“Best Gift Is Victory In Kurapaty”

Today is the 59th birthday of one of the most notable activists.

Narodnaya Volia learned with what mood Leanid Kulakou came up to this date.

– To be honest, I do not feel any joy, – he says. – I do not plan to celebrate the birthday, not in the mood. With regard to my age, I joke that although, according to the passport, I’m approaching old age, my soul remains young. And this is the most important.

– As I understand it, our conversation is not going to be joyful...

– Probably not. There are more problems in life now than reasons for joy. In the summer, defending Kurapaty, I fell under the wheels of cars. Two months were spent in the cast, and, frankly, I hoped that this case would go to trial. So it was in the beginning. There were details about the injury in my medical file, I was treated. And now I continue the treatment, go to the clinic for electrophoresis and other procedures that are not very helpful. The injured hand hurts so much that I it still cannot bend it...

Anyways, during my treatment, the documents related to my injury were seized by traffic policemen. So they said in my clinic. After the traffic police gave them to his medical examiner, it turned out that I had no injury. I understand that it was done in order not to bring the case to court.

No injury – no grounds for the proceedings. But if there is no injury, why I am being treated for a fourth month? In short, if you see that they violate justice in front of your eyes, and you cannot resist it with the best will in the world, it makes you sad...

– Leanid, during the defense of Kurapaty, a variety of protocols was drawn up against you. Do you know the approximate amount of fines, which the state wants to recover?

– No, I do not know. Even in round numbers, because the punitive papers keep coming. And I have no money to pay off these fines...

– At some point, you were working as a taxi driver. And now?

– No, now I'm out of work, and with virtually no means of support. My car still belongs to me, it has not been seized for the fines. But I’m not able to find work with any of the metropolitan taxi services. It would be possible to work there as an individual entrepreneur, to pays taxes, to repair my own car, but in order to do this, I need to invest about one and a half thousand dollars. I do not have them.

My life today is the protection of Kurapaty. And the best birthday present would be a complete victory of the defenders of the tract. After all, a restaurant, built on bones of the victims of Stalin times, must not work in Belarus...