A.V. Grigorov, professor, Honorary trainer of the Byelorussian SSR, Honorary worker of physical culture and sport of the Republic of Belarus
Belarussian state agrarian technical university, Minsk, Belarus

Key words: program, physical culture, sport, tourism, development, financing, results.

The Republic of Belarus as a sovereign state has been taking an active part in the international affairs as well as in international sport events for the last 23 years. Thanks to the support of the President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, education, physical culture, sport and tourism are priority directions of the social policy of our country.

The legal framework of the Republic of Belarus in the sphere of physical culture, sport and tourism is being actively developed and improved which provides functioning of the existing system of development of this direction.

Adopting two laws of the Republic of Belarus “On physical culture and sports” and “On tourism” has become the main component in the process of the regulatory framework improvement. The new version of the law of the Republic of Belarus “On physical culture and sport” is being worked at the moment.

More than 150 regulatory legal acts on sport issues have been adopted by the head of the state and the government in the period of sovereign Belarus.

A lot of public welfare programs are being successfully implemented such as population’s healthy lifestyle promotion, demographic safety, village revival and development, development of small and mid-sized towns.

The healthy lifestyle promotion underlies the State Program of development of physical culture and sport, approved by the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus for 2011-2015. Special development programs for summer and winter Olympic games are approved by the government for every Olympic period.

The purpose of the present study was to reveal the main ways of implementation of the state policy of the Republic of Belarus in the sphere of physical culture, sport and tourism.

Results and discussion. The international sport legislation experience presupposing active involvement of the government in promotion of physical culture and sport and tourism was used when creating the regulatory framework of the industry.

The current legal framework has become a stable base for the successful solution of set tasks in the main strategic directions which are the nation’s health care and further promotion of the international sports image of the Republic of Belarus.

It is obvious that in any country sport cannot successfully develop without the mass physical culture and sports movement.

It is crucial for our republic considering the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.

Thereby the President and the Government set a certain task to create favorable conditions for development of sport in every populated locality.

This task is being implemented by the government executive bodies and practically applied by professionals in physical culture and sport, amounting to 27,4 thousand people, including 4,7 thousand in rural areas. Thus, the top level of staffing has been achieved, and the work is going on, 205 vacancies for regional professionals working with people were created only in 2012.

The material and technical base of sport has been significantly improved in the republic.

Nowadays we have 23,2 thousand of sport facilities, including 176 stadiums, 310 swimming pools, 4757 gyms, 650 small swimming pools in preschool institutions, 42 field houses, 31 artificial ice-skating facilities and more than 10,3 thousand of planar sports facilities.

Modern sports palaces were built in every regional center, new ones are to be built in each of the 13 towns with the population over 100 thousand people, and some of them are already under construction.

Thanks to some measures taken 1 763,5 thousand people which is 18,6% of the population (1 585,2 thousand or 16,6% in 2010) were involved in regular physical culture and sport activities. In 2012-2013 we had more than 40 thousand of municipal, regional, republican sport and tourism events with over 3,5 million participants following healthy lifestyle and this fact contributed to the results mentioned above.

Sufficient conditions are being created for development of elite sport.

Today the main training programs for the national teams in summer and winter sports “Raubichi”, Stayki”, the republican equestrian sport center, the Brest center of Canoeing Olympic reserve comply with the international standards. Recently several European level facilities have been put into operation, such as the football arena in Minsk, the Sports palace, the shooting range, the field hockey stadium, the swimming sports palace in Brest. The sport center “Neman” in Grodno and the indoor track in Mogilev, sets of playgrounds and the sports palaces in Vitebsk and Gomel are actively functioning. The rowing basins for canoeing were put into operation in Polotsk and Minsk (Zaslavl). Their water areas and infrastructure meet the International Rowing Federation requirements.

The modern ski centers in Minsk and Logoisk, Silichi (Minskaya Voblasts'), in the town of Mozyr in Homyel’skaya Voblasts' have been put into service.

The biggest in Europe multifunctional culture and sport center “Minsk arena” with the sitting capacity of 15 thousand people is effectively functioning at the moment. It includes a cycling ground, an ice zone for speed skating, an ice field and a number of other sport facilities with the capacity to hold winter and summer sports competitions. We hosted the European championship for track cycling in 2010, the Speed Skating World Cup in 2013, and we are hosting the Ice Hockey World Championship in 2014 by the decision of the International Hockey Federation.

The only in Europe indoor freestyle training center is being built in the capital. It will additionally include four water springboards, a water park for all year round training both for athletes and amateurs following healthy lifestyle. These facts prove that Belarus is ready to receive delegations at any level and can hold united training camps. We welcome all positive initiatives seeking experience exchange and we keep working at this. In 2013 there were opened a new gym with the sitting capacity of 1,5 thousand people in Zhlobin, a new 50 meter long swimming pool in Gomel, the Minsk City Center of Wrestling Olympic reserve named after A.V. Medved, 7 playgrounds with artificial turf  in towns and regions of Minskaya Voblasts'; an ice palace with sport game hall, a stadium with artificial turf in Gorki, Mahilyowskaya Voblasts'. The ice arena was built and put into service in Minsk in Dzerzhinsky prospect at the expense of JSCo “Triple”.

Within the framework of the State Program of rural development for 2011-2015, more than 50 sport facilities in rural areas were refurbished in 2013.

According to statistics, the number of services provided to people in the sphere of physical culture and spot is growing every year, indicating the growing interest and purchasing capacity of citizens taking care of their health and able to “invest” into their physical culture and sport occupations, which naturally increases the working capacity on enterprises.

Belarus takes a rightful place in the international sport community. The federations in 146 sports were established in the republic.

The sovereign country with the 10 million population is in the top twenty among 200 world sports nations taking part in the Olympics.

451 medals, including 161 medals in Olympic sports, among them 29 gold medals were won by athletes from Belarus on championships, World Cups and European championships this year. Physical culture and sport activity has been noticeably enhanced for the last several years.

It is remarkable that students from 55 higher educational institutions took part in the competitions of the XXVII Summer World Universiade-2013. The Republic of Belarus took the 5^th place in the total rating among 160 participating states with its personal record of 40 medals (13 - gold ones, 13 silver, 14 bronze) which put the country ahead of Ukraine, USA, Germany, Italy, Canada, Great Britain, Austria and many others. Nevertheless in spite of the positive results of development, the current system of university sport in the Republic of Belarus requires additional measures to be taken in view of international trends and foreign experience of specific countries, intended primarily to motivate future students to start learning, go in for sports and achieve big results in the institutions of higher education, and to develop school sport as a basis for enhancement of university sport.

There are 475 sports schools in the republic including 426 Children and Youth Sports Schools, 2 426 Children and Youth Sports Schools of Olympic Reserve, 26 centers of Olympic Reserve, 8 schools for elite athletes, 15 Olympic training centers and 12 training schools for Olympic Reserve. The learning and training is provided by 8859 teaching trainers, including 5261 staff teachers and 3598 hourly employees. The share of children training at sport schools is 20,2% of the number of comprehensive schoolchildren thanks to the hard work of the teaching staff. 13,3% of children from rural comprehensive schools are being trained in specialized sports schools.

Conclusions. Thanks to the support of President of the Republic of Belarus, President of the National Olympic Committee Alexander Lukashenko a steady, dynamic, efficient system of training of sports reserve and elite athletes has been set in the Republic.

Special attention in the country is paid to development of tourism as an important sector of economy. Tourism is being developed on the territory of the country within the framework of the State Program of development of tourism in the Republic of Belarus, approved by the Government for 2011-2015. Regional, city and district programs and events to promote tourism were adopted and are being implemented. At the base period the specific indicators of development of tourism in the administrative districts have been identified, the structure of creation of the resource base (tourist industry, human resources, funding sources) have been determined, which ensured the implementation of the set objectives for development of tourism in the regions. The organizational and practical measures taken resulted in the positive dynamics of development in this direction. According to the results of work in 2012, the export of travel services was 137,3 %, or 205,8 million US dollars. The number of tourists who visited Belarus amounted to 4299589 (the 106,5 % increment). Tourism in the country is considered as a promising business, a source of the treasury reimbursement, a sphere of employment of the population and an opportunity to raise the image of the state in the international community.

References

1. Decree of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus 24.03.2011 № 373 “On adoption of the State program of development of tourism in the Republic of Belarus for 2011-2015” (In Russian)

Corresponding author: grigorov.1948@mail.ru