Young Artists From Ukraine Were Kept Six Hours At Belarusian Border

The border guards forbade them to switch in the engine of the bus to keep warm, and did not allow to go to the toilet.

Young performers under the guidance of the People's Artist of Ukraine Mariyan Gadenko, who were going to a concert for the Ukrainian diaspora to Minsk, got into an unpleasant situation. From half past two at night until seven o'clock in the morning they were waiting in the bus for the inspection of Belarusian customs officers and border guards.

As Radio Svaboda reports, border guards forbade them to switch in the engine of the bus to keep warm, and did not allow to go to the toilet.

According to the head of the group Mariyan Gadenko, 13 people were traveling in a minibus, including a television creative group with equipment. After an hour of standing at the empty border, Gadenko approached the border guards and said that the group was going to a concert and had television equipment. After that, the Ukrainian says, they were let into some kind of dead end, many times they were taken away the passports, travel documents, documents for equipment.

"I started asking them, pointing that it was already six in the morning, the children wanted to go to the toilet, but they did not allow us to go. They even did not allow to start the car, and the children were freezing," – the artist says. He believes that the actions of Belarusian border guards and customs officers were a mockery.

Gadenko thinks that they might not like the sound equipment that Ukrainians were carrying with them, as well as television cameras. Only after the threat to appeal to Lukashenka, the Ukrainians were let go, without the apologies for the long delay.

Despite the fatigue after the trip, the artists performed well in front of the full hall in the National Center for National Cultures.

On the morning of May 19 young Ukrainian artists go to Lithuania. There they have scheduled performances in three cities on the Days of Culture of Ukraine in Lithuania.