"Fear will not stop me." Belarusians living in Russia support protests

Yesterday, the presidential election in Belarus ended. According to preliminary official figures, the current president Alexander Lukashenko and again with a devastating score again won. His rivals believe that the data is falsified. What is known for sure - thousands of Belarusians could not take part in the vote: the plots closed before their turn came. The correspondent of the Sever. Realiy spoke with those of them who tried to vote in St. Petersburg.

According to the Belorussian CEC of August 10, the head of state Alexander Lukashenko gained 80.23% of the vote, his main opponent Svetlana Tikhanovskaya - 9.9%. She has already stated that she did not recognize these results. The opposition believes that the numbers are just opposite, and in fact Tikhanovskaya won . The distrust of official results reinforces the absence of international observers in the elections, cut down on the day of voting the Internet and expulsion from the country of a number of Russian journalists.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko’s victory was actually announced on Sunday in the evening, when the official data of the eczitpols were published. In response in 33 cities of Belarus, spontaneous protests began. Against citizens were applied waterlets, rubber bullets and light -school grenades. According to the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 3 thousand people were detained on the night of August 9 to 10. Doctors say that after overclocking the demonstrations, dozens of people were hospitalized.

Protest shares on Sunday spontaneously flashed in Russian cities, after polling stations at the embassy and consulates closed at 20:00. Thousands of people remained in front of closed doors who did not manage to vote due to the procedure complicated due to coronavirus. In the department of the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus in St. Petersburg, about two thousand people could not vote , including Pskovichi with Belarusian passports. In the Pskov region, bordering Belarus, there was no voting site. Although, according to the 2010 census, almost seven thousand citizens of this country live here.

"Maybe I'll leave for today"

-Yesterday I watched the video until night, and today I have only one desire-to go to Belarus and take part in rallies-demonstrations. Maybe I’ll leave, I’ll see it right today. There is a fear of going to jail, to be beaten by the police somewhere, but he loses his inner feeling that justice is on our side. Fear will not stop me. When I see how the girl was shot in the face with a rubber bullet, when I see how people just sat on a bench, and a crowd of riot police passing by began to beat them hard for anything, it is difficult for me to sit still. I watch this riot police and I don’t understand how they are zombie, what they are told? - says Alexei Suvigo .

The fear of going to jail loses to the inner feeling that justice on our side

He arrived in St. Petersburg in 2008, immediately after he graduated from the University in Belarus with a degree in Boxing Coach, physical education teacher. A graduate with higher education could count on a salary of $ 150 a month - the choice, as he himself says, was obvious. Now he is professionally engaged in campaigns, together with a group of like -minded people, gathering groups and leads them in unique places.

- I am piercing me to anger and hatred, I regret that I can’t be effective there, of course, I need to participate in this all. The moment has come, people are tired of enduring, - the financial consultant Maxim Sagaidak shares similar feelings, who came to St. Petersburg to go to the university in 2006. - Everything will continue, perhaps strikes will begin. Subtle everyone in prisons, I think it will not work, the protest now is absolutely unprecedented. This can be seen even in areas, in regional cities - there is absolute unity of the people. We will have to endure all the risks that are now, because nothing to do in other ways with this power. The people made their choice: order, I think, 70% voted for Tikhalovskaya. The government makes a coup - the people must protect their choice.

It seems to me that Lukashenko is a very evil person in itself

- I feel pride in the guys on the streets and the desire to be there with them. These completely different people have what unites them and for what they are ready to risk everything. And here in Russia we have long forgotten how it is at all, nothing like this could be happened, ”said Vladimir Zhilinsky , who moved 17 years ago to Pskov from Vitebsk.

- It seems to me that Lukashenko is a very evil person in itself. And he did not expect such protests, he is trying to hold power, but how can you hold it differently if people came out? I think that the Belarusian police are not ready, she has no experience in the peaceful settlement of such conflicts. Maybe they are doing something in a fit of fights? - Trying to understand what is happening Dmitry Doronin . He moved his family with his wife and three children four years ago, is engaged in trade and knows for sure that it is unrealistic to have a comparable to Russian in Belarus.

"Passing - 20 people per hour"

Doronin, Sagaidak, Suvigo and Zhilinsky, like several thousand other Belarusians living in Russia, came to the building of the embassy department on Bonch-Bruevich Street in St. Petersburg to vote for the president. But not everyone managed to exercise the right to choose.

- I was very upset that I could not vote. He arrived at 16 o’clock with four friends, we were specially gathered - we agreed. They wanted to break early, but other friends who were in place said that the line was crazy. Well, here, when we arrived, there were several thousand people, mostly young things. It seems to me, as I, by the age of 40, it seems, ”says Doronin.

His Belarusian comrade now lives in Poland on the border with Lithuania. Yesterday, he also specially went to Warsaw, for 50 kilometers to vote. And he couldn’t: only 250 people were able to participate in the elections because of the queues.

- They worked on the site slowly and picturesquely observed antivirus measures, despite the fact that a crowd stood around the embassy without these measures. I don’t know whether this is intentionally or the bureaucracy, ”says Zhilinsky, who also failed to vote in St. Petersburg. He is sure that a crowd of several thousand people, "obviously came not to vote for Lukashenko."

This was specially done to throw more than half the votes on the early

- There alternative lines were promptly lined up. People were divided into those who urgently to work, to those who came with young children, ”says Maxim Sagaidak. He came to the embassy by 9 am and after three hours he was able to vote.

Maxim is convinced that kilometer lines next to the embassy are not an accident, but the conscious tactics of the Belarusian authorities.

- We all thought that normal throughput would be. And here - one booth and three minutes per person. This is 20 people per hour, 240 people in 12 hours. And there were more than four thousand! This is tactics, these are all creative Lukashenko and the team, and Russia is a silent approval, I think. This was specially done to throw more than half of the votes on the armor. People came to give their vote, and they were not given such an opportunity! - Sagaidak is indignant.

The movement "Voice" was already reported about manipulations with early voting in Belarus. Researcher Sergei Spilkin, relying on the data of observers, calculated that the number of people voted ahead of schedule at least twice.

Alexei Suvigo not only came to vote, but also a few days before the election day he registered with a volunteer in the Belarus 2020 project. Elections abroad. On August 8 and 9, he stood at the embassy building and interviewed the voters.

- We were told 98% of voters who they are for. For Tikhanovskaya at the Peter embassy - more than 90%. And last night they showed a protocol-there are 350 votes with something beyond Lukashenko, 300 votes with something for Tikhanovskaya. But, according to our data, for Lukashenko-20 percent with something! We trust the people who spoke to us. So, there is a clear falsification of the results, and this is everywhere. And the booths? In 2015, there were four of them in the elections, and this time one, and the commission, as they say, employees worked specially slowly, ”explains Suvigo.

He says that from the moment of departure from Belarus, he did not stop monitoring what is happening in the country.

I dream that a dictatorship system to leave, so that honest elections to go

- Because this is my homeland. My parents, friends, relatives live there. I love Belarus, despite the fact that I left. Therefore, volunteers went to participate, help the country, control. I dream that the dictatorship system to leave, so that honest elections to go, so that the country begin to manage people who think about the people, so that they change the constitution, so that a person does not have so much power. Let him leave, fly to another country, but it is necessary that all the crimes that he committed and his entourage be investigated and the guilty are punished by law, says Suvigo.

Anyone is better than Lukashenko

Dmitry Doronin notes that landings, arrests, falsified criminal cases happened in Belarus before each election, but now people were able to rally.

- A lot of people were against it, but they were just afraid. And then they turned their heads and see: the neighbor is the same on the right, the neighbor is the same on the left. They look and understand that there are a lot of them, people who want a normal life. Belarusians are peaceful people, no one wants revolutions, no one wants to leave, they just want to live normally. Would I leave? From the apartment, cottage, from the country where the spouse had work, where are friends and relatives? - asks Doronin.

- The older generation is now spitting, and used to spit on Lukashenko. It seems that everyone understood that everyone was drawing, plugging, but there was a feeling “what will you do about it,” Maxim Sagaidak agrees. - And now real candidates have appeared, people saw that it was possible to vote for a normal person. Not for a non-assembler, not for the nationalist, but for someone who can lead and develop the country.

Sagaidak voted yesterday for Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, but does not hide that, upon admission of all the candidates, he would choose Viktor Babariko.

- Babarico is a clear favorite. I analyzed his mediaactivity, plus he was the top manager of the bank, in an interview it is noticeable that a good person, positive modern people work in his headquarters. I do not see the problem that it can be affiliated with Russia. Because any candidate, even with the Russian follow, is much better than Lukashenko, ”Sagaidak believes.

Both Sagaidak and Doronin suggest that one of the factors that aggravated protest moods in Belarus was the Pandemia of Coronavirus. His danger of the country's power was defiantly underestimated.

The key to today's phenomenon in Belarus is arrogant, demonstrative eliminations of competitors in the plus of the same demonstrative falsifications

- They denied him, did not economically support people, Lukashenko himself carried all nonsense about this. It became obvious that he was inadequate, ”says Sagaidak.

- They saw everyone how many people hurt, saw this lies, knew how they took the phones in hospitals so that it was impossible to take a picture of how many people were lying. This is a nomenclature state, the main thing is the top there, few people think about people, perceive them as consumables, ”says Doronin.

Zhilinsky calls his people "to anecdotalty patient", but behind this patience lies not weakness, but calculating, courage and good abilities for self -organization, he believes.

- The key to today's phenomenon in Belarus is the arrogant, demonstrative elimination of competitors in the elections plus the same demonstrative falsifications. When they are soaked so, patience ends, and here you are not Russia, here, besides screams, “shame” may also fly into something, ”Zhilinsky warns.

He says that every year, besides this “coronavirus”, he traveled to Belarus and all the time noticed a “barely perceptible difference between countries”.

Return the future to people, and not beat them with batons

- Everything is exactly the same, but a little different, and this is the key moment on which the further development of countries and relations between them depends. In general, I wish both countries success, prosperity and still important - to become countries for life, to return the future to people, and not to beat them with batons and blow with grenades at the entrances, ”the Zhilinsky summarizes.