80-year-old Grandmothers Swear At Lukashenka

People are waiting for change as soon as possible.

Anzhalika Kalatazishvili, the first group disabled activist from Slavgarad, told the press service of the civil campaign "European Belarus" about the city life and what people say about what is happening in Belarus:

- We now have a difficult situation in the city in every respect. Take "covid"for instance. We have a lot of patients, hospitals are overcrowded, all the information is hidden. People with asymptomatic form go to work. It's all going with the flow.

We have no specialists in our city who can provide qualified assistance, so many patients with severe form of Covid-19 are taken to Mahiliou.

Yesterday, my friend's father died of pneumonia, she went to pick him up from the morgue in Mahiliou. He was a medical worker.

- And what do people say about the election?

- I can only say what I hear from my neighbors. They say that they are already fed up with Lukashenka. Look, everyone knows even about the provocation in Hrodna, everyone has the Internet, everyone sees what's going on in the country and everyone is against it. Even grandmothers, who are 80 years old and dissatisfied with Lukashenka. They swear. I tell you honestly, they swear, they don't even want to talk about him. I've even heard from some officials that they are not going to vote for him.

It's impossible to live in our city. I have a first group disability, a severe one. I get a pension of 340 rubles. In winter, I have to give half of this money for utilities, even though I live in a hostel.

Salaries in Slavgarad do not exceed 350-400 rubles, even less. If you look at collective farms, the situation is deplorable in general, people just struggle to survive.

The city is small, actually 8 thousand people. We almost all know each other, the people who sell in the market, in the shop. And here I, for example, can go to the shop and borrow food, like many people. When I get my pension, I go to the store and pay back the debt. That's what a lot of people do. Lack of money. We eat, there's no money again, we go back to borrow, we go back to debt. That's how we live.

The way people get their kids ready for school. Parents go, they get two or three months' installments in the market, or they take out loans to get their kids to school. Do you understand how hard it is?

That's why people are really looking forward to change. Yes, not everyone talks about it as openly as I do, but change is really a dream for people.