TO BELARUS with LOVE

Amidst dead-of-night arrests, mysterious poisonings and mass protests in the streets, William Langley meets the savvy, new generation of female leaders risking their lives to bring freedom to Europe’s east.

- William Langley

Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet empire, there remains an enclave of Europe where almost nothing has changed. Peasants toil on collective farms, rusty factories churn out state-decreed quotas of shoddy goods, and an ageing dictator clings to power, supported by a corps of slabchopped cronies from central casting.

Belarus, a landlocked expanse of flatlands between Russia and Poland, has clung to the old ways largely by avoiding what its strong-man leader, President Alexander Lukashenko, sees as three main threats: interference from within, interference from outside and interference from women.

“It would be ridiculous for our society to vote for a woman,” scoffed Lukashenko, 66, on the eve of August’s controversial presidential election. “If one won, she would quickly collapse, poor thing.”

Bristling with machismo, Lukashenko, a muscle-bound former Red Army officer and fitness fanatic who has run Belarus for 26 years, spent most of the campaign locking up likely opponents, and filling the state airwaves with testimonies to his kindness and wisdom. In a troubled world, went his message, only his homegrown brand of tough love could keep the country safe. Posing along the campaign trail with an automatic assault rifle, he claimed coronavirus could be beaten with vodka and hard work, and exhorted the 9.5 million Belarusians – among the poorest people in Europe – to redouble their efforts.

Among those unconvinced by this pitch was Svetlana ‘Svyeta’ Tikhanovskaya, a 37-year-old from the sleepy city of Gomel. A teacher until she gave up work to raise her two children, Svyeta had shown only a passing interest in politics, but when her husband, Sergei, a local pro-democracy activist, was arrested after listing himself as an election candidate, she decided to stage a protest.