A personal report by the Belarusian conductor
Vitali Alekseenok.
Vitali Alekseenok, who now lives in Germany, writes in a moving and illuminating way about the struggle for freedom in his former home country, which he left several years ago, not least out of frustration at the political situation there.
As a musician, he has found a new home in Germany, but Belarus has never fully released him. When he travels to Minsk in summer 2020 to vote in the election, he experiences a protest movement which would have been inconceivable a few years earlier, and wonders: What has happened to people in his homeland?
In a personal report, which overlays current observations with past experiences, Alekseenok writes of change taking place in a country that we do not know. Of life under Lukashenko's totalitarian regime. Of why he left Belarus, and now takes risks in order to participate in the protest. Of how Belarusians' hope grew greater than their fear. And of how the message from Belarus is a wake up call for us all. Because the Belarusians know very well what it means to have to live without freedom and democracy.
