Tag: Belarus

Book: Boris Akunin “The Destruction and Resurrection of the Empire”

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Originally, when planning his series on the history of the Russian state, Boris Akunin intended to stop at 1917, with the fall of the Romanov dynasty, as he believed that beyond this point, it was no longer the history of the Russian state but of an entirely different country.

However, some time after completing the series, he unexpectedly announced the release of the 10th volume covering the Lenin-Stalin era. Moreover, this volume became the first that was not published in Russia, as when the book was almost ready for print, Boris Akunin was declared a terrorist in Russia, closing off access to publishing in his homeland. So the book was printed abroad.

While the revolution and the last tsar always felt distant to me, despite having lived during the Soviet Union, the events of the Soviet state itself were always closer. I studied this history in school and believed that I lived in the best country in the world. Therefore, I was very eager to see how Boris Akunin would recount this period.

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Belarus Everyone Knows From the Movies. Part 1

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Belarus is a small country: a population of around 10 million people, an area of a little over 200 thousand square kilometers. For many years I understood that not everyone abroad even knows such a country; I used to have to explain that it’s between Ukraine, Poland, and Russia. (Surprisingly, Cypriots for some reason often do know the country — which genuinely caught me off guard.)

And yet our country sometimes pops up here and there in movies. Okay, Russia — it’s been a longtime supplier of villains with terrifying English accents, since it’s the old enemy. But Belarus? Still, quite well-known creators have slipped this country into their films. And that’s what we’ll talk about today — the examples I know.

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Book: “White-Red-White. Flag. Nation. Identity”

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The publication in 2024 of a book about the white-red-white flag — or, as it is often called, the BChB (from the Belarusian bel-chyrvona-bely) — is rather symbolic. Once again, numerous myths and layers of dirt are being thrown at it, just as has happened periodically throughout its existence.

As an introduction, it’s worth noting that the white-red-white flag was the official flag of the Republic of Belarus from 1991 to 1995, as was the coat of arms “Pahonia,” rendered in the same colors (since, according to the approved designs, the red of the flag was meant to match the red of the coat of arms). Moreover, to this day these symbols are not formally banned in Belarus. However, in present-day Belarus one can receive a very real prison sentence for displaying them — and even for something as accidental as a white-and-red color combination, whether it’s socks or an LG TV box left on a balcony.

The book “Bel-Chyrvona-Bely” (published in Belarusian) is arguably the first full-fledged scholarly study of the origins of both the flag and the coat of arms, as well as of the color combination itself, released in the form of a substantial volume. I wouldn’t call it popular science — it is genuinely a thoroughly researched work by an entire collective of authors (who, unfortunately or perhaps fortunately for themselves, remain unnamed in the book). It is rich with illustrations, and all conclusions are supported by an extensive array of references, as one would expect from serious academic research.

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Songs: AP$ENT

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After leaving Belarus, I stopped listening to the radio, and as a result I drifted away from the musical atmosphere of my home country. So until the recent wave of bans targeting the singer AP$ENT, I hadn’t even heard of him. But once his music started being blocked practically everywhere — reportedly even at the state level in Russia, as if it were somehow corrupting minds — I decided to find out what kind of artist could cause that kind of reaction.

It turns out that in Russia he came under fire because of the song “Can I Go With You,” which he wrote last summer. There’s nothing overtly controversial in the lyrics — at least not if you don’t know the realities of the musician’s own life. The song unexpectedly went viral on TikTok, spawning countless videos with cats asking to come live at your place and other cute edits. Judging by those clips, many of their creators have no idea what the song is actually about. There are whole compilations of such TikTok videos — and it was precisely thanks to that viral spread that everyone suddenly heard about the track.

In reality, though, the musician hid in the lyrics the bitterness of leaving Belarus, where his wife began facing persecution over her posts. It’s actually spelled out in the song — though woven subtly between the lines. And the author doesn’t deny it; on YouTube he even accompanied the video with the words: “Those who know even a little about what’s happening in my life will understand.”

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Book: Yuri Voskresensky “Voskresensky’s Gambit, or How I Overthrew Alexander Lukashenko”

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When I started reading Voskresensky’s Gambit, my wife looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Like, do I really have nothing better to do with my time than read something like this. Because it was obvious that this creation has no documentary value whatsoever.

First, a few words about the author of this “book.” Yuri Voskresensky has been in politics for a long time: he served as a district council member in Minsk’s Pervomaisky District, he was involved in business (there are plenty of questions there too, but that’s not the point), and later he joined Viktor Babariko’s campaign team—until Babariko was arrested on fabricated charges in 2020 and thus removed from the presidential race in the Republic of Belarus.

Yuri Voskresensky himself was arrested as well; he spent some time in the “Amerikanka,” the Belarusian KGB detention facility, and then changed his views and set about building a supposedly democratic and positive opposition under the name “Round Table of Democratic Forces.” He also actively helped (by his own claim) secure the release of several political prisoners (who, in the view of the official Belarusian authorities, are not political prisoners). And the charges against Voskresensky himself were never fully dropped and still haven’t been to this day—which, however, doesn’t stop him from engaging in politics and publishing books that receive glowing reviews in the very first days after publication.

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Book: Pavel Volotovich, Alexey Kovalyov ‘From Panikovka to the Puck’

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Photo albums about my hometown, Minsk, are my weakness. I try to buy almost every one that comes into my sight. So when the book From Panikovka to the Puck came out in December, I managed to order it through friends.

The book was “written” by the same authors who previously produced the biography of the Belarusian band Neuro Dubel. This time, they set out to show where and why the city’s youth hung out in the 1990s — what those places with names like “Panikovka” and “Puck” were, and what actually went on there. I put the word “written” in quotation marks because there’s hardly any real authorial text here. It’s mostly a collection of photographs and quotes — memories from various “scene” regulars of the time — with only very brief introductions by the authors here and there.

Unfortunately, the selection of respondents is very limited. Some are well known to many Belarusians, but most belong to a very narrow circle of people few have ever heard of — mostly the so-called bohemia: musicians, journalists, DJs, artists.

The book gives a certain snapshot of that era. After reading it, you’re left with the aftertaste of those years. At the same time, there are several issues that kept the book from meeting my expectations. Roughly speaking, they fall into two categories: the “places” described and the people chosen to comment on them.

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The Death of Belarusian IT: How to Kill a Successful Industry

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No matter how Belarusian officials try to put a brave face on it, the exodus of IT from the country is a fact. And for many years the IT sector was the nation’s calling card and a fairly substantial share of GDP.

Just the other day I had to discuss yet again what will happen to this industry now, and when it might recover. Unfortunately, my forecast is bleak: Belarus will never again be an IT country. Or at least not for decades. I could be wrong—I’m no great economist—but I’ll try here to lay out the considerations on which I base this view.

But first—a bit of history.

Belarus didn’t become strong in IT out of thin air. In Soviet times, Minsk was an assembly shop, including for computing hardware. It was in Belarus that the large “Minsk” computers were made, and later the ES personal computers, which people chased after even when I was a teenager, because they were IBM-compatible machines you could buy for home use and, for better or worse, enjoy the benefits of a personal computer.

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Song: Tor Band “Go Away”

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Until 2020, I knew nothing at all about the band Tor Band from Rogachev, Belarus. The guys had found their niche and started releasing protest songs back in 2017, but they were still known to very few. In 2020, though, they became almost the anthem of the protests alongside many others. Their “We’re Not a ‘Little Nation’!” quickly gained popularity among protesters. After that, they began releasing similar songs one after another. You can’t say all of them are of the highest level of performance or use non-trivial musical approaches. But could you say that about Vysotsky, for example? And yet Tor Band’s work spoke to the soul.

But our “most humane state in the world” got to them as well. All the musicians—and even their wives—were arrested; the band itself was declared an extremist formation. I can’t even imagine what’s being done to them now in the regime’s jails. And the sentences they face are anything but humane.

I don’t consider the expression of an honest opinion to be extremism. They’re merely saying what those in power don’t want to hear. And that’s why I think it must be repeated and repeated until, someday, it’s heard. If only because, for now, I can still do it.

There’s no official music video for the song “Go Away,” but there is an unofficial one—that’s the one I’ll share.

Tor Band — Уходи

Book: “The Square of Changes”

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A few days ago marked two years since the death of Raman Bandarenka — a man who became one of the symbols of the 2020 protests in Belarus and, sadly, one of its victims. Raman was one of the residents of a Minsk courtyard at the intersection of Chervyakova Street, Kakhovskaya Street, and Smarhonski Tract, which during the protests became known as “Square of Changes.” Another resident of this “square,” Stsiapan Latypau, who handed out flowers to protesting women and actively took part in the life of his courtyard-“square,” was detained, attempted suicide several times during his trial, and ultimately received 8.5 years in a high-security prison.

In today’s world, we often know very little about our neighbors, especially when living in the huge “ant hills” of residential districts. But this courtyard became known to all concerned Belarusians. It appeared in many news reports, tea gatherings and even concerts were held there. Residents hung white-red-white ribbons on the fences, painted a mural on a transformer booth, and fought to preserve it. And it was for this reason that it received its own name — “Square of Changes.”

This courtyard, this phenomenon, has already been forever inscribed in the history of modern Belarus. And in 2022, Yauheni Otsietski decided to publish a photo album about this “square.”

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Song: Tin’ Sontsya “Peramogi Scyag” (The Flag of Victory)

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Just a few days ago, the Ukrainian folk-rock band Tin’ Sontsya (“Shadow of the Sun”) released a new song titled “Перамогi сцяг” (“The Flag of Victory” in Belarusian). What makes this project unique is that the Ukrainian band not only performs the song in Belarusian, but also dedicates it specifically to the true heroes of modern Belarus — the Kalinouski Regiment, which is currently helping Ukrainians defend and liberate their homeland. The music video is a tribute to the military glory of Belarus, combining artistic scenes with real footage of the regiment’s fighters. Sadly, some of them have already given their lives for freedom in this war.

The lyrics and the performance are also quite good, but what impressed me the most was the visual side of the video.

Tin’s Sontsya — Peramogi Scyag (dedicated to the Kalinouski Regiment)

Glory to Ukraine!

Long live Belarus!