"Sooner Or Later, Vradiyivka Will Repeat Itself In Our Country."

In the wake of police raids in Belarus.

From time to time the state mass media publish the results of polls, according to which the Belarusians' trust in the police allegedly jumps up to 90%. I don't know who, when, among whom and in what way these "polls" were conducted, but communicating with people – and journalists have to communicate a lot – I personally haven't heard a good word about the police yet.

And no wonder. Because the attitude towards it is not based on the words of the state mass media, but on the deeds with which the police keep impressing our people from year to year. The events in Mahiliou Chapayeuka are another drop in the bowl.

You know, when I am asked about my attitude towards the USSR, I answer in the following way: it is good that the Soviet Union broke up, but it is bad that under such circumstances. Nazi Germany did not end with a capitulation in May 1945, but with the Nuremberg process. The Nuremberg process finally and irrevocably closed this shameful page in German history.

But no one ever bothered to close the shameful page of the "Red Empire". If the USSR had lasted a few more years, a process similar to that of Nuremberg could have taken place in its vast expanses. And that would be a good thing for all the peoples who inhabited it.

The Gulag and the NKVD crimes should have been subject to a large-scale investigation, the legal assessment should have been made, so that no one would even think about repeating them in the future. Alas, this did not happen – the monster collapsed earlier.

But having fallen apart, it did not disappear without a trace, but continued to live in several post-monsters. From year to year, the post-monster of Belarus demonstrates urbi et orbi his sinister essence.

When the head of the Belarusian Interior Ministry puts on the NKVD uniform, some people comfort themselves with the idea that there is nothing terrible about it. They say it's just fun, historical reconstruction. However, the Chapayeuka events – as well as a lot of other events before them – clearly prove the seriousness of this "fun."

The main principle of the Stalinist system was the belief: "People are dust. This was the case in Chapayeuka. At first, people were humiliated and beaten, then it turned out that it was for nothing, and in the end, the first deputy minister of the NKVDist said: "I don't know if we will apologise to them. And that's right: why apologize to the "dust"?

Except that Nature is arranged in such a way that the dust sometimes gathers in a storm. Let's remember Ukrainian Vradiyivka, where in 2013 local policemen were raping and beating a 29-year-old girl all night long. The villagers stormed the police office and then headed to Kiev. Today, a number of political scientists estimate these events as a prologue to Euromaidan.

Belarus is not Ukraine, but our people’s patience is not made of rubber either. If everything in the country stays the way it is, sooner or later Vradiyivka will repeat itself somewhere in our country. And then the monster will know what a dust storm is.

Dzmitry Rastayeu, Salidarnasts