Belarus is a country within a country.
One country is easy to see. It exists on the surface like a film of oil – its philosophy is to spread fear and oppression – its slick spills long and wide from the bowels of unelected president Alexander Lukashenko’s ship sinking dictatorship, although, like pollution, its effects can remain hidden for a long time.
This country begins at its borders and where its customs checks are in operation. But it also lays claim to another deeply rooted land – albeit one that is running up against rocky sharp ground – and that is the one in people’s heads. It is easy for any layperson to see this in action if they look closely enough – observe everyday Belarusians in an airport in a free country outside Belarus and then compare them when they step foot in their homeland. For some and whether they are aware of it or not, out are the easy grins and chatter, in are serious faces and a kind of uniform physical remoteness, as if this is the way they can resist their unhappy situation – by ignoring it in public spaces and closing down into themselves. As I have commented to others, the impression one sometimes gets is similar to looking at a painting by Lowry. This attitude suits Lukashenko as well – one thing a dictatorship tries to do is to strip a people of their personalities. Their behaviour is not surprising though, it is daunting for most to enter Belarus to face passport control and customs. None of the officials (not in my time anyway) soften their military image with a “Welcome back” or “Welcome to Belarus”, or “Enjoy your stay” greeting (travel abroad for most Belarusians is not encouraged, Lukashenko does not want his people to see how he lies about living standards) – instead, they take their time to look suspiciously through your passport (especially if you are from the meddling so-called “hostile” West and have visited before) read the computer and look you up and down at great length before finally, and hopefully saying, “You can go through.” I am sure that not all officials behave like this, however, they are certainly trained to.
The sense of this surface country continues on the other side, in the waiting areas around the airport. When I arrived in February 2020 and lost internet and all mobile contact with my pick - up and all of my friends in Minsk (as my pick- up held the keys to my flat I was in a bit of trouble) I experienced first hand how showing emotion of any kind quickly gets you noticed. If you show stress or distress in London or any largish public place in the UK no one generally bats an eyelid (I am not saying this is good, sometimes it isn’t) here I found I was being watched by all because I was clearly panicking. A similar response to observing “difference” happened one day when I was walking along vulica Lienina. It was quite balmy for a February evening, though there had been a snow shower, several people were pouring out of the metro (it was rush hour) when an open-topped sports car whizzed down the main road, music blaring. This was such an out of the ordinary event (in Minsk you do not hear loud music from cars hardly anywhere) that tens of people stopped in their tracks to watch – some disapproving, some admiring. I am not saying that not playing loud music so openly is a result of Lukashenko’s OMON dominated regime necessarily, Belarusians come across as very considerate and very aware people (though awareness probably comes from having an extra special sense of alertness at most times) but at the same time, it could be. This year I was in Minsk for two weeks living in a residential apartment and the only visible self-expression on the streets I saw were two EMO kids late at night under a bridge near the military college – brave kids! – singing german pop songs and nervously smoking dope. On both these occasions, the loud music and the kids, it seemed like another world had suddenly broken through as if from behind some invisible curtain or like the sun from behind a huge thundercloud. The effect is to make people stop in their tracks. Right now, of course, we are happily seeing, those of us who believe in a human being’s right to freedom and freedom of expression, that the sun has gathered courage to shine for a lot longer – perhaps forever.
But whenever I return from Belarus, it is hard to convince people of what this surface-level Belarus, the really dangerous one, the one where people get disappeared and/or murdered or severely brutally traumatised, the one Lukashenko and his strong men exist in – is like and the effect it has on a person who has, for all their lives, lived relatively freely in a free world ( I hope now, having seen the reports in the media, they may understand). But a person who has lived in the UK all their lives simply cannot imagine what it is like to suddenly be in a place where you are not allowed to “be”, where you consistently have to check how you walk and look because other people – normally men in uniform – are taking more notice of you than they should. One can ready oneself for the physical apparatus that a dictatorship must use for governance, that’s easy – but the energy and atmosphere – the stifling repression and fear – that can be the hardest to deal with and the most unexpected. This Belarus is a sort of soviet space post soviet where, certainly in 2015 when I first visited, the KGB in their plain clothes uniform of blue jeans and dark jackets and black briefcases, hang out on the streets watching (watching what? who knows, they just watch). It’s likely true to say that while there is less CCTV in Minsk than in Morecambe or Blackpool probably, the KGB always seem to know where you are if they need to (it was certainly true of myself and Fortinbras, Belarus Free Theatre’s acting studio about whom I was writing at the time). “They tapped my phone, here, listen,” said Aliaksei to me then. This Belarus, where feral cats slink around with maligned faces or sit soddenly in the rain, feels outdated, as outdated as the offices of the Russian film company in a Mayfair Hotel I visited once who, as a joke, had lined their darkened lobby with mannequins staring gloomily out of windows in 1950s garb as if starring in film noirs about the Stasi – although if his use of the military today is anything to go by, it seems like, in inna shevchenko’s words, that Lukashenko has been inspired by the recent Mad Max films. Perhaps for Lukashenko, Belarus is a film set. One where he can enact his weird suspicions about the West and fears about Putin’s desire to strip Belarus of its independence (though the fears about Putin are certainly not unfounded).
But what of the other Belarus, the one that is currently peacefully singing and dancing and walking and running and smiling its way to its so desired freedom and which seems to have just emerged somehow, by a secret road connecting to this now very new, and very different country?
My awareness of it started in 2020, not in 2015. In 2015 I stayed in a hotel and dropped in and out of the regime only for a few days. As we spent most of our time on the streets being followed and finally chased by the KGB (with some of my friends and colleagues getting arrested) this surface-level Belarus, where one forcibly comes up against the security forces, was the only one I experienced. I met local people remotely and in cafes or cinemas and there was no consistency in my interactions. My friends, of course, lived in both worlds, but as yet, I only lived in one, whilst hearing about the other and seeing it dimly.
This time, it was different. At first, though, I thought it might be the same. I was again visiting Belarus Free Theatre as an undercover arts journalist, but this time working for them and for the Calvert Journal at the same time. My pick up, when I finally managed to meet him, was calm and relaxed, an antidote to my obvious panic at the time, but when I was finally left in my apartment far later than expected (the plane was delayed from Gatwick) a sense of slight fear began to set in. I don’t speak Russian or Belarusian, a lot of people – those who are older – do not speak English. There are no signs in English (mostly). I was nervous walking to the local СОСЕДИ to get much-needed supplies (thankfully open until 2am on a Sunday) and my interactions with the sales assistants were wordless and lacking in eye contact. Another friend told me later how, when she and her husband moved into a new area in Minsk, they made it their mission to actively engage with the shop assistants every day, as, my friend said, people just don’t look at you, don’t engage, as if they are afraid. I knew I was not wrong then. But I wanted things to be different this time – of course, I know my friends at BFT very well, but I also wanted to reach out to others, those outside the company. Could I get through to the sombre and aggressive looking security guards at the metro who looked like they wanted to stop and search me all the time (I was too wily and sent out strong signals not to approach, and also being female comes in handy in Belarus wherein the surface country, gender stereotypes persist – as we have seen to Lukashenko’s cost). Could I, perhaps less ambitiously, strike up some sort of friendship with the people at the local shops? (I visited them every day, I am obsessed with Belarusian supermarkets and chocolate curd bars) What I wanted to see and understand is how much this other Belarus, the one my friends in BFT talked about and the one we are seeing now in the form of beautiful protests, exists in everyday citizens.
My first sense of kinship happened not at the shops though, but at the space where BFT were performing. A woman, seemingly a caretaker, would come every morning to sweep and dust and water the plants. In her late 40s to early 50s, I could recognise her everywhere – perhaps an ex-rocker, she had short shaved hair, earrings, perhaps a tattoo and looked like she was from Totnes in Devon (she would not be out of place) rather than from the more conservative Minsk. Every time she left the space I wondered where and what she went back to – others like her (I hoped)? Though neither of us could speak each other’s language we gelled immediately. I enjoyed her sense of calm and purpose as she prepared the building for the day ahead, her sense of independence and smile. I asked who she was, but no one really knew. She came and she went (so many came and went unannounced and unchallenged in this space – the freedom allowed was immense) and gradually we got to smiling a greeting, to say hello and goodbye (but no more) until on my last day when I somehow – I don’t know how – managed to communicate to her I was leaving. She understood and somehow also communicated good luck – I think it was a thumb’s up. Or maybe, presciently, the peace sign, I don’t remember. But the good thing was, I felt like I was human. Because in Belarus, unless you are with friends and interact only with strangers, it can be hard to feel human sometimes. Something vital is stripped away.
Today I wonder about that woman and where she is and how she is. Did she, has she taken part in the protests? Was she, god forbid, arrested? And more I daren’t think. I hope she is out there, I expect she is, with all the other women, “trolling” the OMON and non-violently preventing them from arresting people.
Of course, I met others. Heavy metal looking people were going to a nearby tattoo shop all the time. They were young, hip, hopeful, intelligent, educated about their country. The hopeful underbelly of Belarus – the future. They harboured a tidal wave of democratic ambition that will and is washing over Lukashenko’s ship, sinking it forever. Then there were the boys and girls behind the bar in the space, flashing me grins and colluding looks. In the arts sector, students hanging around on street corners. And something else enticing. At X bar, where I met many interviewees as it was a safe space, a yoga and meditation group would meet regularly behind closed doors in a room at the back somewhere. Women mostly, they would flit in and out as if they were taking part in something rebellious or secretive and whisper hurried greetings to my friend Nastasya. When the door closed on them I would wonder what they too went back to. What were their lives like? More and more I began to visit places where the people who lived in the other Belarus, the one where all the people are coming from now, exists. There was the gym where women, to protect themselves against the rise in domestic violence, were learning kickboxing. There was my friend’s mother in town X outside Minsk. Quiet, resourceful, opposed to the regime (she might never voice it out loud but the support for her son shows it) she offered me heaps of homemade cake, biscuits and gallons of coffee and welcomed me into her flat even though for her, it felt risky and she wanted to be cautious – I was not allowed to interview her or take photographs of her.
There were the two art students, one of whom, Eugenia, asserted that if BFT did not exist, she would invent it. I finally got the local sales assistant to greet me and smile and she began to take special care of me at the till, helping me with money even though, again, the language barrier stopped us from communicating properly. Then there were the audiences coming to BFT’s show, Dogs of Europe. It was in a different space – it demands a big stage – this changed the feeling in the audience. People gathered outside, excited, they hung about after and talked non-stop – the sense of freedom was already in the air. The author, Alhierd Bacharevic, was there too, which added to the sense of occasion. He was accosted by journalists outside, including myself – suddenly everything felt more open, more able to be.
People write that the protests this time have surprised every one because of their magnitude and consistency. But perhaps this is because people, including myself, have been living too much in Lukashenko’s Belarus – where everything is drab and grey and depressed. There is a parallel world, one which Belarusians have created over their kitchen tables, where they live and have lived for over a decade. It is a world made up of the young, the old, NGOs, artists, now the media, the two million who cannot any longer repress what it means to be human. It is this second country that is forcing itself upon Lukashenko’s, saying no to violence, no to fraudulent elections and yes to free speech and democracy. A friend in BFT said to me “Minsk is a European country. Not all of Minsk, of Belarus, is bad. We are European, Belarus is European.” (without having to be in the EU of course) And it is. So it always was – influenced and encouraged by their free neighbours in Lithuania. This is the real Belarus which has always existed and which is now only just coming to the fore with great power and meaning. Whatever the outcome of this standoff Lukashenko has created between himself and the people, Belarus will never be the same again, it has begun on the unstoppable road to freedom. And, ironically, Lukashenko’s outdated attitude to women and his reliance on state brutality is what has finally united this nation against him.