Since the elections took place and the atmosphere of the 1930s in the USSR was brought back to Belarus most of us were in the state of shock close to stupor. The first thing that came to mind about “what to do now” has been – spread the information about what happened and is happening, because if things are not documented they are soon forgotten by the society and the traumas are left only with those directly affected, even though there are hundreds of them.
Therefore, Livejournal, Twitter and Facebook have been quite active to share the real time information about what is going on and what really happened at the square.
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This time New Year celebration cannot be as merry as we wanted; however, there is hope that 2011 will be better than 2010. Here are 5 topical New Year post cards which illustrate how we celebrate this New Year in Belarus. We don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Happy New Year!
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The first shock of the new reality in Belarus has started to wear out and people are starting to collect their thought together about how to live in this country now. GenerationBY team member is sharing his memories of the protest in Minsk on December 19, 2010.
Crowds of relatives and friends of the arrested waiting outside of Zhodina prison to pass them the necessities
“Happy Christmas? Not for Belarus”, – that is how Guardian’s journalist started his article about what happened in Belarus last week. And Belarusians did really forget about Christmas. It is impossible to enjoy the holidays at the same time when dozens of your friends are in jail. People are joking that the best of Belarusians have been jailed. Below is my personal recollection of those beautiful and at the same time disgusting hours of December protests in Minsk. Continue reading…
December 19th, 2010, will remain in history as a day when “Last Dictatorship in Europe” seized to be just an expression once dropped by american diplomats. The regime showed its true face. It is clear that it will take more than a peaceful protest for a change because those in power will not be ashamed to use all methods to keep it.
Late at night between 19th and 20th, Aliaksandar Zimouski, the head of the state TV (who was taken off this position as of today), commenting the clashes at the Square of Independece said: “Now it is very important not to let the opposition make the picture work for them”. And that is exactly what the state media have been doing since then – presenting their own picture of the events to the people who live outside of Minsk and do not have access to alternative media. The ideologically correct picture was conveyed via discussions on talk shows showing videos with “violent protesters” , airing videos with some participants (including few former candidates) in which they condemn the protests and blaming some of the candidates for the violence; showing fake shots with bats, metal sticks and Molotov cocktails supposedly brought by the violent crowd of youngsters. At first even some foreign media were reporting about crashes started by the protesters even though it was a clear provocation from the side of special services.
By now one can find quite a lot of material both on YouTube and on major international websites about what happened. Still, we decided to put here a chronological description of some major events that happened since December 19th. Continue reading…
As much as people like going abroad to see Europe or even farther if they are lucky (and no visas can stop that urge!) it seems to have become popular to travel around Belarus, discovering our own country. And though tourism infrastructure leaves much to be desired; and very often what you find is just another small soviet town with the statue of Lenin on the central square named after him, or remainders of an old palace which is falling apart because of careless neglect – sometimes you get to see a small piece of old mosaic on a half destroyed wall or a cross carved on an ancient stone and that makes you feel like touching the history and being a part of it. These moments help us reinforce our identity as Belarusians, a people with things to be proud of, things we want to keep for the future. One could say that such trips could be a recepy for our soar
many people take the adventurous approach and jus
I often told my foreign friends that due to the wars and the soviet rule in the XX’s century many of architectural monuments in Belarus disappeared forever. Apparently it is not true and besides a few old churches in Minsk and regional capitals one can find such beautiful cathedrals as the one in Herviaty on the boarder with Lithuania
As much as people like going abroad to see Europe or even farther if they are lucky (and no visas can stop that urge!) it seems that is becoming popular for Belarusians to travel around Belarus. And though tourism infrastructure leaves much to be desired; and very often what you find is just another small soviet town with the statue of Lenin on the central square named after him, or remainders of an old palace which is falling apart because of careless neglect – sometimes you get to see a small piece of old mosaic on a fallen wall or a cross carved on an ancient stone, and that makes you feel like you’ve travelled back in time and that you are part of history. These moments help us reinforce our identity as Belarusians, a people with history and culture to be proud of, things we want to keep for the future. One could say that such trips could be a prescription to cure the chronic national identity deficiency of Belarusians.
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