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Sannikov’s Book Is Real Verdict To Executioners And Their Helpers

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Sannikov’s Book Is Real Verdict To Executioners And Their Helpers
DZMITRY DROZD

I am reading the book My Story by Andrei Sannikov with great interest. It is not just a compliment – there is a lot of unknown information in the book, indeed.

The book Belarusian Amerikanka, Or Elections Under Dictatorship is a real verdict to many executioners and their accomplices. The Belarusian punitive system is portrayed with its illegal gist, when to crush a person is as easy as winking, when the law and human rights are just pieces of paper.

It would be hard to imagine for a reader, especially a European one, that such things are possible in the centre of Europe in the 21st century…

But that is not the point now. I was glad to find in the book a paragraph about the firework display, staged on March 8, 2012 near the walls of Vitsba penal institution on the occasion of Andrei Sannikov’s birthday. I want to tell a little more about this fact.

As I remember, it was the third firework display near the walls of prisons, made to celebrate a birthday of a political prisoner, and organised by activists of European Belarus and people who are not involved in politics. It would be difficult to recall all of them now – as all these actions are organised at the expense of its participants, dozens of people participate in pooling money often… The main engines of this action certainly were Iryna Khalip and Yuliya Stsiapanava, and Misha, Olya and I were to implement this clandestine operation.

I do not speak ironically when I am speaking about secrecy – as for the preparatory work, the operation probably reminded Pulikhov’s preparation for the attempt against Governor Kurlov in 1906, or some partisan act of sabotage, or something like that. It is incredible that even such a trifling thing should be kept secret, for its participants not to be arrested in advance (I learnt only from the book, that a vacuum had been created around the presidential candidate on purpose, in an attempt to persuade him that he is completely forgotten by everyone – so even such a little thing could spoil the game of executioners somehow).

We left Vitsebsk in a car rented on Olya’s money. The car has Brest number plates. We naturally switched off our mobile phones and other gadgets… Maybe this helped us to finish the way. The main adventure was the moment when the car’s engine died right in the middle of the crossroads in front of the concert hall where the Slavonic Bazaar is held, and we had to push the car towards the road-side. And finally we reached the penal colony.

Reinforcements were noticeable around – there were several police cars, and a police cruiser immediately tagged along behind us. Maybe we were able to avoid document examination only because we had Brest number plates on our rented car, not Minsk owns. We dismounted from the car at a great distance from the colony. We were roaming in the dark across snowy fields, wading knee-deep through snow…

We came up to the fence as close as possible, but certainly not near to watchtowers. I do not remember the time when we set it on fire. And we left the place through the fields as well, and finally we reached Vitsebsk in local buses. We had a feeling of unreality of the events all the time – as if it was a film about partisans…

But these measures were not unnecessary – as during similar fireworks in Navapolatsk and near the walls of Valadarka guys with machine guns, helmets like cosmonauts, not in the mood for play, emerged in just a few minutes…

Now it all looks really funny – but the historical fact is like that. Memories of the past filled my mind after reading.

Our life was like in the song: “Someday we are going to recall that – and we won’t believe that ourselves…”

Dzmitry Drozd, Facebook

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