DODON PRESENTS HIS HOME-MADE WINE, HONEY AND WALNUTS TO BELARUS LEADER LUKASHENKO

Moldovan President Igor Dodon has made a valuable personal present to President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko - several hundred liters of his own-made domestic wine, honey and walnuts, Dodon said to journalists on Thursday, answering their questions about his meeting with the President of Belarus.

"On Wednesday, I showed Mr. Lukashenko my presidential countryside residence, and first and foremost its spacious cellar - an impressive artistically-made construction containing a lot of useful and interesting things. I gave several carton boxes of exquisite Moldovan wines to my guest, as well as a number of barrels of my own-made domestic wine - several hundred liters done by myself. I gave also honey and walnuts to him", said Dodon.

Answering journalists' questions, President Dodon said that like in all previous years, he continues to cultivate his family vineyard in his native village, and makes wine - all by himself. Asked how come the head of state has time enough for all this, Igor Dodon replied: "Good people are good workers, they manage everything".

"I invited Alexander Lukashenko to visit my parental house [in the Village of Sadova in the Calarasi Raion, not far from Chisinau]. Alas, the high guest had meetings scheduled to be held in the Government, with Prime Minister Filip and other. But we have agreed that Alexander Lukashenko will necessarily come here in late September or early October. We will remove some grapes and make wine together. I will show him the traditional Moldovan technology", said Dodon.

Alexander Lukashenko confirmed he would necessarily come for grape harvesting and for making wine - "if not this year then necessarily next year".

"To me, Moldova is like my home land. I always come here with joy, and enjoy warm reminiscences for very long after. The thing is, I was on the compulsory military service in the Soviet armed forces here, in Moldova, in border troops. So, I protected the USSR border here in then-Soviet Moldova. It is my conviction that Moldova should remain a sovereign and independent state. I know there are other opinions on this issue, but my opinion is such", stated the Belarus leader.

In the course of his visit, Alexander Lukashenko also gave a present to Moldova - several Belarus-made tractors and other agricultural machines. All this will be distributed personally by President Dodon, who will go to various parts of the country next week to hand in the machinery.

On Wednesday and Thursday, President Alexander Lukashenko paid an official visit to Moldova. On Thursday morning, the two Presidents sat at the steering wheel of one of the gift Belarus tractors and, steering in turn, jointly sowed with corn a piece of the field belonging to the Porumbeni scientific research crop growing institute (near Chisinau).

The Institute has been renowned for decades for creating new efficient varieties of corn and sorghum that are happily exported to many foreign countries, including to Belarus. Igor Dodon promised to dispatch to Belarus the corn harvest to be grown on the field sown by the two Presidents today.