‘There Will Be Riot. They Will Get It In The Neck’

How Belarusians react to the restriction of duty-free purchases.

For thousands of people in the western regions of Belarus, from January 1, a new realm is coming. Serious restrictions on the importation of goods and products from Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine will affect not only those who earned on the cross-border semi-legal trade, but also ordinary people who are used to cheap and high-quality goods from a neighboring country. Representatives of large firms, on the contrary, joyfully rub their hands and warn that prices for household appliances in Belarus will rise in the first months of the new year, writes the Telegram-channel “Basta”.

“If desired, the authorities could “fight back” such demands of the Eurasian Economic Commission or postpone the introduction of such measures - this has already happened before in the situation with entrepreneurs. But Belarus has its own lobbyists for a total ban on the import of goods from abroad - this is a big business close to Lukashenka. They are interested in the fact that the citizens of the country buy brand equipment from them despite the fact that almost all of it is assembled in Russia, expensive and of not very highquality,” a representative of one of the retail chains in Minsk told us.

The most acute reaction to the new norms, as one would expect, is among the Brest residents and Hrodna residents. Here is what people write on the forums of websites and in local Viber and Telegram chats:

- I’m tired of this scam, getting into our pockets again. He will never get enough.

- All my friends go abroad every three months. Why buy a TV in the “5th Element” for BYN 2,200, if you can bring exactly the same TV from Poland for BYN 1,200? As for children’s clothes, diapers, children's bicycles, electronics, household appliances, the difference is more than significant. Medicines are the worst - most of the positions are three times cheaper.

- This is not for nothing that the Brest border guards are building a double fence in the Kamianetski district with Poland! Soon the people will be so desperate with hunger that they will sweep all fences down!

- The motives are simple: Russia is trying to wage war with almost the whole world, and we must suffer because of this. And no one even asks us - hush, they say, serfs and that's it.

- Who are all these people who pass these laws? The impudent, dishonest, unprincipled, insatiable, hypocritical thieves, who have made it to the feedbox.

- I remember how the parasites protested last year, so here, in Hrodna, not enough people came out - everyone said that we didn’t care, the border feeds us. What are we going to do now? Thousands of people will lose their jobs - this is only in Hrodna.

- I propose a slogan to politicians for the next campaigns: “Return purchases!”, support in Hrodna is guaranteed.

- With such innovations, taxes and exactions — there will be a riot! They will get it in the neck. Soon...