BELARUS DIGEST

Avigdor Liberman and Alexander Lukashenka

That information suggested that Lieberman had accepted bribes and evaded taxes using Belarusian banks. Israeli authorities were hoping to cooperate secretly with the Belarusian authorities, but their ambassador kept a copy of the confidential files for himself, and later shared it with his boss Liberman.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

According to the statement released by police, Israel’s former ambassador to Belarus, Ze’ev Ben-Aryeh, allegedly showed Lieberman classified information regarding his investigation by police on allegations that he had accepted bribes and failed to report income to the tax authorities.

The documents had been sent to Ben-Aryeh by the Foreign Ministry to hand over to the Belarus government, whose help Israel required in tracing money transfers from a local bank.

(more…)

Belarusian vilage Yanuki. Photo: interfax.by

Father of the newly-elected Ukrainian President Fiodar Uladzimiravich Yanukovich was born in 1923 in Yanuki in northern Belarus. Fiodar Yanukovich was very young when his father Uladzimir Yaraslavavich Yanukovich moved to Ukraine in 1920-s to work in coal mines. Uladzimir went there with his brother, who subsequently returned to Yanuki in Belarus.

There has been rumors that Fiodar Yanukovich was collaborating with Nazis while in Belarus. Reportedly, Baranovichi regional branch of NKVD, the predecessor of KGB requested in 1945 to “extradite” Fiodor Yanukovich back to Belarus on charges of collaboration with Nazis. However, the genuineness of this story is questionable.

In Ukraine, Fiodar worked as locomotive drive in Donbas, the region of Ukraine rich in coal. His first wife Olga died in 1952, when Viktor was just two years old. Fiodar later re-married and Viktor Yanukovich was brought up by grandmother. Being born in and having grown up in Ukraine, it is not surprising, that Viktor Yanukovich regards himself Ukrainian.

However, Viktor Yanukovich has not forgotten his Belarusian roots. He visited Yanuki, the birthplace of his father, at least twice. Once he went there on an official visit as Prime Minster of Ukraine with accompanied by his Belarusian counterpart Siarhei Sidorski and later paid a private visit. On both occasions, he met the local Yanukovichs and visited the local cemetery, where his grandfather’s brother and other distant relatives are buried.

(more…)

Google has dedicated today’s logo on its Belarusian website google.com.by to the 19th century Belarusian painter Napaleon Orda. The painter was born on February 11, 1807 in a manor near Pinsk into the family of a local landlord. The logo depicts Orda’s painting of the Čaćviarcinski palace in Hrodna.

Two years ago Google had also marked the birthday of Marc Chagall, another painter from Belarus.

Read the full story here

Taciana Šapućka. Photo: svaboda.org.

The Belarusian State University expells Taciana Šapućka, a member of the opposition organization Malady Front, after she had visited a conference organized by the European Commission in Brussel (see a story here).

Human Rights Watch has issued its new report (see p. 384) naming current political prisoners in Belarus: Mikalaj Aŭtuchovič, Uladzimir Asipienka, business people; and Arciom Dubski, another activist of Malady Front.

As it seems, an evolution of the Belarusian regime towards democracy, so much talked about in 2009, mostly still remains theory. Sadly, repressions against the opposition were and remain an instrument to run the country despite the government’s closer ties with the EU.

Homel-based young activist Ihar Sluchak, who studies in Estonia, during his holidays in Belarus faces pressure of the authorities.

(more…)

An interview with Michail Holasaŭ (Mikhail Golosov), a Belarus-born economics professor at Yale University. The initiative of these people is really worth admiration. It is very important for the Belarusian government to really seize this opportunity and to help economists from the Belarusian diaspora to realize their project.

Having Europe’s probably most backward and least reformed economy, where real market reforms might only have started a year ago or so, Belarus desperately needs the experience and knowledge of people like Michail Holasaŭ or Aleh Cyvinski (Tsyvinski). One should consider the example of Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president and successful reformer, who invited young Georgian-born economists from the West to advise on economic reforms and even take key positions in the country’s government.

Economists with a global reputation have come to a conference in Minsk on December 28-29. They are united by Belarusian origin. And the desire to do something for Belarus. Naša Niva has talked to Mikhail Golosov, a professor of economics at Yale University (USA).

(more…)

Belarus is a lonely country and Belarusian is a lonely language ignored by its own state and by most Belarusians, who almost exclusively use Russian in their everyday life. The death of Vera Rich is a big loss for Belarus although most Belarusians will hardly even hear of it. And it is God’s big gift to us that there were and there are foreign friends of Belarus like her.
Vera Rich has also been known as a translator of Ukrainian literature to English. However, her work was much more vital and important for Belarus than for Ukraine, where the national language and the national culture are in a much better state. Ukraine has awarded Vera Rich with the Order of Queen Olga, one of the country’s most important awards. But despite her significant work in promoting Belarusian culture, she has been ignored by Belarusian officials who since mid 1990s continue the Soviet policy of Russification and discrimination of Belarusian national culture.

Her first translation of Belarusian literature to English was published by the Belarusian Munich newspaper Baćkaŭščyna in 1957. Vera Rich translated works by Janka Kupala, Jakub Kolas, Natallia Arsiennieva, Maksim Bahdanovič, Aleś Harun, Ciotka, Larysa Hienijuš, Zmitrok Biadulia, Kandrat Krapiva, Voĺha Ipatava, Nil Hilievič and others.

(more…)

Stanislaŭ Šuškievič, the first leader of independent Belarus between 1991 and 1994, one of the men who gave Belarus its independence renewed after over 70 years of Soviet occupation, is now not even getting a decent pension paid from the Belarusian state because of being in opposition to president Aliaksandr Lukašenka. This largely relates to the whole period of early 1990s in Belarus: the state symbols of that time are de-facto forbidden for public usage, national leaders of that time are either ignored, like Šuškievič, or exiled, like the leader of the Belarusian Popular Front Zianon Paźniak, or humbly demonstrating their loyalty to the President, like former PM Viačaslaŭ Kiebič.

The former leader of Belarus, Stanislau Shushkevich marked his 75th birthday today, RFE/RL’s Belarus Service reports.

Along with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, Shushkevich signed the [Belavezha - bielar.us] Accords that dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991.

Shushkevich was the chairman of the Belarusian Supreme Soviet from 1991 to 1994 and played a key role in creating the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Read full story

A little insight on how show business is done in Belarus. For rock and indie music the conditions are quite hard in Belarus, where there is no developed market and infrastructure and where the radio stations are under state-pressure and self-censorship. Despite that, modern bands keep existing and appearing in Belarus just as in any neighbouring country and often become recognized abroad. Sadly, sometimes they get better recognition overseas than in Belarus.

Papa Bo: “We can develop in Belarus only by earning abroad”

By Taciana Šachnovič for Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi

—
Papa Bo, also known as Aliaksandr Bahdanaŭ, 23 years old. Twelve of them he studied at two music schools in the class of domra, cello, violin and piano. His father – a Russian poet – lives in the Rostov region of Russia. His mother is a school teacher of chemistry and biology. According to his passport, Papa Bo was born in Mačuliščy.

After graduating from music schools he entered the Philology Faculty of the Belarusian State University. But he only studied there for a short time: informal musical subculture took more and more his time. At first, as there were no stages available, he organized so-called House concerts.

(more…)