‘After March, I Got Message From My Grandson: Grandma, You Rock!’

The story of a Belarusian woman who read the Anthem of Pensioners at the rally.

On October 12, when the second march of pensioners was taking place in Minsk, Mrs. Halina read a poem to the camera - and suddenly she became famous. “Look into my faded old lady's eyes through the slits of your balaclava …” she expressively uttered words that left few people indifferent.

The tut.by portal met with a woman who, at the age of 76, dreams of jumping with a parachute, masters Telegram, reads poetry during tea-drinking in the neighborhood, and charms everyone with incredible cheerfulness and sparkle in her eyes. About the protest of aged people, their civic position and optimism - in this interview.

“I have never hidden my position, my opinion. Well, now even more so”

- Let's go to the Red Church, - Mrs. Halina appoints the meeting place. She lives near Minsk - in Senitsa, but every Sunday she tries to attend church services. On weekdays, twice a week, she picks up her great-grandson from school. The rest of the time, she is left to herself and the books that she is used to reading from her youth.

In total, Halina has two children, six grandchildren and already two great-grandchildren.

“I'm a rich grandmother,” she smiles. - And all of them must be raised, educated.

When we were looking for Mrs. Halina, many wrote to us: she is a former teacher.

“Not even close,” she laughs and briefly tells her story: she was born in Belarus, graduated from 10th grade in 1960, after which she left for Ukraine - her older brother and sister lived there at that time. She worked for two years, which allowed her to enter an educational establishment to receive the profession of a designer, and, under the “all-Union distribution”, she left for Bukhara - one of the most ancient cities in Central Asia, which is located in Uzbekistan.

- I went there voluntarily. It was interesting to me, I read so much about the Great Silk Road ... - Mrs. Halina says dreamily. - True, in fact, everything turned out to be prosaic.

Mrs. Halina lived in Bukhara for about 10 years. She also met her husband there, with whom she returned home to Belarus after the devastating earthquake in 1976.

- By my first education I am a designer. There was everything in life, I worked in different places, finished her career as an accountant. So I'm not even close to being a teacher, - smiles. - Just when I read Okudzhava's poems at the tea party in our neighbourhood, everyone thought that I was a teacher.

Mrs. Halina has been retired for more than 20 years - since 1999. She says that around this time her civic position began to form.

- I retired, I am a free person, my grandchildren are still small, and I read in the newspaper that former Prime Minister Mikhail Chyhir was detained, he spent eight months under investigation. In 2000, the trial began, and all four months I went there, listened and watched how clumsy the accusation sounded, and the case itself was a bit too thin. In 2001, when the election campaign began, I got into his initiative group and collected signatures. True, he did not collect 100 thousand signatures. But that trial gave me an impetus to think.

And when the authorities trampled on the memory of Masherau - they moved his avenue to another place, explaining their decision “by the request of the veterans,” this turned everything in me. And I asked myself: “Which veterans? Those who froze with Masherov in dugouts and walked under bullets? Or the one who dragged the wounded Piotr Masherau 20 kilometers? "

Even the most dense person after all this should have seen. I have never hidden my position, my opinion. Well, now even more so.

“After the trial, many offered to pay the fine. But why waste people’s money?”

Mrs. Halina spent the entire summer of 2020 at a dacha in the Stoubtsy district - “away from the coronavirus”. But on August 9, she returned to Senitsa to vote.

- I voted for Tsikhanouskaya. Although if all the candidates were registered, I would have cast her vote for Tsapkala. Why? I heard about him back in the early 1990s, he studied at MGIMO and returned to Belarus, worked as a deputy foreign minister. And then he organized the Hi-Tech Park.

- But why did they choose Tsikhanouskaya on August 9? Older people would probably say, “What is her experience? What does she know?”

- So she would not have become a candidate if her husband had not been jailed. They snatched the banner away from him, threw it, and she just raised it. And for whom else? 44 people voted for Kanapatskaya at our polling station, 64 for Dzmitryeu, and about 30 for Cherachan. Few people know them. And Tsikhanouskaya, so to speak, is a protest symbol.

- And for Aliaksandr Lukashenka?

- Lukashenka has been a pensioner for six years. And the people do not want to renew his contract. We have a contract system! Enough, probably, let the young rule. Still, the person is 66 years old, he was at the same position for 26 years. This cannot be, in nature this is nonsense, according to my feelings, - Mrs. Halina says with a fashionable accent now.

On August 10, she was going to return to the dacha, but decided to stay another day for household chores. In the evening she went out for her usual evening run (yes, yes, Mrs. Halina jogs regularly), which ended with a trip in a paddy wagon, a visit to the police department, and a protocol on an administrative offense. How is this possible? Mrs. Halina explains:

- There were 10 people at the stadium. Some were running, some were returning home, a woman with a stroller was walking. And suddenly the police came to purposefully take some guy: when they came down the hillock, they said: “This one.” And then the boy who was walking with his father was also arrested. I had no thoughts, other than “now they will be taken away and they will start beating them”. So I clung to one policeman and asked: “What are you grabbing them for? What did they do? Where are you taking them?” Well, and I followed them into the paddy wagon.

- You are a brave person.

- How to say. There was only one thought at that moment: after all, at this time my son or grandson could pass here. And there was no fear.

Mrs. Halina spent the evening of August 10 at the police station. There, a protocol was drawn up against her under Article 23.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences - allegedly she not only ran in the stadium, but also participated in an unauthorized mass event.

- On the evening of August 9, when the polling station was closed, voters began to gather to wait for the results. There were quite many of us - about 250 people. And we were satisfied with the result. At our polling station, 27 percent voted for Lukashenka, 59 percent for Tsikhanouskaya. Therefore, we all hugged the members of the commission and went home with joy. But they wrote in the protocol that the next day I took part in a mass meeting to discuss the results. But why should I discuss them if I was happy with my polling station? And how mass was that meeting if there were no more than 10 people at the stadium?

Two weeks later, a trial took place. Mrs. Halina was preparing for a fine, so she asked to schedule the hearing “closer to retirement”. As a result, the court issued a warning to her.

- Then I was showered with messages: “If necessary, we will pay your fine for you.” But why waste people’s money?

- How did your family react when they found out about your adventures in the paddy wagon?

- They said: “Well, mom, you’ve nailed it!” And asked to be careful.

In general, Mrs. Halina admits, this year turned her life upside down.

“Like the life of 97 percent of Belarusians,” the woman laughs.

Previously, her routine looked simple:

- I read books, sometimes I met with my friends, I went to the church, I went to the dacha.

When asked what he grows in the countryside, he smiles:

- Nothing now, just grass. And flowers.

- And how did you get through it?

- Perfectly well. I'm not a fan of vegetable gardens. The fact is that a couple of years ago my tendon became inflamed, my arm practically did not work, I had to leave this business.

- That is, you are not the kind of person who will take care of the garden in spite of everything, while your children will say to you: “Mom, why do you need this?”

- No, no. We received the dacha in 1988, and since then we have planted the territory from fence to fence. Enough for now.

- How did marches appear in your routine?

- I read on the Internet that the pensioners were going. I thought: “Oh, so I should be there”. The next time I did so. There were many people on October 12. I walked in front, and when we turned at Victory Square, I saw that the tail was standing somewhere near the circus. There were a lot of people, the feeling was great!

- Were you surprised that so many people gathered?

- And what is there to be surprised about? The first time people just didn't know. Then they read it, like me, and decided to join.

- Why, in your opinion, are elderly people also protesting?

- Personally, I want my grandchildren, great-grandchildren to live differently. So that they do not have to flee abroad. My grandson, for example, went to study in St. Petersburg and then, of course, is unlikely to return home, because what are the prospects? Although they should live here, this is their land.

“When I came home from this march, I received a message from my grandson: Grandma, you rock!”

Two months ago Halina was given a smartphone as a present. She admits that she resisted for a long time: she felt fine with the button phone.

- My granddaughter showed what and where to poke. And then I figured it out myself. If I don't understand something, I ask for help, like “well, do it for me”.

So Mrs. Halina discovered Telegram for herself. In the messenger, she found a chat in which retired people communicate, in it - a poem, which would later be called “the anthem of pensioners”. As tut.by found out, its author is presumably Tatiana, she lives in Samara.

- I was inspired by Nina Bahinskaya when I wrote, - Tatiana told TUT.BY. “But when I saw a woman reading my poem, I just cried. And I did not expect such a resonance. I really don't want to advertise myself. I'll just say that two of my grandfathers are Russians, one grandmother is Ukrainian, and the other is Belarusian. All my friends and I, with pain and hope, are following the situation in Belarus and admire the people.

Mrs. Halina did not plan to read the “pensioners' anthem” at the march. In general, the woman says, she wanted to learn it by heart so that she could read it at a tea party in Senitsa.

- But I didn't have time to properly memorize it, and just in case put this piece of paper in my pocket. And then at the March the idea occurred to me to read it.

Mrs. Halina did not expect at all that thanks to this she would become popular in social networks.

- When I came home from this march, an hour later I received a message from my grandson: “Grandma, they sent me your speech. Wow!” The children said that I had become famous and laughed. But again they asked to be careful.

- You have been reading Narodnaya Volya since the 1990s, now you are mastering the Internet. But surely many of your peers only watch TV. And you?

- I haven't watched our television for a long time. My husband and I once bought a Russian TV package, where there were many programs about nature and science. Well, and the usual channels. But now I can't watch Russian programs - Solovyov, Sheinin, Skabeeva. When I listened to them discussing Ukraine, and it didn’t concern me, it seems that everyone is talking as it should be. But when they started to carry it to Belarus, it's impossible. You see this and rethink a lot.

“I want to do a parachute jump with my grandson, but prior to this it is required to make 500 jumps. So I still have to live long”

- People of your age, for example, in Germany or the Netherlands travel, and you go to marches.

- And how I envy them! I, except in 1999 in Poland, have not been abroad. Then the Pope came to Warsaw, and I was abroad for the first time, except for Ukraine, where my elder brother lived. The next time I went abroad was in 2011 - we flew to Jerusalem. That's all my trips.

I would love to travel. Going to Turkey or Egypt to lie there in the sun is nonsense. But to travel, to see how people live, I think, is much more interesting. But - no money, - laughs.

- But this is unfair.

- Sure. We lived in the Soviet times, and who could go where then? Perhaps only to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland. But then they said: “Chicken’s not a bird, Bulgaria’s not abroad”.

If I had money, I would travel, of course. My pension, however, is not bad by our standards, as long as I don't have to spend money on medicines.

- Do your children help you?

- I live alone, why help me? I don’t buy clothes now. The only thing is that money is needed for food and medicine. Entertainment? Sometimes you go to a concert, the tickets to the Philharmonic are usually inexpensive. Pensioners can buy tickets to the opera house for five rubles. Seats in the gallery, as a rule, but if there are free seats, then you can get to the parterre. In this regard, they are great.

Mrs. Halina has another dream: to jump with a parachute with her grandson.

- He is studying in St. Petersburg to become a pilot engineer, he passed the competition - 12 people per place to study for free. I want to jump with him, but for this it is required to make 500 jumps, he only has 100. So I will have to live long.