At midnight, the passport will turn into pumpkin

And the employees of the Belarusian consulates abroad - in furniture. Lukashenko signed a decree prohibiting the receipt of documents abroad

Before the Belarusians thought that if they were abroad and safe, then you can start breathing and living freely. This week it turned out that their adventures were just beginning abroad: the state came up with a new entertainment so that the Belarusians did not forget what country they were from. Lukashenko signed Decree No. 278 “On the procedure for issuing documents and the commission”, which entered into force on September 7. Now Belarusians abroad with their homeland formally connect nothing.

From now on, the citizens of Belarus who live beyond, cannot replace a passport with an expired validity of a new one. Previously, this could be done calmly by contacting the Consulate of Belarus in the country of residence. Now - welcome to your homeland, regardless of where you are.

In fact, the state has prepared this dirty trick for a long time, and consular workers probably knew about this. It’s just that Belarusians are not yet accustomed to the fact that any wild case that you are used to writing off the Contractor’s incident should be immediately perceived as a pattern that will become a new reality for the near future. The first case with the failure of the passport occurred back in July, but no one then attached importance to this, although it should.

The Belarusian journalist Irina Makovetskaya left for Germany long before the start of a large terror - back in 2005. And for 18 years she completely calmly changed the documents for herself and the children, when their validity ended. This year, she already converted to the Embassy of Belarus in Berlin, and she was appointed issuing a new passport on July 11. Irina lives almost 600 kilometers from Berlin. On July 11, she managed to drive more than 400 kilometers when they called her from the consulate and told her to unfold: she would not be given a passport. Makovetskaya wrote complaints to the Foreign Ministry, called the embassy, ​​but to no avail: she was told that she had to go to Belarus for a passport. In Germany, he will no longer be given.

On July 11, there were two more months before the signing of the decree. But, it turns out, an unofficial order could not be issued to Belarusians, the documents already existed orally.

It’s just that the regime was in no hurry to publish this: summer, vacation time, no one is engaged in the replacement of documents, everyone goes on vacation and putting an appeal to the consulate for autumn. And here you are, guys, a large state shish instead of a passport.

Of course, many of those who have been living abroad for a long time can probably get a passport of the country in which they live. Some received, others and so normally lived - with a Belarusian passport and a residence permit in another state. And now those who decided to get citizenship in that state will no longer be able to do this: for this they will need the current passport of the homeland. And to change the brand new passport for a prison term, which can now be expected by each arriving Belarusian - there are no people who wish.

As for passports, the trend can be determined very simply: hundreds of thousands of Belarusian refugees will appear in Poland and Lithuania. Because now the only option to acquire a travel document is to ask for a political asylum and get it. And with it - the so -called Geneva passport. Belarusians from Georgia, Montenegro, Armenia, Turkey will go there to Lithuania and Poland, because it was these countries that took over in 2020 a stream of repressions running. And they still accept. Provision of protection to Belarusians is already a familiar, almost automated procedure for officials of these countries. They do not ask unnecessary questions and do not require evidence of persecution, because they know:

Each Belarusian history has a selfie with a white-red-white flag in social networks, a careless like, a comment or donation, a subscription to “extremist” telegram channels or friendship with political prisoners.

Articles of the Criminal Code, Skkok and jobs on the "Promka" of the colony are enough for everyone. Not enough - they will come up with and build new ones.

But the passport is not all. Consular institutions of any country abroad exist to help their citizens. Belarusian consulates now have the right only to write out certificates for returning the passport to Belarusians. And nothing more. But it was precisely consulates that used to help to apoistize the documents necessary to obtain a residence permit or a job for a job and draw up a power of attorney. Thanks to consular support, the Belarusian who lives abroad could issue a power of attorney for a relative, a lawyer, a close friend who is in the country, and receive the necessary documents, apply for duplicates in case of loss, enter into an inheritance, rent an apartment - but a lot of things.

Now the power of attorney executed abroad is not valid in Belarus. If you want someone to entrust the management of your property or receiving the documents you need-we ask for mercy, come. Parents will no longer be able to send their minor children to their grandmother to visit: permission to independently cross the border, decorated outside Belarus, also became invalid. And documents without an apostille completely turned into meaningless papers, because they will not be accepted in any foreign institution. So a huge number of Belarusians, even with current passports, will become illegal immigrants, having lost the opportunity to arrange a residence permit. The way out again is one: to ask for refuge. Not only Geneva passport is given with him, but also a work permit.

But tens of thousands of Belarusians did not want to become refugees. IT-Schools-Relocans who left not from repressions, but from the Internet disconnected in August 2020; Truckers who were killed by spending weeks on the border, who left to work within the European Union for Lithuanian and Polish firms; Businessmen who have left with money just to sketch vague times; Students and graduate students; Working under the contract - you can list the categories of Belarusians who were not going to ask for asylum for a long time for a long time. Now you have to.

Thus, the need for consular institutions of Belarus is completely disappeared. Their employees are now like chairs. They do not do anything, are simply in the office. Furniture with an inventory number, nothing more. But for some reason, the Belarusian authorities are not going to reduce their number at all. Although to write a certificate to the return of a passport to a tourist once every few months is a task that one person will deal with.

Nevertheless, in the same Poland of the Belarusian consulates there are three as many as: in Warsaw, Bialystok and Biala-Podlak. Well, who needs them now?

But the departing Belarusians who have left and leave, it seems, the state needs. Giant queues for apostilizing documents - both in Belarus itself and in consulates - this is much better than any statistics, proof of the scale of emigration. Putting an apostille in Belarus is like buying a Romanian headset in the USSR. You must certainly participate in the duty near the Foreign Ministry, come to the roll call every morning (there is a privilege: after night duty at the walls of the ministry, you can not participate in the morning roll call, but go home or to work right away), check the documents from the recorders, so as not to allow the “businessmen” who cost for money instead of others. I handed over the post - I accepted the post on a bench near the Foreign Ministry. There are telegram chats in which arrivals are noted. Unless they no longer write a number on the hand with a chemical pencil: a century of high technology after all. And all these people with a conditional number on their hand are going to leave. And with them - taxes, fines, fees, rollbacks. The feed base is leaving. And if it is not possible to stop it, then at least put on the end, so that they certainly do not remember with longing Minsk and Grodno streets.