Volha Nikalaichyk: World Was Gazing At Us
10- 9.08.2023, 11:17
- 16,544
August 9th was a real D-Day.
Public activist and director Volha Nikalaichyk is a true legend of the Belarusian protests. Few protest actions in Minsk since the beginning of the 90s have passed without her.
How did the Belarusian Revolution start? Who was the real leader of the protests? What does the brave Belarusian woman hope for today?
Journalists from Charter97.org talked about this and more with Volha Nikalaichyk.
“I was shocked. After all, I was expecting to have a long time."
During the beginning of the so-called 2020 election campaign, Pavel Seviarynets and I stood with a megaphone and, to put it mildly, very harshly criticized the dictatorship and usurper Lukashenka. We always had something to say, our speeches were very tough.
At this time, there were huge queues from the Kamarouski Market to the TsUM [the Central Universal Department Store - Ed.] and even further. This greatly frightened the security forces, the regime, and the dictator personally.
Pavel Seviarynets and I were “packed” and placed in punishment cells separated by a wall. I was there for almost a month.
If we talk about the conditions, they turned off the cold and hot water for us. I was in light trousers and a women's jacket. The temperature was 9 degrees Celsius during nighttime there and nothing to cover and get warm. A bare bunk bed made of wood and iron. Only a plastic bottle saved me, I was using it instead of a pillow.
We were banned from parcels from the large and no meetings were allowed. They took me out for a walk only once, a few days before my release, when my blood pressure soared. They didn't even give me a comb.
I got sick with the coronavirus. The pressure was soaring, there were noises in my head. For several days, I was in such a condition that it seemed to me that I was in some kind of bunker in Romania, and people were looking for me. Lack of sleep caused hallucinations.
I can not say anything, the doctors did their best for me. I was even surprised that they were allowed to come to my window at night and give me pills.
My legs are swollen - like an elephant. After all, I was sitting all day long, the bunk was available only at night time. I had a bench bolted to the floor. This is not the kind of bench we sit on with our grandparents in the village, but a very narrow one. You just have a black square on your body after sitting there. You have nothing but a small table, like on a bus or a plane. There is also a washstand and a so-called WC pan. But there was no water, so I took their prison gruel to wash my toilet.
Then they let me out, although I thought that they were already taking me to Valadarka and that a criminal case had been opened against me. And then the vertukhai [prison guard - Ed.] suddenly says to me: “Nikalaichyk, take your things and go out.” I was shocked. After all, I was expecting to have a long time.
“August 9th was a real D-Day”
Many people met us when I was released. The very first thing they told me was: “You won’t believe what is going on now.” Some of my friends told me that they wrote me forty postcards. And they gave me only six letters, although about two thousand were sent to Pavel and me. Just imagine how many they are hiding letters from us if only there were two thousand of them in a month. It was thanks to this solidarity, thanks to the pressure of the people, that we were released.
The next day, a search began at my place. All this time I lived with one activist, who was subsequently prosecuted. We managed to take out all the equipment, laptops, and phones just before the search. A gang of "cops" showed up an hour later. They messed up my entire home. They trampled on my personal belongings: CDs, photos of my mother and grandmother, my old music plates.
They were very angry because there were only traces on the floor left after computers - squares around which there was dust.
Then we began to act: to go on promotions, to make streams, photographs.
August 9th was a real D-Day. Me and an activist went to the center of the city where everything was happening. We were near the stele, in the thick of the protests. I dressed to be ready for imprisonment. And then I realized that I really could get there. After all, we were at the protests until the dispersal.
We just didn't know where to go. There was a cleansing, as in wartime: with dogs, guns, rubber bullets and stun grenades. People fled in different directions, but all the ways were blocked.
I said to my friend, "Let's just hide in some bushes." After all, hundreds of security forces threw Belarusians into prison trucks before our eyes.
We were lucky that I know the area well. We were escaping through some yards and kindergartens. People, who participated in the protests for the first time, ran in the streetlights in columns. It was a mistake because they were immediately captured in groups.
We entered a residential building through an open door and hid there. We were sitting in the basement until five in the morning. Our Internet connection was working there, but there were shouts, roar, bursts of machine guns and barking dogs.
My friend wrote to his mother at six in the morning. She took us out in a car. We were in the back seat and she put a dog on top of us. After all, cars were stopped and checked all over the city, despite the fact that it was already morning and people were heading to work.
They picked me up in the evening and we went to the protests again. This time there was gun shooting. We were taking people out of there by car and managed to save a young couple. I only had time to open the car door and shout: "Someone, jump faster." The woman and her husband jumped in, and we managed to get out under the grenade blasts.
“The most beautiful European nation took to the streets”
I will say that we were prepared very well. There were also White-Red-White flags and posters. The people were ready, despite the fact that our leaders - Mikalai Statkevich, Pavel Seviarynets, Siarhei Tsikhanouski - were already in jail.
As if we looked at ourselves in the mirror and asked: “Am I a Belarusian or some kind of creature waiting for a concentration camp?” So, the most beautiful nation of Europe took to the streets. We found white and red clothes in the closets for us, our husbands and children, and then went along the streets. There was a feeling of a strong revival as if God's light was shed on our country. The feeling of flying, as if I was in space. Happiness that can be compared to the birth of a child. That is why I am sure that we will win because it is impossible to lose with such people. I cannot call August 2020 euphoria, it was a choice.
Many people walked around, recognized me, thanked me and said: “God, forgive us that we don’t speak Belarusian, we just started to learn it.” "I'm sorry we didn't come out to protest." I said: “You are not to thank me, but yourself, that you coped with your fears, woke up and we all went out together.”
I think that everything happened the way it should have happened. If you analyze, then there were no mistakes, I think. There was a strong Putin. Look what happened in Kazakhstan. They immediately introduced the CSTO forces. Our army at that time was totally unprepared. They would not have gone over to the side of the people, not to mention the "cops", a real gang in uniform. 25,000 Belarusian troops out of 35,000 are on the side of Ukraine and the people.
The world was gazing at us: both the West and the East, and America, and Israel. Nobody was ready. But this just showed Putin that Belarus is not with him. Putin thought that Belarus was in his pocket, that everything was calm. And then he saw that Belarusians were not his pocket soldiers and not his cannon fodder. That all these guns will turn against the dictators at the time.
Putin remembered that we are not even Kyivan Rus which was at the origins of Russia, but we are the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, we have Astrozhski and Kalinouski. We have never had good relations, we have not joined Russia with open arms.
“I had to change nine apartments”
Then the pressure started. There were moments when people called me and said: “Volha, do go home in any case. Some in black balaclavas and with assault rifles in a white car are waiting for you there.” I changed nine apartments. For about a month I did not get in touch at all, I hid my laptop so that it would not be taken away. I was using an ordinary dumb phone, which I turned on and off to communicate with my relatives and friends, people important to me.
I was banned from traveling because of unpaid fines. One human rights activist helped me find an organization that raised money to repay my fines.
I tried to go to Ukraine with a dog. The border guards stopped me, because the bailiff did not even think to change the record that I repaid the fine. So, I had the "Travel Ban" stamp in my passport.
Then I called the bailiff from someone else’s phone and said: “If you don’t make me go outside now, I’ll just contact international authorities.” He was scared after August 9, and he did everything very quickly.
I did not want to leave the country until recently. Everyone was waiting and hoping for something. I was joining yard and basement actions, and we were reading poetry in some parks. I had to disguise myself, change clothes and sit in the apartment with the lights off, because the security forces often came to me.
After May 9, 2021, I took a ticket to Belgrade, because there were Belarusians in Montenegro who could give me shelter for some time. It was difficult to obtain visas to other countries, so I chose this country. So I was there with my two dogs, I managed to vaccinate and make all the necessary travel documents for them, with my aunt, who was carrying my laptop, with three cents in my pocket, which they collected for me.
We were standing in line for the plane, my people were seeing me off, and I was the last to be held and checked. I dressed like for prison, not like for a resort. I saw that it was getting hairy. And then a Serb woman came and said to the inspectors: “What's the matter? We can't wait any longer." The whole bus was standing, 10 minutes had already passed, and I left the last.
I don't know what the inspector was looking for on the computer. I don't know who she was waiting for. I think they just let me fly away.
We were the last to run with these dogs through the airport, jumped on the bus, and got on our plane. Only after they closed the door and the gangway drove off, I called people close to me and said that, apparently, I was lucky and I would be free. It was a good moment because I think that getting caught in the claws and making such gifts is not worth it.
“We, Belarusian activists, never even dreamed of such meals”
I spent a year in Montenegro. It took me about six months to get a visa. You know, I was staying in Montenegro for a long time, I was waiting for these creatures, Putin and Lukashenka, to die.
Then I went to Europe with a visa. I realized that it was time to get some kind of job when the war in Ukraine began. I had nothing to pay for living. So I went to the refugee camp in Brussels.
The refugee camp is like a Soviet summer camp: there are wagons for living. I have a 9-meter room for 4 people. One woman is from Burundi, and two are from Somalia. We've been together in this room for over a year now. It’s very hard, to be honest, but we are friends, our room is conflict-free.
Of course, you can go out during the day. Now I am with my "camp friends" from Georgia now. They were granted refugee status and a house. I often visit them for the weekend. I came to them for now to give an interview because the Internet is not stable in the refugee camp.
We have three meals a day there and coffee. The camp is mostly Muslim, so the food is appropriate, sometimes we have Belgian cuisine. But we, Belarusian activists, who lived in hunger for a long time, never even dreamed of such meals.
Having received the documents, I do not plan to linger here, because I want to come back home, because I see the prospects for my country, I see the prospects for my nation and my people. I'm just having, let’s say, an enforced rest here.
It's a good experience. I am learning languages. I see how people are living. Belgians are very similar to Belarusians, only their temperament is more similar to Ukrainian.
A Belgian couple took my dogs. I visit them when I have time. I am very grateful because dogs are not allowed in the camp.
“I’m ready to cook borscht for the Kalinovites if necessary”
I'm sure we will win. You know, the young that can fall into despair and make mistakes. But it is also the heroic mistakes that make our history. I am 54 years old already, and I know that liberation is inevitable. After all, Belarus has gone through more terrible times, but it has survived.
In ancient times, and today we have everything that a worthy European nation should have. Belarus is a European country. We did not come to Europe because we did not leave Europe. This is Europe, geographically and mentally.
New schoolbooks and new times are coming soon. We know this from Estonia, from Lithuania. Even Moldova came to life today. And there were good times in Georgia until Ivanishvili came.
We need to wait again for the moment when we can win. We don't need to interfere with each other. We should not want more from each other than we can give.
We will sew “return flags” in Brussels. "Cops" took all our flags away. I only had one left, a combat one, who was with me under bullets.
We will have to come back under our flags and stand with them on the border. So that our guys who are in Ukraine help us so that the whole world helps us. After all, they will come for the Europeans, and barbarians and orcs will reach Belgium, if you do not help and close your eyes, if you rest in comfort. Everyone has already got it.
Therefore, It’s not just my belief, I believe in God, but here I just know that this darkness will end and that Putin and Lukashenka will go to hell. There is hope that they will be smart enough to let people go and give up power peacefully. There just won't be another way. There will be an offer you can't refuse. Maybe not peaceful. And if it is not peaceful on my land, then what can I do with my sore back? I can cook borscht for the military, but I won’t jump out of the trench with a weapon.
Russia will collapse before our eyes, and China will change. It is obvious. Whether these terrorists will have the remnants of the mind to stop or not - that is the question. Belarus will act. Belarus is already mentally and morally accumulating strength and preparing for a new life. To the kind of life that Europe lives: Estonia, Latvia, Poland.
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