Abstract
CREDIT: (illustration) Natasha Garlukovich; uncredited photography supplied by family members
Our new campaign shares correspondence from political prisoners being held in Belarus
Following the election, protests erupted and a vicious crackdown ensued. A year on from the election, there are more than 600 political prisoners in the country.
Letters from Lukashenka’s Prisoners is a collaborative project by Index on Censorship in partnership with Belarus Free Theatre, Human Rights House Foundation and Politzek.
The campaign gives unjustly detained individuals a voice by collecting, translating, and publishing their letters in Index on Censorship magazine and weekly on our website. The letters are heart-rending and show the real people behind the grim statistic.
Read letters each week from Lukashenka’s prisoners at indexoncensorship.org/lukashenkaletters
Volha Takarchuk, political vlogger
WHEN VOLHA’S PARENTS tried to deliver a food package to her on 8 June, they were told that she had been placed in solitary confinement for allegedly violating the “rules of procedure”. They were not told what the alleged violation was. In her letter below, Volha refers to the effects that her “lockup” had on her.
She is writing to one of her supporters, Elena. Volha’s reference to having received a “parrot – Dracula and BMW” are understood to be a response to the contents of Elena’s letter. She also refers to her two young children, who she says she cannot bear to be without. By now, she has already missed both of their birthdays.
Elena, hello. I received your parrot – Dracula and the BMW :) Thank you, it was very interesting to read all that. At least it distracted me a little from my bad thoughts.
I’m doing so-so. I’ve been transferred to another cell, the same one I was in the first days I spent here! The girls here are much nicer than in my previous cell, so it’s easier to be here. There are a lot of people here older than myself, so they help me out and look out for me. But somehow it doesn’t really help. The days pass and nothing changes. At least, the lack of news makes it feel that way.
My lawyer said again that if they don’t extend the investigation, (and God forbid they don’t), then the trial will only happen, at the earliest, in mid-August, what with all this rigmarole. Which means I won’t be able to make it to the kids’ birthdays. Matvei will be 8 on 5 August, and A will be 4. That’s what I’m going through. I just keep crying and crying. No sedatives help.
Other than that, things are improving here. During the heatwave, I was pretty ill. And the consequences of incarceration were taking their toll. My blood pressure skyrocketed, my head was aching, and I was constantly dizzy. I was so weak that I couldn’t stand. I had a terrible earache another day.
Now I’m doing better. I was prescribed pills for the blood pressure, and they put absorbent cotton wool with alcohol in my ear. :) Overall, I’ll live.
I’m constantly praying that they let me go home from the trial. I can’t bear to be without my children anymore. I’m at the end of my tether. I read all the time to distract myself. And wait for night to come, so I can go to bed. Before I fall asleep I think of Lolita’s song: “One more agonising day will come and go, I’ll want to live…”
I keep waiting for the day when I want to live again. You wrote that I need to smile. I know that, but it’s just so hard here. Everything has become meaningless without the children, life is miserable, and there is nothing positive at all!!! So even with joy and a smile, I’m still having a dreadful time. There’s no clear mirror here (probably a good thing), but what I can see in the one we’ve got scares me. My eyes are grey, lifeless, completely empty. My skin is grey, and the bags under my eyes almost reach my chin!
I’d terrify you :) But, unfortunately, that’s just the way things are. Write to me. And thanks for all your support!
Hugs, Volha
Aliaksandr Vasilevich, businessman
ALIAKSANDR HAS TWO daughters. Below is an example of the stories he has been writing in letters to his eldest daughter, Adelia, who is eight years old. His second daughter, Urshula (referred to in the letter as “Ursh”) was born while he was in detention so he hasn’t met her yet. The stories below were sent in three separate letters between May and July 2021.
Papa was sitting in his cell, drinking coffee and eating chocolate cake. His friends had given him the cake and it was delicious. And Daddy simply loved coffee.
The door opened, and in walked Penguin with a mattress in one hand and bag in the other. The door slammed shut behind him. Penguin looked exhausted and dishevelled. “Hello,” he said. “Hi there!” said Papa in reply, as he showed Penguin where to put his mattress and his belongings.
After drinking his tea, Penguin sat on the bed and looked at Papa.
“Why are you so calm and not miserable? After all, you and I have had a bad run of luck. It was all fine, and now it’s terrible :(“
Papa smiled at the Penguin. “And if it was never bad, how would you know when it was good? Unfortunate things happen to everyone. Even in cartoons. Even to princesses and villains. To good people and bad people.”
Penguin looked even sadder. “Sure, sure, sure. But you’re not sad?”
Papa took a gulp of coffee and said: “Why should I be? I’m here, in prison. I can’t change that or influence the situation. But I can choose to be sad or happy. I have power over myself. What would you choose – to be sad or happy? Or at least calm.”
Penguin responded without thinking: “Of course, I’d choose to be happy, or at least calm. But how?”
“Have you been happy before? Told jokes? Played? Read books? Chatted with your friends? Watched cartoons? Played games?”
“Yeah…” muttered Penguin.
“That’s how you stay cheerful, don’t let yourself be changed. Keep being just the way you like to be.”
“But I’m prison, aren’t I!?” said Penguin.
“Yeah, so what? Right now, we’re sitting and having a chat. Right this second. Are you enjoying our conversation?”
“It’s better than thinking about how bad I feel. I’m enjoying it.”
“So you’re feeling okay now?”
“Mm-hmm. Probably, I guess, but later…”
“There isn’t a later! Think about now! Enjoy every moment. Look, here’s a low-calorie biscuit.”
“It gets better!” said Penguin, munching on the biscuit.
“And you can create even more little pleasures; think on them and concentrate on them,” said Daddy, as he took a biscuit himself. The last biscuit of the day.
“Do I have to eat biscuits all the time?” Penguin wondered. “Won’t I get fat? That’s unhealthy.”
Daddy smiled. “Read if you enjoy it. Get to know the people around you. Treat them the way you want to be treated. Make jokes. Write letters to your friends.”
“But I want to play on my iPad.”
“Well, you don’t have an iPad. So choose. Do you want to sit there all miserable, or would you prefer to read an interesting book?”
“A boooook!” shouted Penguin, as he flapped his wings.
“Here you go.” Papa had taken a book out from under his mattress.
Adelia’s penguin
CREDIT: (penguin) Painting by Aliaksandr Vasilevich’s daughter Adelia
Penguin read the title: Papa and Penguin!
Adelia, hi. If you liked this story, please draw the penguin :) I love you and miss you so much.
Dad
Wheezing, panting, grunting, groaning…
“Breathe in, breathe out.” Penguin was doing rhythmic push-ups. His right wing and leg were on the bed on the right; his left wing and leg were on the bed on the left. As he breathed in, Penguin lowered himself below the second tier of the bunk beds, hovering at a height of just under two meters. The grey and yellow walls of the cell flashed before his eyes like a reproduction of Kazimir’s Malevich’s ‘Red Cavalry Riding’ and a boring programme on TV. Penguin liked to work out on the second level of the bunk beds – the cell was cramped, with 12 prisoners aside from him in the room, which was slightly bigger than a child’s room.
“200,” exhaled Penguin. “And tomorrow, I’ll do push-ups, and after that, bar work.”
“You’re doing a great job,” said Papa. “You’ll be the first jock-penguin :)”
“A gym bunny!” the others joked.
During their assigned walking time, Penguin and Papa paced nonstop from wall to wall. To the guards above, they must have looked like zombies flailing around the little courtyard in desperation :) The cement walls are in bad condition, and there’s a lattice overhead, and a few green leaves higher up along the walls. Sometimes good things can grow, even in cement.
“I wish I could make my wings big enough to fly,” Penguin said dreamily as they reached their ten-thousandth step. Papa remained tactfully silent as a response. He turned his face up towards the sun’s rays which had made their way through the lattice.
“I know I can’t fly. But I won’t crawl either,” Penguin continued.
“You’ll get better. And movement and improvement make life better,” answered Papa.
In the evening, lying on his bed before going to sleep, Papa decided to continue: “It’s like with goodness and light. Darkness and boredom all around. But you’re doing something good. Even a little thing. Acts of kindness. And the light gets stronger. The world changes. Even if the change is not as quick as everyone would like.”
“Is that how you build a nest out of a bunch of tiny useless pebbles?” Penguin was asking for clarification.
“Sort of :)” grunted Papa, and he fell asleep.
A few days later, a neighbour approached Papa and Penguin, who were doing some intense push-ups and panting heavily.
“Can I try?”
“Of course.”
The neighbour climbed up and, panting even more vigorously than Papa and Penguin, was only able to do five push-ups.
“Don’t worry, don’t give up! Try to do more, and you’ll be able to do even more than me,” Penguin encouraged his neighbour, who was bright red, and dripping with sweat. After a couple of weeks, more than half the cell had started to join in on their workouts.
The neighbour, Papa, and Penguin were drinking coffee. The neighbour was chewing on an unsweetened, but still tasty biscuit, given to Papa by his mother-in-law. “I haven’t done anything in 10 years. And today I feel better. I wrote a letter to my son, telling him I’d started working out,” recounted the neighbour contentedly. “I should take up English too.”
The sadness seemed to clear a little. The bleak wasted time was gone. But Penguin still couldn’t fly. Penguins can’t fly. Another month passed. Penguin’s term had been extended by two months. He climbed up the bunk beds. “I’m going to do 300 push-ups,” he thought. And when half of his cellmates, who had been taking their turns to do their own push-ups with him, finally decided to rest, one of his new friends said: “I heard you want to fly. When we get out of here, you can come to me. I’ll teach you how to fly a glider. And then maybe you can learn to fly a plane. You’re a persistent guy.”
“What shall we have with our tea?” asked Penguin.
“Hmmm…. Biscuits or chocolate brownies?” asked Papa.
“What’s healthier?” asked Penguin, with a sigh, as he looked at his waist.
“Well, cookies are 10% unhealthy, and brownies are 90% healthy,” laughed Papa.
“Brownies, then!” His companion was decisive.
Papa let him enjoy the moment. And when Penguin reached for a second piece of brownie, he asked him: “Why did you choose the brownie?”
“It’s healthy!”
“Don’t you know that 10% unhealthy and 90% healthy mean the same thing?”
“Oops. How did that happen?”
“You fell for the framing effect. It’s an effect of formulation. Often our decision is a result not of what we want, what is correct, or what we like more, but how the question is asked.
“So what do we do, how do we not get caught in that trap?”
“Be careful and think :) So you don’t get manipulated.”
“Can I have a biscuit? I prefer them.”
“Of course, here you are. And I like brownies more.”
“And what are we having for lunch?”
“A salad. 100% healthy. :)”
“Great! I’m getting sick of these biscuits. :)”
The End.
Aliaksandr Vasilevich
Adelia, hi!
Check out the new story :) Have a great time celebrating your mum’s birthday. I love you and miss you a lot. Hugs! And give Ursh a hug too!
Dad
Maxim Znak, lawyer
IN MAY 2020, Maxim joined the team of opposition figure and then presidential nominee Viktar Babaryka to provide legal assistance to his team. Maxim later represented Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Maria Kalesnikava, with whom he has since stood trial. He faces up to 12 years in prison on charges of calling for “actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of the Republic of Belarus.”
While in prison Maxim has been writing and sending poems to his family. In November 2020, a poem he sent to his father, Alisksandr Znak, was almost completely censored by the authorities.
In July 2021, he wrote the poem translated below.
Shame
It’s despicable to judge in secret.
It’s low. Embarrassing. And indecent.
Did I call publicly? To revolt? I?
At least accuse me publicly.
Conspiracy? With whom, how and when?
Why a secret trial in another house?
A secret trial is forever:
That kind of thing doesn’t sink in the
Summer, either.
An extremist group? That’s a lie!
Unless the ghost of the bloody Troika And, hiding his name,
An expert in black balaclava shame.
It worked. Here I have already mastered many allied professions. I can’t say that something is a vocation, but it’s certainly interesting to live in. So, like the classic – to struggle and to seek, to find and not to give up! By the way, mining mechanical engineers are very cool in all the cool fantasy books. They’re gnomes ;) Do! Hi all!
Maxim Znak
Maria Kalesnikava, musician and political activist
In September 2020, the prominent Belarusian opposition figure
THE LETTER THAT follows was written by Maria Kalesnikova to her father on 16 July 2021, the day the Supreme Court rejected her complaint regarding the extension of her detention until 1 August.
Her father, Aliaksandr Kalesnikov, had gone to the hearing to support his daughter wearing a T-shirt with Maria’s image on it (pictured right). He was initially refused access to the hearing so he took off the T-shirt, turned it inside out, and put it back on. He was then allowed to enter.
Maria Kalesnikava
Aliaksandr has repeatedly been refused the right to visit Maria in detention. According to Maria’s sister, Tatsiana Khomich – referred to as “Tania” in the letter, Aliaksandr has been denied permission to see his daughter on every occasion (more than fifteen times) with no explanation. On 4 August, Maria went on trial facing up to 12 years in prison on charges of extremism. The trial was closed to the public, including family members. Maria’s family said it was a relief to see her healthy and cheerful at the trail, albeit on television screens.
Tatsiana said that although Maria is writing a lot, her letters have become increasingly infrequent. Suppression of letters from political prisoners in Belarus is commonplace, denying family members and loved ones the chance to hear vital news. This is done to put pressure on individuals and their families. The letter below is the last communication Maria’s family have received from her. One year since the fraudulent elections in Belarus, Maria’s sister agreed to publicly share this personal letter.
Kalesnikava (left) has been sentenced to 11 years in prison and Znak (right) ten
16 July 2021:
Hi my dearly beloved world’s best dad!
How are you doing in this trying time?
I’m constantly thinking of you, grandpa and all our nearest and dearest – sending my hello’s and lots of hugs to all!
The court hearing took place today so I already know how you had to ‘get changed’ – I bet everybody in the detention centre could hear me laugh! You really think fast on your feet. You see, now nobody can doubt that I’m my father’s daughter – and I’m so proud to be one!
I’m so glad that you are keeping your spirits high and are managing to get through these crazy days with a good sense of humour :)
Keep it up!
Today I received two! Letters from you and two from A.
You wrote that you’re in awe of Tania – I’m also writing this in every letter to her. What she’s doing for me and our whole team is unbelievable and incredible.
Please ask her, as do I, to make sure that she takes good care of herself and makes every effort to find time to rest.
And of course, the joke that your Berlingo [car] is crumbling and ageing faster than you are has also put a smile on my face. And so it should be, Dad, you’ve got no need to crumble!
I’m well, healthy and cheerful!
Sending you and everybody a big-big hug!
Your Masha
May goodness persevere! Love and hugs