looking for a 10-year-old boy for the second week already. Many are sure: the child was not lost, but consciously left home.

Why go into the forest at night looking?

“I saw Maxim in the village on Saturday. At five o’clock in the evening. Before that, I was in the forest. I went out, and then Maxim was coming. and I’m not afraid,” says Valentina Alexandrovna, a resident of Novy Dvor, Maxim was friends with her son and often came to visit them.

According to the interlocutor of Sputnik, her friend said that on the same day, but after 19:00, she saw Maxim riding in the center of the village. And then - as if he fell through the ground, everyone said that he had gone into the forest. But the woman is sure that going to the forest so late is not like Maxim. After all, at eight o'clock in the evening at this time of the year it is already getting dark, and the boy would not want to go into the darkness.

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“He was so a little cowardly. He was even afraid of my puppy. When he came to us, he usually stands near the gate and calls: “Ilyusha!” or “Aunt Valya!” And I’ll go out and take him to the house. it’s unlikely for him to go at night, ”adds Valentina Aleksandrovna.

Many in the village agree that if the child had been in the forest that evening, he would have been found. After all, the search began immediately and continued even at night. And a child wandering through the night forest could not have gone far.

Made plans to escape for three years

The villagers assume that the boy could be very frightened of something. And not bison, but, for example, the coming punishment for some kind of offense. "Maybe he was afraid of his parents?" - the neighbors argue and tell one telling example.

Last year, for some reason, Maxim went to the lake alone, without his parents, went swimming and almost drowned. He was rescued by people nearby. On that day, his parents severely punished him, they say, even beat him.

Rumor has it that then the boy, either seriously or out of resentment, told his parents: “I won’t live with you and I’ll run away anyway.

In the village, the words of Maxim's own grandmother are also transmitted, who told how her grandson several years ago, when he was 7 or 8 years old, said: "I will run away from home anyway." Grandmother to him: "They will find you." And he: "They won't find me, I'll go to the swamps." And then he periodically said that he had such a plan.

Another resident of Novy Dvor, Tatyana Petrovna, said that the child had recently changed.

“Maxim has been friends with my grandson since the age of five. Always together when he is on vacation. And this year, the grandson said that he would no longer be friends. That Maxim started smoking, behaved differently. Maybe it’s teenage. that I didn’t tell my parents right away, it was my grandson who asked me not to tell anyone,” recalls the villager.

At the same time, the woman emphasizes several times that Maxim's family is very positive, prosperous, hardworking parents.

Could leave

The main version, which the residents of Novy Dvor are inclined to believe, is that Maxim left for another area, and did so on the same evening or the next morning.

The child most likely had money. Even local children say that it is very easy to earn them in Pushcha. For example, you can sell berries or mushrooms.

And everyone characterizes Maxim as a very lively and purposeful boy. It is said that he often went to the forest.

Tatyana Petrovna argues: “We searched so many times with thermal imagers, walked with dogs, and how many people passed through the forest on the weekends. Ours are constantly walking. If the boy were here, they would have found at least some traces.”

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Rumors that at different times they saw a child either in the forest or on the road, neighbors consider fiction. And they immediately ask: "If they saw a child, why didn't they catch up? They are adults. But it turns out that they saw and were allowed to leave."

Many locals constantly go to the forest on their own to look for Maxim.

“My soul hurts for the boy and for the family. We also don’t sleep at night. I go to the forest every day and in the evening, I call him. And now I’m going too, maybe something will be found,” adds Valentina Alexandrovna.

Recall that Maxim Markhaliuk disappeared on September 16, was put on the national wanted list. On September 26, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case into the disappearance of the child. Maxim has not yet been found. The main version of the police - the boy got lost in the forest.

Every year, the Belarusian police receive about five hundred statements about missing people. Someone returns home on his own, the rest, as a rule, are found in less than ten days. Volunteer searches in Belarus are organized by the Angel search and rescue team (in Russia, such searches are organized by Liza Alert). It is a private organization that exists on donations. Minsk journalist Aleksey Karpeko, together with volunteers, took part in the search for ten-year-old Maksim Markhaliuk last fall. He wrote about one day of Belarusian volunteers in Belovezhskaya Pushcha for "My friend". “This is perhaps the largest volunteer search operation in the history of independent Belarus,” Karpeko explained. “In just six months, the story has acquired so many rumors and legends that it is already possible to shoot a series about it in the style of Twin Peaks.”

Maksim Markhaliuk went missing on September 16. Taking a bicycle, he left in the evening for mushrooms in the forest. And disappeared. It was swallowed up by the famous Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the remains of a relic primeval forest, which has been preserved in Belarus and Poland, divided between them. They say that in the depths of the forest, where not everyone is allowed, ancient pagan temples have been preserved.

On the very first day of the loss, near the hut where the local children gathered, Maxim's bicycle was found, as well as a basket with mushrooms, on which there were prints of an unknown person. No more traces were found.

3 am

A car with volunteers met me on the outskirts of Minsk, in Uruchcha. It was early morning, which is still inseparable from late night. We had to go to the outskirts of Belarus, and the meeting in the volunteer camp was scheduled for nine in the morning, and it was not worth being late.

Belarus at five o'clock in the morning is enveloped in fog. Milky white, it hugs trees, lies in hollows and fields, smokes over ponds, lakes and rivers. The disk of the sun in the morning fog is crimson, red-hot, you look at it through a thick veil of fog.

Sleeping, forgotten country. Passing the morning provincial towns, or, as they say in Belarus, “meastechki”, you see deserted streets, a wooden idol on the central square, a “kastsel” (church) and a church located nearby. Abandoned synagogues as signs of bygone times.

9 am

The agro-town Novy Dvor is located in the Grodno region, in the south-west of Belarus, near the border with Poland, on the territory national park"Bialowieza Forest". The population is only 782 people, according to the 2013 census. The city has a church and an abandoned synagogue. This is a small typical town of Belarus, thrown in the middle of the forests.

More than a thousand volunteers from all over the country gathered in the camp. There are equally many men and women here. In the morning it is cold, cloudy: as if it were not raining. The quadrocopter buzzes in the air. All in reflective vests, in camouflage clothing. Some wrap their feet in cellophane and duct tape to protect themselves from ticks. Connoisseurs look at this with a grin, because the legs sweat like hell in such conditions, and sweat does not evaporate due to cellophane.

The volunteers who came here are more like a motley rabble from the world of "Mad Max" or "Stalker". Just not enough guns. But almost every man has a hunting knife dangling from his belt.

The volunteer camp was spread out on the territory of the school stadium. Here they distribute food, pour hot tea and coffee, give out water. All this is done by volunteers. People send here cereals, stew, instant puree, coffee, tea, sugar, water. The school and the local executive committee allowed the use of their premises for the weekend.

Volunteers are divided into groups and sent to search. Each group has from 20 to 80 people, depending on how large the areas they will be checking. In addition to volunteers, there are always representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and foresters in the detachment.

The entire area around the village is divided into squares. Volunteers are sent to check only the forest, rescuers and the military are engaged in swamps, and divers are engaged in reservoirs.

A separate camp on the outskirts of the town is the Ministry of Emergency Situations with its "turntables", the state press, investigators and the military. There is no access for mere mortals.

The feeling of self-activity did not leave from the very beginning. Every now and then, over the speakerphone, they announce that they are looking for among the volunteers experienced trackers, hunters, or at least just those who know how to use a compass and navigate the map. It turns out that a huge number of profane people arrived who did not have any knowledge of how to look for people in the forest.

Helicopters of the Ministry of Emergency Situations fly overhead, they circle over the forest all day in an attempt to notice a boy among the trees. At night, they also check the surrounding area with a thermal imager. The cinematic feeling of what was happening did not leave me from the moment we drove into the camp. A gang of volunteers on ATVs swept past me, their faces covered with bandanas.

The air is thick with anticipation. Everyone feels impatience before going out into the forest and a slight excitement. Some have been here since Friday, some just arrived. But everyone is cheerful, they drink coffee from plastic cups discussing the latest rumors.

Rumors spread quickly and are often completely unreliable. They are filled with mystery and local madness. Allegedly, somewhere they saw some boy at the edge of the forest, but he, noticing the volunteers, ran away, or that they saw a guy from a helicopter who was hiding among the trees. All these conversations and rumors are not confirmed in any way and are most often officially refuted, but this does not prevent people from believing in them.

In the company next to me they are animatedly arguing about what happened to the boy, here this is the most common topic:
- I'm telling you, the locals are hiding something.
- You're paranoid.
- Yes? Then why did the boy's parents stop contacting the press? Why did the mother of the missing man forbid the investigators to communicate with their eldest son? They know something, but they don't tell anyone.

I'm in a squad of 80 people. We have only six coordinators and three walkie-talkies. Coordinators - young guys and girls, twenty-five years old, from regional offices search squad "Angel". Although they are experienced in searches, they clearly lack the ability to lead, the guys are not ready for such a large number of people.

Around 10 am

Once in the old UAZ of the regional Ministry of Emergency Situations, we, bouncing on the pits, head towards the desired section of the forest. When we pass through the village, the locals look indifferently at the column. They stand at the fences, talking among themselves about something, but there are no emotions on their faces. Looking at it from the UAZ window, one of the rescuers remarks:
- You look, the locals don't care anymore, only visitors participate in the search.
- Well, what, life goes on, and the potatoes are not harvested, and the mushrooms are flooded like crazy.
- They drove people from two regions. I heard that the special forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the soldiers were driven into the swamp to check. And yesterday, all night long, helicopters circled over the forest with a thermal imager, they say, they found a couple of points, then we were sent there. And there was nothing there.
- And the volunteers?
- Volunteers were not touched, only us. We are state people, we can, but we are on a salary.
Did you hear what they said today? Drive the guy like an animal.
- Yes, they have come, he is already like a beast for everyone. They want to drive him out of the forest like an animal.
- Yes, you look at them, all with knives, they are not shy about anything.
- Well, what did you want, they say to everyone that lynxes and wolves are found here. We have a lynx on every tree, which strives to jump on someone.

Around 11 am

Our square turns out to be about five kilometers from the village.

A chain of our group is lining up along the road. It stretches for four hundred meters. They give a quick briefing, explaining how to move, when to stop, what to check and what to look for.

In the forest, the chain of people is constantly torn, someone runs forward, someone, on the contrary, lags behind. Either they scatter from each other, then they huddle together. Most of the volunteers are participating in the search for the first time, they are inexperienced, wayward and think they know what is right. The larger the group, the more difficult it is to coordinate it, and if there are few walkie-talkies, then it is almost impossible.

The forest we entered was not yet “the same forest”, although there were plenty of windbreaks and impassable places in it. The sun came out and it started to heat up.

The chain moves slowly, we often stop, this annoys many. From time to time disputes break out with the coordinators, someone does not like the way they lead.

“Vanya, turn off this radio and go as we go, we won’t stop, otherwise we’ll walk one kilometer all day,” the guy with the inscription “Ivatsevichi Ultras” on his T-shirt is indignant. - Did these coordinators even finish school? Or even an army? We recruited from ads.

Vanya gets angry and swears at the coordinators. A minute later, the chain of people stands again.

The farther we went from the road, the more primitive and beautiful the forest became. Sunlight filtered through the foliage, and its rustling drowned out other sounds. The morning chill is gone. People who dressed warmly were covered with sweat, quickly tired, they were hot. Little water was taken.

Soon we come across a barn-feeding trough, where bales of hay are piled up.

Someone expressed the hope that Maxim was there. But there was no one inside. Having passed the first section of the forest, we enter the field. People scattered so far from each other that the last ones left the forest only ten minutes later. We walked a little over a kilometer, which took about half an hour. Searches in this area turned up nothing.

Local Ministry of Emergency Situations leave after the first searches. Like, they had an order to check only this forest, and they are returning to the base for further instructions. We will see them only in the evening, when we return to the base: they will lie imposingly on the grass and rest.

“It is very difficult when there are many locals in the detachment. He has been collecting mushrooms in these forests for twenty-five years and believes that he knows how to search correctly, such people constantly need to be convinced to do something, time and effort are spent on this, which could be directed to searches, ” - one of the coordinators shares his opinion.

Our squad was divided into three smaller groups. One went through the forest in the opposite direction, towards the cars. The other two went off to check the small groves.

In the distance, on the outskirts of the forest, some 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. But soon he comes back, lathered, agitated. It turns out that it was one of the military that stand at the crossroads and at various inspection points to track movements from different sectors. However, this news was not his main:
- I'm walking through the forest, looking - a dog. I think I got lost. And then I come a little closer and I see that fucking it's not a dog, but a fucking WOLF. Well, I backed away and slowly, slowly dumped from there. It is better not to climb these forests alone.

We come across a field to a pure pine forest. The wind blows through it, there are no bushes here, only moss and tall pines. There is nowhere to hide. At the edge of the grove they find a jacket of a child's size, which the spiders have already managed to settle in and weave small cobwebs there, worn-out shoes are lying nearby. And although the jacket and boots do not fit the description, some people begin to play detectives:
- 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, - that some children's clothes are just lying around in the forest?
- What do you think, is there some kind of pagan cult operating here, like in True Detective? one of the volunteers lifts her up.

The girl pauses, but she is clearly not satisfied with the answer.

The coordinators take pictures of the jacket and boots, mark the place on the map and move on. Having passed the pine forest, we again find ourselves in the field. Now we unite with the second group from our detachment.

At the next halt, some volunteer shares a chocolate bar with me. The wind shakes the grass. As far as the eye can see, we are surrounded by tight trees swaying in the wind, and fields. Apart from our group, there is not a soul around. Deserted. Here you feel the primitive power of this place, its chthonic nature. The forest does not do only good or only evil. She is nature itself - punishing and giving.

The people who went to the cars did not return.

A huge number of different bones and skulls are lying around the forest. It is understandable: in this forest there are wolves, and bears, and foxes. But animals avoid meeting with large groups of people.

We enter another grove - a continuous windbreak. And then screams from somewhere on the side:

"AAA, FUCK, FUCK YOU, AAAAA!"

The crackling of branches is heard, someone breaks out of the thicket to the field, not making out the road. I just have time to think: “Shit, they ran into a bear...” A roe deer flies out of the forest and jumps across the field.

At the next halt, Mikhail comes up to me, about thirty years old, an experienced hunter, came here from Grodno, says that his ten-year-old son was torn with him, but, fortunately, he did not take him - and does not regret:
- Our search is not so much a hope to find him alive, but to learn about his fate in general. It is unlikely that he is still alive. Because it can't be that so many people have been looking for it for more than a week and couldn't find anything.

Toward evening we set off on our return trip. After checking a few more sections of the forest, we go out onto the road and are already walking along it.

“This is the first time in our memory such a complex and massive search. Usually, we have thirty or forty people at most involved in the search, but this time the numbers are already in the thousands. Of course, the organization is chaotic, no one has dealt with such a large number of people, - says the coordinator. “We had searches and five days when the grandmother got lost in the forest, then we found her alive, she slept peacefully in some kind of hollow, and all these days she ate berries and plants.”

In almost seven hours of searching, we found several unidentified footprints, several jackets, one of which was for a child, and old boots of the fortieth size, which were unlikely to belong to a ten-year-old boy. Other groups also found nothing.

The boy disappeared, as if he had been swallowed up by the Belarusian Khton.

There will be no outings at night. The Ministry of Emergency Situations plans to once again check the entire forest with the help of a thermal imager on helicopters. But this search, like the previous ones, will give nothing.

Volunteers disperse, start a criminal case. True, the version with the kidnapping or murder will not be the main one. The swamps will be repeatedly checked. All reservoirs in the district will be explored by divers. Cynologists with dogs will scour the forest. Even psychics will participate in this.

But the guy is never found.

In the evening I am leaving by a passing car back to Minsk. Many stay for the second day, but few hope to find the boy alive. We drive out to the main street of the Novy Dvor agro-town, the locals are still standing near their fences, looking at the cars of volunteers. The sun is setting.

The heart of real Belarus lives in half-empty villages, in the exclusion zone, in the villages on the Western Bug and in the villages of the northern lakes, in the midday heat of the Belarusian myastechak squares. In old, empty, already almost forgotten farms far from the main roads. In the dense Belovezhskaya Pushcha or in the swamps of Yelnya, in the forests cut by rivers and flooded in the spring.

There will be new searches, which will also bring nothing. And life for others will go on.

10 year old Maxim Markhaliuk, a resident of the village of Novy Dvor, Svisloch district, has been searched since September last year, but so far - to no avail. Through Belsat, local residents are asking for help.

“I applied in order to establish justice. To turn to the head of state so that all these scoundrels who wanted to deliberately hide their tracks, or unintentionally, be held accountable,” said a resident of Belovezhskaya Pushcha and a former huntsman Igor Akulov.

Ten-year-old Maxim did not return home on September 16, 2017. In the forest near the house, they found the boy's bicycle and his basket. Thousands of people took part in the search.

“I think that it was on this road that something happened to this child. Because not a trace, nothing of this child is left. Officials are skating, he could go out, vote in the evening, and it turned out to be a tragedy, ”Akulov is sure.

The search for the boy began at night. The whole road was dug up by the wheels of the participants of the trophy club "Belovezhsky Bison", who were invited to search. The road leads from the Voytov bridge farm, where the hotel with a bathhouse is located, which belong to the Presidential Administration, through Novy Dvor, where the boy lived, to the lake, which is rented by the SEC.

“In that hotel, officials and local nobility often rest. On this road they rush like mad, drunk, ”the former huntsman testifies.

special road

For officials, an asphalt road was laid here, not marked on the maps, with security and surveillance cameras. It connects the hotel in Voitov Most 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 they searched so much, but no results,” says another local resident. Mikhail Sushko.

Investigation raises questions from experts

“From the very beginning of the disappearance of Markhaliuk, the investigation dragged on for a long time - 10 days. Why was it drawn when it was necessary to react to it? ”, - the former investigator draws attention 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 right!!! Because there were a lot of interpretations. You have come, you have come from different channels, television, radio. There needs to be one interpretation! Because they take from different people who are deprived of parental rights, and you interview, they pour dirt there. All this must be done carefully ... Do you understand? (Smiling). Let's hope that you will do everything right ... ”, - said the chairman of the village council Vladimir Zdanovich.

In Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Maxim Markhaliuk turned 11 on October 10, and nothing is known about his whereabouts.

On September 16, a 10-year-old boy disappeared in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Two weeks ago, a large-scale search and rescue operation, one of the largest in the country, took place in Novy Dvor. More than two thousand volunteers came to the Belarusian forest to help find Maxim. Unfortunately, there are no results so far.

Like the Tut portal. by, now a quiet and measured life continues in Maxim's native village. More recently, the headquarters of the Red Cross and many volunteers of the Angel detachment were located here.

The mother of the missing Maxim works at a school, she refuses to comment on the situation to journalists. The school said that they are trying to support the woman with all their might.

I really sympathize with the boy’s mother, but I can’t imagine how to help in this situation. Volunteers stayed with me all this time. She fed, hosted, - says a local resident Zoya. - All versions have already been discussed. Of course, you really want him to be found, and you believe that he just went to travel.

Now Maksim has been put on the international wanted list. The Investigative Committee of Belarus has opened a criminal case on the fact of the disappearance of the boy.

On the this moment Police officers are busy searching.

The search is currently ongoing. The criminal case on the fact of the disappearance of the child was initiated on September 26 in connection with the expiration of ten days from the date of filing the application for the disappearance of the boy and the failure to establish his whereabouts in the course of the operational search activities, Sb. by Yulia Goncharova, official representative of the Investigative Committee.

According to the press service of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Grodno Regional Executive Committee, police officers from the Svisloch, Slonim, Zelvensky, Mostovsky District Departments of Internal Affairs, military personnel are taking part in the search and rescue operation. internal troops and employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Experts study the most difficult to pass and wetlands.

Do you know how many versions there were? No matter what people say: they say they stole a child, fled abroad, drowned in a swamp, but these are all assumptions, but how it really happened is unknown. In the church, we pray for Maxim to be found alive and unharmed, - says the local father, Father Anatoly.

Despite the fact that Maxim has a Catholic family, in the Orthodox church of Novy Dvor, people order services for the health of the child. This is how the unity of the inhabitants in a common misfortune is manifested.

There is a village council in Novy Dvor, and the journalists managed to find someone there only after lunch. Vera Lisovskaya, Head of the Children's Affairs Department, commented on the situation:

There is no news. So I can't tell you anything. Maybe only about the family - simple hardworking people who work hard. Ordinary rural family. And Maxim is ordinary, mobile, like other children of his age.

The journalists drove up to the place where all operations began - a hut called the base. Here the rescuers found Maxim's abandoned bike. At the moment, it is empty here, now the locals do not let their children into the forest.

Yes, and for us adults, it’s a little scary to go into the thicket - now something incomprehensible seems to be behind every tree, because there are many versions of the missing boy. It is not clear what really happened, - says a local resident Vera.

Everyone seems to know about Maxim's birthday in a small agricultural town. The locals say: he turned 11. A month has passed since they are looking for Maxim.