On July 25, Orsha / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. Over 200,000 flowers adorn the facilities of the Minsk branch of Belarusian Railway. Vladimir Sizikov, head of the Orsha distance of protective forest plantations of the Minsk branch of Belarusian Railway, told a BELTA correspondent about this. One of the most important areas of activity of the Orsha distance of protective forest plantations is the aesthetic maintenance of the right-of-way, stations, railway stations and other railway infrastructure facilities of the Minsk branch of Belarusian Railway. In connection with the introduction of a new format of passenger transportation, the distance has paid the utmost attention to the range of flowers grown and the quality of landscaping work this year. Thus, since the beginning of the year, the distance employees have grown 46 types of flowers, including violets, asters, lilies, irises, tulips, petunias, marigolds, etc. It is noteworthy that the first five types of flowers are symbols of the new format of passenger transportation. They are planted at the stations of Orsha, Tolochin, Krupki, Kokhanovo, Novosady, Belarus, Kolyadichi, etc. "Along with this, flowers for cutting, flower seedlings, and saplings of woody and shrubby species are sold, which allows attracting additional funds," noted Vladimir Sizikov, adding that in the first half of the year, the distance sold products, goods and services worth about Br2 billion, which is 2.5 times more than in the same period last year. Vladimir Sizikov also noted that the distance is well-equipped with machinery and special equipment to increase the volume of work on the current maintenance of protective forest plantations and the felling of trees that threaten to fall on railway facilities. Thus, in the first half of the year, maintenance felling was carried out on 115 hectares. Over 4,000 dangerous trees were felled. The technical strip was reclaimed on 71.8 hectares. The right-of-way was mowed from weeds and thickets of deciduous species on 395 hectares. And this work continues. Carrying out logging operations allows for the implementation of the branch program for replacing energy carriers with local fuels. The harvesting of wood fuel is carried out through sanitary felling of protective forest plantations. Thus, in January-June 2012, the distance harvested almost 5.7 thousand cubic meters of firewood, and supplied 3.6 thousand cubic meters of fuel wood to stations and enterprises of Belarusian Railway. By the end of the year, this volume will exceed 6 thousand cubic meters. At the same time, about half of the harvested fuel is sold to the population.