Radioactive Memories

25 years ago I was 25 days old and my mom was walking in our yard with me in baby buggy, 187 km from the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl that had exploded...

It was a sunny day, but after that black cloud had come and unusual rain had begun... Radioactive rain. But nobody told us, what is going on, government even forced people to go to the international labor day annual parade under the hot dangerous sun!

And everybody had been informed in the beginning of the May only, and after that people had been literally living on the railway and bus stations with a hope to buy a ticket ANYWHERE and just leave. My grandfather was a World War II veteran, so he had a right to buy 2 tickets, and he did, and my mom carried me away in my aunt village near the Minsk, where I had spent most dangerous time, but then I had been living in my home city, in Gomel, for 18 years of my life.

A lot of people in my region got cancer and different other horrible diseases and thousands were killed by radiation because of that catastrophic disaster... My grandfather died in 1989, three years after Chernobyl, my grandmother - in 1990...

One another reason why I hate damn communists and USSR: freedom of speech, transparency, safety of people should be on the first place! All this experiments with energy and drinking vodka on Friday night before "long weekend" at the working place - no comments, just no comments... :( But who will tell us the truth now?... R.I.P. to all the victims. We remember.

... And my family and friends are still live 187 km from Chernobyl. And I have nothing to do with it... This is part of me.

"That's Love, Bitch!"

"Your relationships sounds exhausting. Marshal and I have been together 15 years, and the only one debate we've had was about Tommy Boy is whether he is awsome or super awsome. That's love, bitch!" (Lily, HIMYM s06 e20)

Love Wave

My friend and his girlfriend had a big fight, so that she is angry with him and not answering the phone. So he asked people from all over the world to send her an sms "Anya, please, forgive Dima! He loves you and he needs you!" to this Belarusian number +375 33 6151770. You can join this "love wave", comment here plz if you did :) Thank you all!

Pray For Belarus

Map of worldwide solidarity with terrorist attack in Minsk, Belarus - Google Maps . If you want to support us, you can just bring flowers and candles at 17:56 local time anyday at zero point in your city... You can connect with our hearts, which are in pain now, and send us your energy and support... Tell me, if you want to join, I will put your event on the map (chris.gomel-at-gmail.com). Thank you...

View #minsk in a larger map

Explosion in Minsk subway, 11.04.2011

I'm exhausted after this day, I cried out all my hopes about better life in Belarus and now feel like I'm in black jelly, helpless and almost empty. Our "stability" was blown up today in the subway forever. We have currency crisis, human rights and democracy crisis and now we don't feel safe in Belarus anymore. This is like we are mice in the cage. From now on there are mousetraps in our isolated cage for us scared, starving and obedient...

SHAKIRA, show your support to Belarus!

Shakira, don't cancel your concert in Minsk! Belarus needs regionaly adapted waka-waka now SO BAD, "This time for Belarus", please, show us your support!!! :) Say: "Zhivie Belarus" from the stage and take flag like this with you in Minsk ;)

[CENSORED]

Amazing list of musicians and actors, WHO ARE FORBIDDEN IN BELARUS :D That could be so funny unless it is realy sad! Some people from this list: Neil Tennant and Pet Shop Boys, Tru Thoughts, Wah Wah 45, 7 Samurai, Format, Bonobo, Tom Stoppard, Kevin Klein, Samuel West, Kevin Spaicy. Our government is fucking circus :-/

Belarusian Justice

Updates on situation around Belarusian activists: journalist Otroschekov got sentenced for 4 years in prison, activist Novik - 3,5 years, Molchanov - 3 years. Just to compare: for rape of three children - 2,5 years in prison. Justice in my country deserves huge facepalm :( Hold on, guys...

Youth Spotlight Interview: Christina Karchevskaya

My interview for World Youth Movement for Democracy:

How could a regional or international network be most helpful in the current situation occurring in Belarus?

I think the best help here in Belarus would be solidarity and spreading information. Regarding real help and action – civic activists are creating a “black list” of people who were involved in beating peaceful people on the streets (the police), who falsified elections (the school teachers and directors), who pressured students and citizens who work for the government to vote during the pre-election period, which is notoriously plagued with violations and falsifications, and those who expel students from schools and universities, KGB workers, BRSM members (the pro-presidential youth organization) and journalists from our governmental TV-stations, newspapers and radios that have lied about what really happened on the 19th of December.

We are asking all countries of the world to ban those on the list by not allowing them to travel to foreign countries because they are actively bringing harm to our society and they deserve to be punished for that. Normally, they would be judged when we gain democracy one day (lustrations)*, but for now a visa ban for those people can serve as a punishment.

On the other hand, we really need to break this visa wall for Belarusians so that people can easily travel to see and experience other normal democratic countries. For instance, Poland grants free visas to Belarusians. A lot of people simply DON’T KNOW how their country SHOULD look like and live like! More than 75% of young people have never been abroad because of a lack of knowing foreign languages and lack of money to get visas!

Also, donations are being collected to help the families of people who have become victims of the regime (http://zmagarka.livejournal.com/1119885.html, http://zhelezko.livejournal.com/47591.html ,http://zmagarka.livejournal.com/1110429.html). Anyone can help, and these accounts are verified.
Also, we are asking people from other countries to sign petitions to support Belarusian people. For example, please take a moment to sign this petition for the release of political prisoners in Belarus:http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/ffppob.

And it would be great to launch some international mechanism that will help Belarusians have new elections because we have a huge number of documented evidence of falsification from the recent elections such as photos, videos, and personal stories. We know that we have no choice with the current mechanism of counting the results of elections, and we won’t have any chance the next time, and even the next time, and we will drown in this small USSR-2. Belarusians have a dark joke now: “Happy New 1937 Year!” – as this was the year of huge repressions and mass killings of “ideology enemies” of the USSR. But if we think this way, if now the 37th year is coming, we will have around 60 more years of this endless terror.

 How has social media impacted the street actions due to election fraud? How can it further be used in post-election efforts to hold the government accountable?

 Our internet was totally blocked during the protest period. Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and a lot of independent mass-media were blocked. But luckily the regional network Vkontakte.ru was working during that time, and was the only channel operating for a couple of hours. Besides it, the strong and truthful informational channel Euroradio live broadcasting was available and had around 300,000 listeners during that time.

A lot of online and offline campaigns appeared during the post-electoral time. For instance, the campaign “Get Lukashenka to the darkness” (agreement to switch the lights off during his New Year’s speech on 31.12), and also “Angels for political prisoners” (http://help.roh-roh.net/people/ ) that allows volunteers to pick a person from the list of political prisoners and take care of him/her by sending cards, gifts etc.  There is a campaign called “Meet New Years with political prisoners” that brings champaign and candles to celebrate next to their windows in prison.  And a lot of new songs about election events have appeared (“Sania (Lukashenka), go away!”), a lot of examples of self-made political and social leaflets appeared on the web (http://narod.ru/disk/1913778001/Rezanans2.pdf.html , http://bit.ly/hF1H4o ,http://bit.ly/f0hG7u , http://bit.ly/gQKeGA, http://zmagarka.livejournal.com/1095972.html), “black lists” were created (using social networks as well!), initiatives to issue complaints regarding governmental TV-channels in order to remove them from the European Broadcasting Union.  There is another complaint from the post-election period against a doctor who gave Niakliaev, an ex-candidate, to the KGB from reanimation and he now has serious heart problems, and many-many more examples. People are really active via the web, but there is a huge amount of disappointed people on the streets now…

What would you suggest to young people in Belarus that want to take action during the follow up to the fraudulent elections?
I will suggest that they act with dignity and honor, use creativity, talk to people, and tell them the truth that they know. Use new media, as it turned out to be very useful in Belarus. Try to learn how to surf anonymously on the web for personal security, and try to fight with this huge machine of a regime in any means – through court, through international institutions. The best thing is: if you have gotten to this point where you start to fight with the regime and to struggle for democracy, then you have no way back, and there are more and more of us on the right side!

*Lustrations means to prevent former communists or former politicians and agents of a corrupt government from participating in the newly formed one.

Photos from the recent protests:

For more photos and information:

http://kryscina.com/maya-ploshcha-2010/
http://twitpic.com/3hio0x
http://mmet.livejournal.com/52828.html
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3659727/1.rar
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7022824/photo.ZIP
http://news.date.bs/politics_208907.html
http://by-dialog.livejournal.com/313441.html
http://community.livejournal.com/pressphoto_by/110856.html
http://euroradio.by/en/1436/
http://www.svaboda.org/content/article/2252428.html
http://nn.by/?c=ar&i=47815
http://upl2010.narod.ru/facts/evseev
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrM8pdXeO68&feature=autofb

BELARUS: cry for help!

We had presidential elections on 19th of December. We've got the same president for 4th termin (almost 80% of votes and huge falsifications) :( Let me tell you what do we have now as a result. It is my hugest shock ever, I think we see birth of new fascism in centre of Europe, pay attention please, until it is not too late.

Our governmental mass-media are lying, our country is in information blockade, people from regions know almost nothing about 50-70 of thousands of people on central streets of Minsk, capital of Belarus. Regions can reach real information through internet only, and internet in Belarus in very expencive and pretty slow to watch videos and load big photos. After this huge protests of people, who are tired to live in soviet country, wich we have because of Lukashenka, last dictator in Europe, around 700 of people were arrested and thousands were beaten and probably even dead - we can't confirm numbers, because hospitals are keeping silence and don't give any information to media. By the end of meeting unknown people in black were trying to break inside the building of Parliament, and because of that people everybody were arrested afterwards and beaten very hard. Luckily, it is already prooved, that it was peaceful demonstration, and those, who broke windows in Parliament were policemen and people from KGB.