How a Giant National Flag, From Which the Whole World Is Delighted, Was Unfurled in Minsk

Belarusians aim at a world record.

In the residential complex Cascade, already famous for the fight for white-red-white flags, a new huge white-red-white flag of 71 × 36 meters has appeared with a claim to break the world record. Not only Belarusians were delighted with the scale of the white-red-white sabotage - several topics and more than one hundred comments appeared on the foreign Reddit forum, in which foreigners try to understand how such a project was implemented and admire the courage of Belarusians. The Village Belarus translated the funniest comments and asked the residents of Cascade how much time and money they spent on the giant flag and how they were able to save it from the merciless Ministry of Emergencies.

- We decided to hang out such a huge flag for two purposes. First, we aim at the world record - we saw that the numbers there are not too big and it is technically possible to beat this one, even by our residential complex (the guys competed with the Flag Island flag in the emirate of Sharjah, UAE, its dimensions are 70 by 35 meters - ed.). Secondly, we wanted to show that together we are strong and capable of breaking any records, including world records. That even citizen Lukashenka cannot afford to raise a flag of this size because he is in the minority. Of course, financially and technically, he can do it, but such an act would cause popular anger. Therefore, he cannot afford this. The most he can afford is to hang a flag 26 times less than ours - this is his limit. It's almost like a 97 to 3 percent ratio.

We were sewing the flag for about two weeks, naturally, not at home. For this, we used the power of the production of the good. Sewing a flag of this size is a technically difficult operation - it is very difficult to unfold and move the canvas in a small room.

The white part of the flag is made of spunbond; the red part is made of roofing insulation. It weighs about 200 kg. In total, we spent about 2,500 rubles for the entire operation, of which 1,700 was the cost of the flag itself.

The flag was raised by 8 people; we will leave out the details. The operation is complicated, so we decided to do it early in the morning of the weekend, when most of the people, including the residents of our residential complex, were still sleeping. First, we pulled a metal cable between the towers. It is not easy to do this correctly - this is a rather massive structure, and it is important that the cable does not sag. The flag was immediately attached with carabiners, and then from the opposite tower, it was pulled onto the ropes. The time from the moment when we began to pull it to the final stage of the past was about 10-15 minutes.

We made a technical mistake in the process, so the flag could not be fully deployed - we did not take physics into account. When one side of the flag lowered, it suddenly began to unfold, and the other side, which at that time was still on the roof, according to the laws of physics, began to turn in the other direction. We had no experience in hanging such flags yet, so we did not take this into account.

We placed the flag at about 7 am. Already in a couple of minutes after the flag appeared, photographs of it began to appear in the chat rooms, and it is not surprising - a flag of this size is hard to miss; I am sure it could be seen even from Lukashenka's residence. 15 minutes after the flag's appearance, the Security Department's car was already under the tower, and an hour later, the Ministry of Emergency Situations arrived.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations climbed to the roof, saw a metal cable, and did not think of anything better than just cutting it off - they did not even think about the residents' safety and their property (one satellite dish was almost ripped out with a flag). After that, the flag hung on one tower and finally turned around as it should, fluttering in the wind, catching on several air conditioners and satellite dishes. The Ministry of Emergency Situations moved to another tower, ruining the drain pipe along the way. Judging by the prolonged hesitation, they tried to drag the flag up, but to no avail. And then they decided to cut the cable from the second side. The flag began to fall, but it hung at the 14th floor, catching either on an air conditioner or on a satellite dish. At that moment, some of the awakened neighbors joined the rescue operation and helped as best they could - they opened the windows and clung to the flag with their hands to prevent the Emergencies Ministry from taking it. These guys went downstairs, confessed their own powerlessness to take down the 200-kilogram flag, and retreated to the residents' dissatisfied shouts.

And they tried to leave discretely as possible - they were very afraid of everything. Once, they climbed onto our roof with a gas cutter to remove another flag. At that time, one of the neighbors came out of the apartment, and behind him, a door slammed loudly on the stairs. These guys were so scared that they locked themselves with a key on the roof and were afraid to leave for some time. In fact, among the Emergencies Ministry, there are a lot of those who are on our side - they are constantly leaking us information about the upcoming "special operations" and say that the absolute lesser agrees to remove the flag from them. They even united in, so to speak, "Sonderkommando," which deals only with this trash. These guys come even more disguised than the security forces because they are afraid not only of the condemnation of the residents but also of their colleagues.

After the departure of the Ministry of Emergencies, the residents who were holding the flag from the apartments let it go, and those who were downstairs rolled it into a tube - it was not easy to do this because the flag was waving in the wind and in the process, one resident was raised for a second in a gust of wind. After that, we folded it up and took it to one of the resident's apartment. Our goal is to take into account the technical mistakes and hang the flag again to break the world record still, although we will be able to officially record it, of course, only after the victory.

Comments on Reddit

12D_D21: This flag might be big, but these guys have bigger balls.

AUGUSTIJNcomics: Definitely, it helped these guys that they do not live in Turkmenistan.

Iamrifki: They'd need a carpet to make a flag like that.

Flag of Turkmenistan:

middlemanmark: Is this a real flag? I feel that he will rip the cladding off the facade.

iamthesenateX: Mega-flag in the micro-district. Perfect balance.

BronzeHeart92: Yes, these guys are making fun of Lukashenka right now, encouraging his thugs to come and set fire to the flag!

Altazaar: It looks scary. I imagine that he slowly falls on me. Horror!

AdaptedMix: It takes forever to get out of it. Like a huge version of a parachute on a playground.

AdaptedMix: Yesterday, I watched the anti-war film Come and See, and, in the end, it mentions that "628 Belarusian villages burned to the ground along with all the inhabitants" during the Second World War. Then, of course, Soviet power came. It just reminded me of all the shit that Belarus went through in the last century. But the country has come a long way, and I hope that something good will come out of all these protests against Lukashenka.

Drunken-Barbarian: Where the hell did they get such a big flag?

This question was asked by several participants in the discussion. Here are the most popular versions that came back to them:

incognitomus: White cloth + red cloth + white cloth. Sew together. Done

lerrigatto: I would guess that several people from this house sewed this flag for several days.

MlackBesa: I'm more interested in how they raised this flag to the apartment. Even if the fabric is very thin (apparently so, since it shines through), it is still 3 huge rolls of fabric that need to fit into the elevator.

intergalacticspy: This is a classic flag design: all you need is a piece of white fabric, a piece of red fabric, another piece of white fabric, and a sewing machine. You won't even need scissors.

SatyrTrickster: You complicate things. One sheet of white cloth and a can of red paint.

OhMetalGalaxy: This is probably spunbond; note the sky is visible through it. People buy it in large garden rolls, so it's easy to find. And it's cheap.

etan-tan: Flags are not just pieces of cloth; they are symbols.

TemporarilyDutch: Wow dude, that's deep.

muscledhunter: It took me a minute to realize how huge it really is. My dumb brain at first thought that the flag was of normal size and just in the foreground of the photo. But he's huge!

AtrixStd: Yeah. When Lukashenka sees this, he will say: fck, I'm leaving.

varatoman: So many questions, how did they make it, how did they hang it there, and what is the neighborhood?!

Paclord404: Excuse the dumb American (I'm actually Canadian, but it's the same when it comes to European politics.) Is this a good thing?

level 2: People are trying to get rid of the dictator.

Paclord404: I know about this, and what does this flag help them?

Templar-kun: This flag is a symbol of resistance to dictatorship.

Paclord404: Well then, awesome!