‘When I Read Latest News, I Am Proud To Be Belarusian’

Our people are completely different from how certain individuals would find it profitable to present them.

Tut.by has asked the question: “How did this August change you?” to the Nasha Niva journalist Natallia Lubneuskaya, who was shot at and wounded while covering a protest. She spent 38 days in the hospital.

- The biggest discovery for me: I can endure a lot. And I'm very much afraid of pain.

However, it turned out that physical pain is not the worst thing that can happen. Because wounds on the body heal, but wounds on the heart do not. They scar.

They say: everything that does not kill us makes us stronger. I do not believe this. This bullet in my leg didn’t make me any stronger, I just felt a huge disappointment: “Yes, everything in the world is really unfair”.

The strongest feel;ing that I have at the moment is anger. It overrides other feelings - powerlessness, fear, despair. Perhaps I am just hiding them even from myself, because these emotions make me vulnerable. But so far, I don't feel like crying, I want to act.

Do you know what really knocks the ground out from under your feet? The fact that we no longer know who to turn to for help, there is no one to protect us. You can only come to the rescue yourself, your friends and, fortunately, as it turned out, ordinary Belarusians.

When I read the latest news, I feel proud that I am Belarusian. Because our people are completely different from how some individuals may find it profitable to present them. Those individuals want to intimidate and humiliate us. We are not patient at all, we are not blatant and indifferent, we are not ready to put up with rudeness and violence. It’s a pity that our patience overflowed only after it came to the irreparable - broken bones and lives.

The way our people turned out to be is my main discovery. This is what will remain in me: not the cruelty of the security forces, but the solidarity of our free-spirited people. And the admiration, gratitude, kinship that I feel towards them is stronger than fear.