Kolya, heir to the throne

Belarusian President Lukashenko traveled to Venezuela and from there reported another sensation : “Some began to doubt the serious prospects for cooperation between Belarus and Venezuela, my son Nikolai is here, and this suggests that we have seriously and for a long time laid the foundations for cooperation, and there is someone to take over the baton in 20-25 years." The Belarusian opposition and Russian media took this statement unequivocally: Lukashenko has decided on a successor and intends to lead the state exactly until his youngest son “ripes.”

Lukashenko’s press service traditionally remains silent and does not intend to explain the leader’s statements. It may well turn out that Old Man “got overboard” and meant that his son would simply occupy some important diplomatic post in 20-25 years and maintain friendly relations with Venezuela. After all, Chavez, who has cancer, is unlikely to live that long. And the Belarusian Constitution prohibits a person under forty from becoming president. Nikolai Lukashenko is now only seven. That is, in 25 years he will be only 32. And at this age people don’t become presidents.

Today, only one thing is clear: Lukashenko is preparing his beloved youngest son for a serious political career. In circles close to Lukashenko, they say that he is considering the following scheme: after ten years he retires, leaving the post to a “technical” leader close to him, who is tightly controlled by the Old Man’s eldest son, Viktor Lukashenko. And when Kolya “ripes”, he becomes president. The scheme is complex, but in Belarusian realities it is quite feasible.

Nikolai Lukashenko was born in 2004 from the president’s extramarital affair with his personal doctor from the clinic under the presidential administration, Irina Abelskaya. She still works as a doctor, but where exactly is unknown. In Belarus, the most incredible rumors are circulating about her fate: some say that she is now in a mental hospital, others say that she is no longer alive. But there is no reason to trust these rumors. It is known from sources close to the Belarusian president that Abelskaya does visit her son at Lukashenko’s residence, but these visits happen extremely rarely. The Old Man took full responsibility for raising his son.

Lukashenko himself said in an interview with the Financial Times that his child had a difficult childhood: when Kolya was only one year old, his father began taking him to the bathhouse. The boy cried and didn’t want to harden himself, but now, according to Lukashenko, he can easily withstand temperatures of up to one hundred degrees in the steam room and, in general, is growing up as a very healthy baby. They say that the father also began to regularly force his son to do physical training. Lukashenko loves his son so much that he even changed his own biography for his sake. For a long time it was believed that the father was born on August 30, the son on September 1. Now, according to the president’s website, they share a birthday.

If there are any shortcomings in Kolya’s upbringing, then, most likely, only in subordination. Opposition Belarusian media tell a story when, during one of his foreign visits, Nikolai really wanted to close the plane door before takeoff. The flight attendant forbade it. The kid aggressively bit her and said: “When I become a minister, I will shoot you.” And Kolya is also pampered with gifts: Lukashenko’s entourage gives him toys worth several tens of thousands of dollars, he has a small electric car, a “golden” pistol from President Medvedev and a white iPhone (which, by the way, is not officially supplied to Belarus). According to unofficial data, the president’s son also does not go to a common school for everyone, although it is not customary to talk about this. Kolya was enrolled in the Ostroshitsko-Gorodok school in the Minsk region, and his “first call” was shown on all city TV channels. But the school itself refuses to talk to journalists. They don’t talk about his academic performance or whether he actually goes to school or is “homeschooled.”

The public learned about the existence of Lukashenko’s illegitimate son in April 2008. On July 3 of the same year, the son of the Belarusian president, already in military uniform and general's shoulder straps, took part in a military parade in honor of Independence Day next to his father. Later I went with my father to the CIS summit in Bishkek, met with the Pope in the Vatican, went with my father to cleanup days, and went with him to the opening of the Olympics in Beijing. Lukashenko even allowed his son to cast a ballot in the Belarusian parliamentary elections in September 2008. During the Autumn 2008 military exercises, Kolya gave a military salute to the generals reporting to the Belarusian commander-in-chief. After the terrorist attacks in the Minsk metro a year ago, Old Man went down into the broken subway with his son.

All appearances of Lukashenko in public with the “baby” are hardly accidental. Back in early 2007, the Belarusian leader said: “I will train the youngest to be a successor, maybe the third will only be president.” Then he also added that both of his eldest sons from his wife Galina “do not qualify” for such a high position. The eldest Victor serves as the head of the president's security, the middle Dmitry oversees the work of the presidential sports club.

In 2008, Lukashenko, during trips to the regions of Belarus, added: “I have already said: the youngest son will be the president of Belarus.” On October 1, 2010, in an interview with Russian media, Old Man meaningfully stated: “They don’t become presidents, they are born.”

Lukashenko’s plan to install his son as president is difficult to implement even from a purely technical point of view. The Belarusian president is already 57 years old, and to those who have seen him in person, it is obvious that his health has already begun to deteriorate. Whether he can remain in office for another 25 years is a big question.

But here’s what’s interesting: in recent months, Lukashenko has begun to clear the space of political competitors, “burning it out to the roots.” At the instigation of his eldest son, a massive purge of senior personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is taking place. Official propaganda calls this “reform.” In reality, what is happening is the usual “cleansing” of the most influential officers from the department. Along the way, the KGB received new powers from parliament: now any security officer can break into the apartments and offices of ordinary Belarusians without a warrant at any time of the day or night and conduct searches. To do this, he simply needs to have a “suspicion” that a criminal is hiding in the apartment or a crime is being prepared.

The time for such measures is now good: the crisis has been overcome, there is peace with Russia, and Old Man feels very confident in his post. It's time to think about the future of your sons.