After receiving the status of a fugitive in Latvia, I hardly slept the first night, because I thought that I no longer have a Belarusian passport and that I might never get to the graves of my relatives.

Mourning that Lukashenka's regime took away from me was strangely intertwined with joy that another country gave me asylum and that now life will slowly return to normal - I will leave the refugee camp, rent an apartment, open a bank account and register with a family doctor .

Acquaintances both congratulated and sympathized on receiving a new status, but it was difficult for me to determine what was more appropriate here.

Now the regime is going to take away the passports of those Belarusian men and women whom it considers unreliable.

Emotionally, it can be a new ordeal for people.

Those who suffered for their activism and were forced to flee their homeland, and without it, often feel hurt and abandoned.

And now there will be no passport either.

It is interesting, of course, that the so-called authorities call for repentance and return to Belarus - and at the same time plan to deprive those who are recognized as extremists of citizenship.

But systems thinking has never been their forte.

Something else is interesting here.

By forcibly depriving people who fled Belarus of their citizenship, the regime wants to make life difficult for them.

But it is unlikely that respected extremists and extremists had better news in recent months than the news that it is so easy to get rid of a document that now only brings them problems.

And the emotional upheaval from the fact that now you definitely cannot hope for some thaw in the repressions and quietly return home.

You just have to survive.

Burn out, get angry, be sad and accept that the new reality is like this.

And in this reality, the absence of a Belarusian passport is a huge plus and a kind of alibi.

If you were deprived of your passport, it means that you are definitely against Lukashenka's regime, which tortures its own people and allows shooting of strangers.

For almost a year and a half that I have a refugee travel document instead of a Belarusian passport and a permanent residence permit in Latvia, I have seen in practice that this has many advantages, and only one drawback.

I now need to apply for a visa to a number of countries, such as Ukraine and Turkey.

But, unlike those who fled on their own but kept their Belarusian documents, I have no problems opening a bank account or renewing my residence permit for the new year.

Of course, it is very painful to realize that my homeland chewed me up and spit me out, but I try to look at it as a break in an abusive relationship.

I still love my home, but as long as there is a person there who does not wish me anything good, but only wants to make fun of me, then I myself have nothing to do there.

And you don't have to carry the keys with you.

All the same, then you will have to change the locks and make repairs.

The opinions expressed in the blogs represent the views of the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position.

• Nasta Zakharevich

  Freelance journalist, radical feminist

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