Pants Are An Architectural Excess

The law-enforcers apparently feel easier and more comfortable without them.

Last week, Belarusian journalists dug up a story about the trial of Ihar Shkred, an employee of the Department of Operational Investigative Activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The trial was nonsense, the defendant got off with a fine, but that's not the point, it's the crime. It turned out that the employee of the elite unit was tried for walking around the village all day without underwear. And he went to the store several times, and quarreled with the villagers — like, I can, I'll put you all in jail.

To be honest, my imagination was not enough to try to picture this. No, a drunk policeman is easy. But without underwear, in a greasy alcoholic T-shirt, on the street all day, with a stormy social life at the same time — with trips to the village store, with squabbles with passers-by — no, I can't imagine it, my imagination fails. Moreover, if I had seen this in some sitcom, I would have said that the director lacked a sense of proportion, because showing this to the viewer would be too much. But sitcom directors, apparently, would also lack imagination.

Although, in essence, there is no point in translating the story into a comedy. Because this is not a comedy, not a funny situation, not a caricature. This is a portrait. A portrait of a Belarusian undercover security officer in the most realistic style. That guy, without underwear, is not some ordinary patrol policeman. He is one of those who must be invisible — they follow, listen in, read other people's correspondence, secretly enter homes, follow in their footsteps and breathe down their necks. They can be undercover and covert so that even their own mother would not recognize them. The main thing is that they should not attract attention, otherwise all operational and investigative activities will go down the drain. And so this tightly undercover operative with the passports of various Petrovs and Boshirovs wanders around the village without underwear. And who knows if the operative had a day off that day. What if our hero was on a mission?

Just imagine: someone has to break into your apartment in your absence and conduct a search there unnoticed. Find what you are hiding and disappear, leaving everything as if there was no uninvited guest. You come home, not suspecting anything, and see a drunk cop without underwear wandering around your house. Or you approach your car in the morning and notice that from the back seat someone in an alcoholic T-shirt is cheerfully waving out the window the very thing, the public display of which is an offense. You thought this couldn't happen? Now you know that it does.

And this drunken guy without underwear is no exception, he is a typical representative of his “elite” unit. It is they, from that very department, who put political activists in jail. It is they, in that very unit, who are given orders — to follow, to rummage through other people’s things and find a flag or at least a sticker, to intercept our letters, to eavesdrop on our conversations, to read our messages. Then they cook up operational records. At their whim (they can take off their underwear and run around the village, or they can get over a hangover and start surveillance — it depends on how lucky you are) many political prisoners are now in jail, and not free. You must admit, it’s even offensive — to go to jail not because the entire state apparatus is working against you personally, but because of such a drunken brat.

On the other hand, he’s a good guy, this previously unknown Shkred, who demonstrated to everyone who they are, these “elite” law-enforcers, with his walk without underwear. Go on, our sans-culotte. And Lukashenka noticed and noted: he renamed the department for operational investigative activities into the department of criminal intelligence. It sounds much more weighty and serious. Almost like the “department of Stirlitzes and Zheglovs”. Lukashenka, when he was informed about the march without underwear, must have said: “What eagles serve in this unit! Our pride! We need to rename it so that it sounds even cooler!”

And now every employee of this department, taking off his underwear before going outside, says to himself with pride: “I am now a spy!” — and marches, stamping his steps, to the village store to scare the saleswoman.

Iryna Khalip, exclusively for Charter97.org

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