Runaway youth activist works as builder in Russia to survive
Mikita Krasnou, former
leader of the democratic organization Free
Youth and one of the leaders of the Citizen
campaign, has experienced the burden of this forced escape from Belarus. KGB
searched the apartments of his parents, grandmother and girlfriend at the end
of December and he was named as a suspect in the criminal case on “mass riot”.
Then he decided to leave Belarus
as soon as possible and left for Russia
and then for Lithuania.
To tell the truth, not a single member of the group of Belarusians escaping
repressions went to Vilnius
with Mikita applied for the status of political refugees. In the first place,
everyone was going to return to Belarus
as soon as they could and their Belarusian passports would have been taken away
during to the procedure, explains Mikita. Secondly, accommodation in the
refugee camp does not allow any civil activities. Furthermore, representatives
of international organizations and Lithuanian MPs recognized them as refugees
de-facto and promised to help the runaways.
However, life in Vilnius
turned out to be harder than expected. Mikita had to live here and there in Vilnius for three months
and kept borrowing money from relatives and friends.
At the same time, Andrei Liantsevich, a member of Uladzimir Nyaklyayeu’s initiative
group and activist of Movement for Future,
does not have a Schengen visa and has to survive in Russia.
"I’m living at my friends now. They found me in the street and I got
acquainted with them at the railway terminal. I am
working as a builder to survive”.
