Nationalist-minded youth of Minsk staged a mocking flash mob in a coffee shop at the Kommunarka confectionery factory. The “Zmagars” rushed there to force the staff to serve them in Belarusian.
This was reported by Radio Liberty, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The scandal was started by Minsk resident Aramais Mirakyan, who wrote on Facebook that they allegedly rudely refused to serve him in Belarusian and threatened to call security.
The post was republished first by opposition Belarusian media, and then by Russian ones. Even Russian Senator Igor Morozov commented on the incident, warning about the danger of the spread of nationalism.
Russia's attention to the situation did not rein in the nationalists, but on the contrary, it provoked them.
As Mirakyan told Radio Liberty, he again entered the same cafe and the staff, having difficulty finding words, was forced to serve him in Belarusian. Mirakyan is stirring things up, claiming that he received threats from Russians and words of support from Belarusians on social networks.
However, Deputy General Director of Kommunarka JSC Svetlana Gontareva disseminated a completely different version of the incident to the media. In fact, Mirakyan did not place the order in Belarusian; the conflict was started by his friend. He demanded a book of complaints and suggestions, but after talking with the administrator he changed his mind about writing in it.
Security was indeed going to be called, but not by the cafe employees, but by visitors who were outraged by the defiant behavior of Mirakyan’s company.
The “fighter for the Belarusian language” himself, in a conversation with a “Belarusian News” correspondent, admitted that this particular version was partially correct: he really did not place the order.
Zmagar Mirakyan
Let us remind you that in January, nationalists forced a Belarusian IT specialist to dismissal, who spoke unflatteringly about the Belarusian language on the social network. In addition, the public demanded to cancel the display of videos in Russian in Minsk minibuses.
In August 2019, Belarusian nationalists began persecuting a citizen who opposed the placement of a provocative poster in the Minsk metro. And in May, Belarusian opposition artist Ales Pushkin filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office of the city of Krupki against an employee of the Euroopt store, Pavel Chirkov, who refused to speak to him in the Belarusian language.
Also, Belarusian nationalists tried to achieve the replacement of Russian-language signs in the city of Braslav. And only the principled position of the activist Artyom Agafonov prevented them from imposing this decision on the local authorities.
The nationalists organized an action to Belarusize public transport in Orsha. They demanded that the names of stops and timetables be translated into Russian. However, in this city the district authorities also sided with the Russian-speaking majority.
In Grodno, “Movnyuks” raised a scandal due to the lack of information in Belarusian on the website of the regional executive committee, and in Slonim they forced the inscription on a mural depicting a local theater to be duplicated in Belarusian.