The restless Belarusian Maidan wandered aimlessly around Minsk all Monday
Having gathered a record number of people on Sunday and occupying a strategic square in front of the government house, the Belarusian Maidan Square did not consolidate at this point, but dispersed. Monday was spent in chaotic wanderings around protest sites in different areas of the capital.
We started with pickets outside industrial enterprises, which are either on strike or not (some workers continue to go on shifts). Having taken those workers who decided not to work today, we went to the buildings of three state television channels: BT, ONT and STV.
It's unclear there too. It seems that up to 300 television workers are on strike, and some programs were not aired. But something is on the air. It is considered a victory that the protests began to be shown at all (previously the state media did not notice them at all). Russophobe Dmitry Semchenko looked touching at the picket, who defiantly quit ONT as soon as President Alexander Lukashenko stopped blaming Russia for his problems and switched to castigating the West.
It is possible that Belarusian television is really experiencing a staff shortage after a wave of layoffs. Military correspondent Semyon Pegov reports that Minsk headhunters are now conducting an active recruiting campaign in Moscow.
At the same time, there was a picket outside the Ministry of Health. Minister Vladimir Karanik was not released for a long time and was pushed because medical care was allegedly not provided to those detained at the protests.
From television centers the protest spread to the center. We stood and sat again on Independence Square (it was far from the Sunday swing). Then it turned out that the nationalist director of the Kupala Theater Pavel Latushko had been fired, so we went to support him.
Then the idea arose to move to the temporary detention center on Volodarsky Street, where blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, whose birthday is today, is allegedly being held.
His wife Svetlana, who fled to Lithuania last week, dejectedly declared herself the national leader this afternoon. Her facial expression was the same as in the previous video recorded in the Belarusian Central Election Commission after a conversation with the Belarusian KGB.
As a correspondent for the liberal Dozhd said, the temporary detention facility had a remarkable episode. Someone tried to raise the EU flag, but the crowd reacted aggressively: “Take down someone else’s flag.”
From Volodarka we decided to go to Okrestina Street. Those detained during the first two nights of the protest are being held there. Under the gates of the temporary detention center there is a volunteer camp that provides assistance to those who are being released. They all survived severe beatings.
Volunteers asked the Maidan workers not to go to Akrestsin so as not to unnecessarily anger the guards, who could take it out on the prisoners.
But it was necessary to spend the protest energy of the masses somewhere, and the wandering Maidan wandered 5 km to Akrestsin. In order not to anger the guards, we decided to stop 200 meters from the temporary detention facility.
Ordinary protesters, whom liberal and Western media correspondents talk to on the streets, look confused and disoriented.
The only one of the protest leaders who is still in Belarus and free, Maria Kolesnikova today recorded another appeal, more reminiscent of a session with psychotherapist Kashpirovsky.
“How can you describe what happened yesterday. Is it possible to wrap your head around this? A river of beautiful peaceful people. So vast, but so safe. You float in this warm river of happiness and you know: nothing bad will happen to you. And you no longer doubt that this freedom, this love will remain with you forever,” Kolesnikova said.
It is surprising that a conspiracy theory has not yet emerged that it is agents of the Kremlin or Gazprom who are harassing the Maidan activists, but, as already reported, the main accuser of the Russian oligarchs is now worried about NATO on the western borders.
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