What kind of people are under protection?

Both the political elite and the public life of Belarus have moved to the vicinity of the KGB prison

For the second month, mass searches, interrogations and arrests continue throughout Belarus. The first trials of former presidential candidates and members of their campaigns are to take place at the end of February. Until then, most of them remain in prison....

For the second month, mass searches, interrogations and arrests continue throughout Belarus. The first trials of former presidential candidates and members of their campaigns are to take place at the end of February. Until then, most of them remain in prison.

Against the backdrop of Lenin

The State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus occupies a whole block on Komsomolskaya Street. I ask the guard where is the entrance to the inner KGB prison. He looks appraisingly, smiles happily that he has seen through: “You probably won’t go to jail. You need to go to the waiting room!”

In the people, the internal prison of the KGB is called "American". Delivery to prisoners is received here for two hours three times a week. After the December events, huge queues began to accumulate in front of the entrance, and in order not to frighten passers-by, the relatives of the prisoners were allowed into the neighboring club named after. Dzerzhinsky, also owned by the KGB.

...In the club's lobby there are red carpets, plush sofas and a huge, wall-to-wall painting: Lenin on the podium in front of a crowd of workers. Beneath the painting is a handful of people with large trunks. Reception of transmissions from ten, they begin to sign up for an hour and a half. By the opening of the prison in the lobby of the club is a list of 14 names. A month and a half ago it was a list of the country's political elite.

Political (or "Decembrists") in the "American" do not like. Because of them, the prison is overcrowded, the regime has become tougher. For example, they banned the transfer of chocolate, pastries, fish, bacon - apparently, everything that the KGB considers to be a pleasure.

Prisoners are not allowed to meet relatives and lawyers: “The investigation considers it inappropriate.” For the first few weeks, no letters came. Out of 33 letters from Dasha Korsak, two of them reached her husband Sasha Otroshchenkov (the press secretary of the candidate Andrei Sannikov). Dasha is sure that the letters began to be handed over only after the meeting of the Council of Europe, which demanded the immediate release of the prisoners. Messages from the "American" are also rare; the text, as a rule, is standard: everything is fine, the food is normal, there are no health problems. Former presidential candidate Mikalai Statkevich has written to his wife that he is slowly getting back in shape after a three-week hunger strike.

Standing in front of Lenin, Dasha Korsak shows colorful postcards. If letters are most often not transmitted, then unsigned postcards seem to reach. Some hello from home.

- Good bag. Where did you take it? - someone fishes out of the transfer of Milana Mikhalevich (wife of presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich) a checkered trunk of a shuttle. Everyone is vigorously discussing where to buy the same one: searches are periodically carried out in the cells, prisoners are taken out with their belongings. These bags are the most convenient.

- I passed the broom - it turned out that it was impossible. There is a rope on it, you can strangle it. I already think about any object, whether it is possible to kill them, - Dasha Korsak laughs.

One of the wives reads a letter to Dmitry Medvedev: “Do you remember how you met Svetlana? We read that at school you studied with your future wife in parallel classes. There you fell in love with her,” and further about love for loved ones and that there are no more hopes for the justice of the authorities towards them. By the end of the reading, everyone is crying. Three days later, the letter will be handed over to Russian Ambassador Alexander Surikov. In response, the ambassador will say very feudally that "the government should be generous and merciful to its citizens."

Broadcast

In the hall of the KGB there is an inscription across the wall: "The strength of the state security agencies is in unity with the people." Signature - F.E. Dzerzhinsky.

There are three of us in the dressing room: me and Alla Vladimirovna, Andrei Sannikov's mother, and the woman in line in front of us. An ensign in camouflage enters the hall, peers into the face of Alla Vladimirovna, and says almost affectionately:

“It's not the first time I've seen you. You are a frequent visitor to us. - Pause. "But why are you standing here?" I said a hundred times: do not gather more than one at the entrance.

Alla Vladimirovna explains what she is waiting for, the queue has not yet come, it is hard to carry the bag back to the club ...

“Ah, I understand. This is your problem, - the ensign's gaze flashes with blue-eyed pioneer enthusiasm. - You just have a bad organization. Make arrangements with your… well, colleagues. Let one person come here, before giving the transmission, call the next ...

What's wrong with two people here? Another woman intervenes.

“I’m not talking to you right now,” the ensign continues without changing his intonation. The next one is coming, the rest are waiting. You have already been allocated a club named after Dzerzhinsky. It's nice, warm, beautiful. Sit - rest.

Another elderly woman enters the hall. He understands that they will be kicked out, he places heavy bags against the wall, turns to leave.

- Oh, no, you take the bags. I don’t know what you have there, the ensign is indignant.

So the girls know!

- Well, what about me? Here she left one bag, and I had to call the engineering and sapper brigade. Come on, pack your junk.

Wildly want to give the ensign in the face. Returning to the "waiting room", I tell Dasha. “I, too, once nearly broke down,” she agrees, “when one of them said to wait at the club named after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. As if this is a boss who is nearby and will punish if you turn out of form.

... Alla Vladimirovna's turn. We carry a heavy bag together. The guard half-heartedly checks our things and plunges back into the newspaper. Trunks with gears are piled in a small room with bare walls, scales and a table are in the center. No more than 30 kilograms can be transferred per month, so all things are weighed and rewritten.

The oranges and cucumbers laid out on the table look miserable here, inappropriately homely. A KGB agent impassively dumps tea bags on a dirty scale. Alla Vladimirovna tries to spread something - but lowers her hands: she still would not have had time. But this time, he accepted everything.

Scales fluctuate. Cursing, the KGB man tightens some screws. For the first time, emotion appears on his face.

“You probably get stale from such work,” Alla Vladimirovna seems to be apologizing as she leaves. On the stairs, the guard yells at Milana Mikhalevich: she has a little daughter in her arms, and she cannot open her bag for inspection.

Not for a rally

They come to the prison every permitted day. “I only missed twice,” says Milana, as if ashamed. Leaving the program, the women do not disperse, they exchange news and rumors. Akhmatov's "I come here as if I were home" is repeated with terrible literalness.

Most women have nowhere to hurry: those detained at rallies and relatives of arrested politicians have been fired from their jobs and expelled from universities. One of the wives was fired only yesterday, from the Minsk branch of a foreign company.

- What are they afraid of? - I do not understand. The woman looks at me with anger, then softens: “Oh yes, you don’t live in Belarus.”

It is pointless to ask women whether they support their sons and husbands who have gone to the polls. At best, they will dryly answer that they are proud of their relatives. Marina Adamovich, Mikalai Statkevich's wife, silently moves away.

Interrogations and arrests continue in the city. Now they take mostly young people. The day before, Marina had been searched, the security officers confirmed with hints: young people are needed to be used in court as witnesses against candidates.

Dasha is the worst of all: according to rumors, Sasha Otroshchenkova will be judged one of the first. After that, the outcome will be clear.

... The reception of transmissions ends, the women leave the club in a crowd. The guard on watch twitches. Once he had already rushed after the women, asked if they were going somewhere together now. "Don't be afraid, we're not at a rally," they laughed.

dad on a business trip

“When you visit Khalip, ask about them… well, about pets,” the women ask.

Irina Khalip and one of the former presidential candidates, Vladimir Neklyaev, were placed under house arrest on January 29. They brought us without warning, demanded to remove outsiders from the apartment. Andrey's relatives turned out to be "outsiders", they were not allowed to see Ira even at the door. Now only Ira's parents, Lyucina Yuryevna and Vladimir Trofimovich, Dan's three-year-old son, can stay in the apartment. And two KGB officers.

Security guards stay in the house around the clock. According to Lyucina Yuryevna, they do not interfere in conversations, they sleep in a separate room, they bring food for themselves, they refuse tea. “They joked: they say, poison us again, but it was clear that they were not supposed to,” says Vladimir Trofimovich.

Irina is prohibited from using the Internet and telephone. But you can read newspapers and watch TV. As she told her mother, in prison the prisoners were shown only a propaganda series about the valiant work of the Belarusian KGB.

Lyucina Yurievna's phone is constantly ringing: friends, human rights activists, journalists. After one of the conversations, she returns upset: a lawyer has just not been allowed into the house. The previous one the other day refused Irina, without explaining the reasons (although what is there to explain). The door was not opened to the new one: allegedly, Khalip already has one lawyer.

When “all this happened,” says Lyutsina Yuryevna, several relatives stopped calling. “They are for me,” she searches for a word for a long time, “they are over.” But suddenly neighbors, casual acquaintances, friends who had not been seen for a long time began to come in: to carry gifts, to wish good luck.

Only guards can open the door and answer intercom calls, and only two of them. Before a walk, out of habit, Danka himself reaches out to the castle, and each time grandmother does not know how to explain why it is impossible. According to the version for the child, uncles are needed for protection. Dad is on a business trip.

In the next issue of Novaya Gazeta: - how the opposition is intimidated - why students are expelled - how they are looking for enemies of the people in Minsk - civil society under surveillance and fear