br23 blog - minsk, belarus

Alexander Milinkevich was released from jail this morning and staged a press conference in front of the prison gates.

Belarus’ opposition leader commented on an article from a Russian newspaper “Kommersant” which states that Vladimir Putin ordered to stop subsidizing Belarusian economy and is forcing Lukashenka to create a union state under Moscow rule.

Alexander Milinkevich said:

“One could expect such reaction from Kremlin. At some point Lukashenka wanted to unite. Today he doesn’t want a union and doesn’t want to lose power. That’s why economic sanctions from Russia came earlier than any sanctions from the West. This will be a tough test for Belarus.

It’s bad that Belarusian government haven’t used lower prices for Russian natural resources in order to prepare our country for higher prices. We are going to pay for this mistake.

But I want to say with full confidence: in Belarus there are no serious political forces which would support the destruction of Belarus’ independence. I don’t know what Russia counts on.

According to opinion polls only 6 % of Belarus population supports Belarus’ incorportation into Russia. I don’t understand with whom Russia is going to sign the “union treaty.” With something ethemeral, with something non-existent?

If such a treaty will be signed, I will call it an Anschluss*. And I believe Western countries should not recognize such a treaty, because it will be followed by a referendum which you can’t do in a dictatorial country like ours.

I think Russian position is wrong. Such foreign policy when an oil/gas valve is used to control neighbouring countries does not have any future. We always expressed our willingness to work together with Russia, but on equal footing, with mutual trust and predictability. This oil valve politics is a tool from the previous century.”

* The Anschluss was the 1938 “inclusion” of Austria into “Greater Germany” by the Nazi regime. The Anschluss was preceded by a period of growing political pressure on Austria, exerted by Germany, demanding recognition of the outlawed Austrian National-Socialist party and later, their share of Government. In 1938 Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, in a last bid to retain Austrian independence, announced a referendum to determine independence or union with Germany. Germany then pressured Schuschnigg into handing over power to the Nazi party. This well-planned internal overthrow by the Austrian Nazi Party of Austria’s state institutions in Vienna on March 11 meant that when Wehrmacht troops entered into Austria to enforce the Anschluss.

• Belarus bids bye-bye to Kazakhstan

“If Belarus keeps playing this well, they sure won’t take other teams by surprise anymore. The men from Minsk have made it to the Qualifying Round for the second straight year. With a 7-1 rout of Kazakhstan Wednesday night at Riga Arena, Belarus wrapped up the second seed in Group C, behind Russia and ahead of Slovakia. Kazakhstan is doomed to the Relegation Round.”

We enjoyed the ice hockey game at Prague’s famous sport bar “Zlata Hvezda.”

There was a dozen of Belarusans watching the game, waving white-red-white national flags when Belarusians scored.

I’ve bumped into an old “virtual” acquaintance from Belarus. He used to blog at livejournal.com and several years ago sent me some .mpeg CD’s from Belarus as a present.

Unfortunately we could’t talk much because of the noise during the hockey game, but apparently he got too tired from Lukashenka’s Soviet reality and ran away to Czech Republic, now working hard: selling paintings during the day and programming at night (he’s an experienced software developer). He told me that he already got an asylum status and can travel anywhere around Europe without visas.

Maybe some of you remember, recently a British EU minister said there are no plans whatsoever to have BBC in Belarusian language. A fellow blogger Halldor2 (from the United Kingdom?) wrote an inquiry to BBC, to which he actually received a reply. Here’s BBC’s answer about Belarusian language broadcasting:

Dear Mr McDuff,

Thank you for your email of 20 April to the Rt. Hon. Douglas Alexander about Belarusian language broadcasts on Russian/Ukrainian language service from the BBC. Your letter was passed on to the relevant department dealing with Belarus. I have been asked to reply.

The BBC World Service broadcasts in Belarus in the Russian, Ukrainian and English languages via its shortwave transmitters. A key issue facing the World Service in Belarus is the practicality of reaching its audience. Shortwave transmission is not as audible in some regions as FM transmissions, which are broadcast locally and produce a strong signal. Ideally, the World Service would like to work with FM partners to deliver its product in Belarus, but the media market is tightly controlled and regulated. Given the current political situation, there is no possibility of the World Service or any other western broadcaster getting air time on an existing FM frequency within the country. Therefore, the World Service offering remains shortwave only in a market that is largely FM-dominated. We are aware of no jamming issues.

On several occasions in recent years, the World Service has examined the possibility of special programming for Belarus. The problem surrounding delivery of the product into the region remains the key stumbling block. The World Service is available on-line, but again, access in Belarus is difficult, as home internet usage is low. On-line facilities are mostly available in work places or in public internet cafes.

Yours sincerely,

Daniele Marzocchi

Dear Ms. Marzocchi, it truly amazes me how you managed to write a reply by totally ignoring the original question. The question was not at all about broadcasting to Belarus on shortwave in Arabic, English, Urdu, Russian or Swahili, the question was (as you probably understood very well but chose to ignore) about Belarusian language broadcasts of BBC.

• BBC: Universe ‘child of previous one’

I hate journalists’ writing about science because they often times report about something they themselves didn’t quite understand and usually end up writing misleading and pseudoscientific articles. And even though BBC is usually better than the rest of the bunch, in this case I was left with the impression that BBC journalist Sarah Cruddas had no clue what she was writing about. I wish I could learn more about this particular research from the original sources. But today there was a party at a Microsoft’s Vice-president’s house (which is a technological marvel!) and I had too much red wine, so I’ll have to postpone that until I get sober.

And I’d like write a separate blog entry about their house. It’s like a fancy spaceship from a very good sci-fi movie. But it’s for real.

Some hacker has intercepted police talks from the “Chernobyl March” opposition rally in Minsk and put them on the Web (here). Police speaks in Russian, the quality is dreadful, and they use their own jargon and code numbers, so I didn’t get a whole lot from the audio (mp3, 11 minutes). Here are some of the excerpts which I found interesting:

We are going to the base. People are leaving toward Bangalore.

Shit, what are you doing? Don’t scare them like that, fucker, they’ll move back and make a rally again.

06, what? Mother fucker, you lost Ivashkevich¹? I specifcally asked you! People, all those who see him, find Ivashkevich as soon as possible!

017, where’s the Beard²?
I don’t know.
Who was following him?
017 74.
Roger. Where’s the Beard?
He’s on the other side, the left exit, toward the park.
Got it. And the other subject?
I don’t see the other one³. …
…
So what about the Beard?
There was no orders regarding him. But the other subject must be next to him.
He’s going toward the road. He is about to leave, maybe. Do I do the thing?
What thing? I didn’t get your question…

013, where’s the subject with the letter I⁴?
I don’t see him. I’m following the other one.
Got it.

The Beard headed toward Karastajanava street.

And follow Viachorka!⁵
Ok. We are overtaking Viachorka.
Roger.

The Beard stopped a taxicab on Karastajanava street and is getting in. The license plate is 2058 MAT.

¹ Viktar Ivashkevich is a vice-chariman of the Belarusian National Front. He is now arrested.

² Apparently, police nicknamed the new leader of Belarusan opposition Alexander Milinkevich “the Beard.” He is now arrested.

³ This must be either the chief of the Belarusian National Front Vincuk Viachorka (also now in jail) or his vice-chairman Viktar Ivashkevich.

⁴ Again, that must be Ivashkevich.

That’s a photo of my grandma’s bedroom in her private house in a small town in Eastern Belarus. I took the photo exactly one year ago, on May 5, 2005.

In the corner you can see several Orthodox icons decorated with a traditional Belarusian towel (rucznik).

The portraits on the wall are of my grand grandmother, my grandfather (who died more than 40 years ago and whom I never saw) and my grandmother, in her 20s.

She’s turning 86 in two days. Grand grandmother Hanna died when she was 86.

München. RFE/RL Belarus Service. 1957-1958

This is a legendary team of Belarusian journalists from late 1950’s: the two guys sitting in front are Uladzimir Dudzicki (to the left; with glasses) and Piotra Sych (to the right). The people standing behind are (from left to right) Uladzimir Cvirka, Ryhor Krushyna, Barbara Wierzbalowicz, Janka Zaprudnik. All of them are distinguished personalities.

Piotra Sych was a war hero, a participant of the Battle at Monte Cassino. After the war he ended up in England before moving to Munich in 1951 where he launched an emigre magazine in Belarusian. In 1954, he became one of the first employees of the newly opened Belarus Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (which was called Radio Liberation back then). He wrote the script of the stations’ very first radio programme in Belarusian language which was aired on May 20, 1954. The piece “Azimuth of the Heart” was an exhortation and greeting to Belarusian people under Soviet rule “from the compatriots in the free world.” (more ).

Uladzimir Dudzicki was a Belarus’ service director, their boss. He was also a poet (a pretty good one, people say). In 1961, he moved from Germany to the USA. But, strangely enough, in 1976 he decided to come back to USSR and disappeared without any trace after crossing the border. Maybe he was killed by the Soviets, maybe he was arrested or assassinated by KGB, maybe he simply decided to start anew. There’s no trace whatsoever. His fate is unknown.

Ryhor Krushyna was a great poet (as some critics say, one of the greatest from the diaspora), but he never became famous during his lifetime. It’s worth noting that last year a collection of his poems was finally published in Minsk for the first time, a neat hardcover edition of selected poems.

Janka (Jan) Zaprudnik is probably the most successful of them all. He is a graduate of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium (1954), and holds a doctorate in history from New York University (1969). He spent 37 years with Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty’s Belarus Service as a correspondent, producer, and editor. Zaprudnik also taught the history of Soviet Union at Queens College of the City University of New York and the history and politics of Belarus at the Harriman Institute of Columbia University. His published books include Historical Dictionary of Belarus, Belarus: At a Crossroads in History and several books in Belarusian. He’s still engaged in Belarus-related activities of the American diaspora.

Of the people on this photo he’s the only one still alive, unless Uladzimir Dudzicki is still alive, though I’m almost 100% sure that he’s long dead.

I have discovered Wikipedia more than two and a half years ago. Since then I’ve used it regularly as a quick reference, and I also used to contribute to it a little bit, mostly to the articles about Belarus. Since then several Russian contributors (who openly express pro-imperial, pro-Soviet, anti-Western, anti-Belarusian and anti-Ukrainian political views) removed a lot of important factual information from Belarus-related articles that showed Russia and USSR in a bad light and inserted information with a pro-Russian and pro-Soviet spin (”POV” as it’s called in Wiki-jargon).

It was done slowly, in small chunks, here and there, by stealthily hiding edits or by stubbornly engaging in a reversal war. There are dozens of concrete examples. And the good thing about Wikipedia is that everything is documented. It’s possible to provide links to any version of a given encyclopedia article or a link to a web page that compares any two versions of the given article.

It would probably take me at least 3-4 hours to search through the relevant Wikipedia articles’ editing history and find most of those links. I’m a bit reluctant to do that, first because it’s not that interesting for me (I already know what’s going on), and maybe it would be not so interesting to the readers (because in some cases you have to have certain knowledge about historical events in the region, in order to see how those Russian contributors twist the facts), it could be obscure and boring to some of you. But, if there’s an interest, just tell me, maybe I’ll write a big blog entry about it.

This continuing butchering of the articles about Belarus by Russians on English Wikipedia also ruined my trust in the Wikipedia as a whole. Now, I have to confess, I don’t go to Wikipedia anymore to read about political or historical events, and only go to Wikipedia when I need to check something on natural sciences (biology, archeology, physics, math…)

Alexander Milinkevich was arrested today in the morning at the office of an independent newspaper and, about two hours ago, Lukashenka’s “justice” system decided to sentence him to a 14-day arrest for organizing an “illegal” Chernobyl protest.

In my opinion, this is the most crucial point after the “elections”. If this arrest of the leader produces big enough outcry in the West and strong enough reaction inside the country, we’ll be able to say that Belarus has a new alternative leader. Otherwise, he’ll probably rot in jail (together with mister Kazulin), and Belarus will rot and decompose for another five years at least.

1986. I was ten. My dad, a Ph.D. in physics, came home from the applied physics research institute. I think it was 28th or 29th of April. It was early evening, about 5 or 6PM, it was sunny and warm, unusually warm for the season. I was standing next to our TV set (an old black-and-white Belarusian “Horizont”). Dad was pale, and when mom entered the room he said: “Something bad has happened. Something really bad. My colleagues who listen to Voice of America and Radio Liberty heard the reports that there was a nuclear explosion at an Ukrainian power plant.” Coming from the family of two physicists being ten years old I already knew what radiation means, and I already read some book about Hiroshima. When I heard my dad saying the words “nuclear explosion” my whole body froze. I was standing next to the TV set, and I had this weird repetitive thought: “Now there are hundreds of radioactive rays pulsating through me and through this room. If I concentrate really hard I can maybe see them.” It felt as if air around me became violet and electrified. I asked my dad: “Can I see the radioactive rays?” He said no. I asked then: “What do we do?” “Nothing”, dad answered.

Soviet television reported about the accident only 4 or 5 days later. In the evening news “Vremya” they said there was a “minor fire” at some unknown Ukrainian power plant. The “small fire” produced the radiation fallout equal to 500 Hiroshima bombs. 70% of it landed in Belarus. Especially sad now is that most of the attention is directed at Ukraine, and Belarus is ignored. Also inside Belarus Lukashenka’s government downplays the negative effects of radiation.