Andrei learned

about the conditions in which

Polina Sharenda-Panasyuk is being kept from her letter, which he received through third-hand accounts.

"I write that that day she had a "sanatorium".

I understand that she was then kept in SHIZA, but she simply cannot write it.

And now the colony has a new "chip" - those who will soon be released are forced to sign a paper agreeing to cooperate.

Yes, it is still not enough to sign, but they demand that they tell something right away.

But Polina is not approached with such proposals - she does not immediately agree to any cooperation.

That's why he's in prison again."

That's how Andrey Sharenda started talking about his wife Polina.

Polina is now in a women's colony in the Gomel Region.

She has already served her two years for "insulting" the police and Lukashenka, but she was not released - she was given another year in prison for alleged disobedience.

The new term must end in August, but even now the release of the activist of "European Belarus" who is a prisoner of the police is under question.

We talk about this with Andrei in Vilnius, where he found political asylum and lives with his two young sons.

Colony on the former missile base

Polina Sharendu-Panasyuk is being held in the 24th women's colony in Zarečci, between Goml and Rečica.

Andrei says that his wife is under physical and psychological pressure.

"As soon as she got there (it's been more than six months already), she was in the detachment itself for literally a few days, and mostly in the PKT and SHIZA.

Moreover, it was the first time that a woman was punished for such a long term by being placed in the PKT - as much as six months.

When they found out about the PKT, they even calmed down a little, because they thought it was better than a penal institution," Andrey smiles and shows the congratulatory card he received on his birthday from his wife.

Lists the "privileges" of the person placed in the PKT, which the SHIZA detainee does not have: letters are handed over and received, a mattress is provided for the night, there is an hour's walk.

“But the jailers thought it was too good for her.

After the New Year, they found out that she was regularly thrown into the SHIZA from the PKT.

And, as far as is known, over the past two and a half months Polina has been there for 50 days."

Socks are made from pads

Andrei considers the very placement of his wife in colony No. 24, intended for women who have committed crimes repeatedly, illegal.

This is what he tells about the living conditions in which his wife spent more than 50 days.

"There is a small washbasin by the wall, and in the corner - a "bathroom", holes in the floor.

They don't take them out for walks, they don't send letters from home, they don't give them books.

Sometimes they even torture, because there is nothing to do there.

It's even impossible to sit well - you can't sit on a narrow bench for more than 15 minutes, your legs start to hurt.

From household items, there are feminine hygiene products, one towel, a piece of soap and a toothbrush with paste, otherwise they may not have paste, and then people have to use soap to brush their teeth.

From sanitary napkins, women make something like a pillow, they can make socks to keep warm.

This is such savagery in the 21st century," Andrey Sharenda is indignant

Andrey Sharenda with Polina Sharenda-Panasyuk near the court in Brest (archive photo)

Why were they placed in SHIZA?

SHIZA is a penitentiary in which a convicted person is placed for certain disciplinary violations by the decision of a special commission of the colony administration.

It can be an inaccurate form of clothing, a conflict with other prisoners, a violation of discipline, dust or garbage in the workplace.

"Polina refuses to plead guilty, and when inspectors come to the cell, she does not call herself prone to extremism, to escape, and so on.

This has been the case since the first day of imprisonment.

For 2.5 years, she visited many prisons: in several detention centers, even in a psychiatric clinic for examination, now in the second largest colony - and in all institutions she refuses to submit to the form of presentation that is required of her as a political prisoner — with the recognition of a tendency to extremism," says Andriy Sarenda.

Andrei Sharenda with his son Stakh (archive photo)

According to his information, it was because of the "wrong" report in the colony that a new case was opened against his wife under Article 411 of the Criminal Code for disobedience, and thus a year of imprisonment was added to her.

Now the same thing is repeated in colony No. 24 for recidivists.

"A case was again opened against Polina under Article 411.

And again for allegedly disobeying the "legitimate demands of the administration".

That is, it was expected that Polina will be released in August 2023, but now it is under a big question.

There has been no trial yet, the case is ongoing.

But let's face the truth: Polina will not be released.

It will come out only when this regime is no longer in power."

"With their steadfastness, they do not allow Lukashenka to feel the aroma of victory"

Andrey Sharend believes that the regime is simply afraid of such strong fighters for democracy as Mykola Statkevich, Siarhei Tsikhanovsky, Yevhen Afnagel, Paval Seviarynets and other opposition leaders.

And that's why he threw them behind bars for many years.

"It should be understood that after Lukashenka lost the elections and threw all the competitors and opponents of his regime behind bars, the only thing that prevents him from declaring himself the winner is the presence of political prisoners.

If all of them (or at least some of them) would sign some papers and cooperate with him, then Lukashenka could say that he won.

And after that he could even release them.

But no, these "three hundred Spartans" of ours continue to fight.

And all attempts to break Mikalai Statkevich, other leaders, as well as my wife - they are all in vain, so Lukashenka's fear remains."

Andrei Sarenda shared the results of a recent conversation with the mother of a political prisoner who has been behind bars for two and a half years.

They also talked about the possible negotiations with Lukashenka's regime about the release of political prisoners.

Is it worth going to such negotiations?

"And recently, a reply came from this prisoner from the Navapolatka colony.

And I will remind you that this colony is one of the cruelest in Belarus.

There, people sit in SHIZA for a hundred days, there is a very bad environment added to the harsh administration.

So the political prisoners answer that no, no concessions can be made to the regime, our struggle continues there, we will endure until the regime is overthrown."

Five happiest days

Andrey Sharenda is pleased to recall the events that helped his rapprochement with Polina.

The common love for Belarus, for the native language and history led them both to the Brest branch of the "Young Front" in the mid-90s, but they were brought closer by truly dramatic events that happened much later.

"I graduated from the 37th school in Brest, in the Vulka neighborhood.

My father is a native Belarusian, he was a soldier, a patriot of Belarus.

Together with Mikola Statkevich, my father took the oath of allegiance to Belarus on September 8, 1992.

And he raised me in such a way that I grew up a patriot.

For the first five years of school, I studied in a Belarusian-language class, the Belarusian language became my native language.

Even as a schoolboy, I understood what Lukashenka's regime is leading to - that Belarusian classes are being closed, the history of Belarus is being insulted, and the country's independence seems to be taking place step by step.

That's how I came to the Young Front with such views, and Polina was there," Andrey smiles and admits that at first there was only friendship between them.

And then Polina moved from the "Young Front" to the "Zubr" youth organization, headed its Brest branch.

Romance in Andrey's memories is strongly connected with politics.

"I remember it was a snowy winter, even for Brest, and we were collecting signatures on the street.

And then the period of agitation began, and we stood under white-red-white flags near TSUM or near the market on Pushkinskaya.

And it was so joyful to be able to remind people about our real Belarusian flag!

And some started to forget about him even then," Andrey says and adds that they used all the election campaigns to remind about national symbols and to show that there are people who are ready to fight for them.

"Polina and I participated in the protection of the camp on the Square in 2006.

And those five days of freedom, while the camp existed, were perhaps the best time of my life.

It was very cold, but we were warm.

There were always several hundred young people there, there was a great atmosphere of friendship, one-mindedness.

That square will soon be 17 years old, but those events live on in memory, they became history and an example for new fighters against Lukashenka's regime," Andrei Sharenda is sure.

Since then, Andrey and Polina began to be friends as a boy and a girl, and eventually got married in 2008.

"And a year later, we already had a son," Andrei is proud.

The son's name is Slavomir-Vytaut, and the second son, who was born 7 years later, is called Stakh.

"Polina chose the names, and here she showed her character.

But I wasn't against it," says Andrei Sharenda.

Andrei Sarenda's last meeting with his wife took place in June 2021.

It could not have happened at all if it were not for his persistence.

At that time, Polina was already sentenced to 2 years in prison.

Andrei was then under house arrest, as he was also under investigation.

"There was no hope that I would not be convicted, and the only thing that kept me in Belarus was the hope of seeing Polina at least for a short time after the trial.

Fortunately, it turned out that way.

They gave a date after the verdict.

And I had permission to leave the house for family needs, and I took advantage of it.

The difficulty was that the police were watching me closely, but I managed to outsmart them and I got to the pre-trial detention center on time," Andrei said.

"What is a date in Brest Prison?

Imagine a long corridor with no windows, only doors at the ends of it.

You go in one door, you go out the other.

Just like that, on the other side, there are two doors.

The entire length of the corridor is divided by a wall, tables are attached to it on both sides, and everything above the tables is made of organic glass.

And the glass is double.

There are no holes in it, but there are simply telephones on the tables, so old, still Soviet, but without disks.

And so conversations are going through these headphones.

There were five chairs in each row, but as Polina and I talked, one chair remained unoccupied.

And there was a lot of noise, uproar.

If eight people try to talk into these headphones at the same time, then almost nothing is heard.

There's no point in saying something in the receiver, they won't hear anything anyway, it's done reliably.

Plus, the tables are wide, almost a meter, so there was almost two meters between us.

And it seems to them that this is not enough: behind me there was an employee in civilian clothes, and behind Polina there was an employee of the pre-trial detention center, who was also listening carefully to everything.

That is, it was a meeting with two witnesses."

Andrei Sharenda admits that it was not possible to talk normally, but the impressions remained for a long time.

"I wanted to ask how I should continue to live.

Ask how her health is.

But as soon as she tried to tell about the conditions in which she was kept, the employee cut her off and made it clear that the meeting could be stopped at any moment.

That's why they talked about children, about the weather.

But the main thing is that I saw Polina."

"We miss her stew with vegetables"

Andrei Sharenda says that during the entire time of their married life, he and Polina did not separate, did not annoy each other and at the same time remained like-minded.

"We didn't even have the usual division of family responsibilities: "the husband does this, and the wife does this".

We were interchangeable units both in family life and in political struggle.

As he said, we were always ready to lend each other a shoulder.

I helped her with the children, she could take over some of my business.

Everyone could be politically active.

At the same time, I emphasize, she was always a very good mother, she cooked wonderfully, the children loved the dishes she prepared.

We now really miss Polina's dishes, which simply cannot be replaced by anything.

For her wonderful salads, for various stews with vegetables."

Andrey says that he was not present in the apartment when Polina was detained, because he was already behind bars.

But he knows exactly how and what happened to her then.

"I was detained even before the elections, as a precaution, and I spent all the first historical events behind bars.

And I already went to another Belarus, which was preparing to rise.

It was a real shock and a real joy.

It seemed that victory was about to come.

But, unfortunately, the regime took advantage of our confusion, our disunity, and managed to suppress the protests.

Detentions and repressions began.

Already in September, at one of the actions in Brest, I was brutally detained, my finger was broken, my arm was dislocated, and my ribs were broken.

Then I spent another 30 days behind bars.

They were detained for the third time already before the New Year.

There was a roundup of activists, and I just couldn't avoid it, I was taken near my house when I was walking with my youngest son, who was 4 years old at the time.

They told the mother to leave, because the little son might stay outside.

Polina came out and started filming my arrest, how I was being dragged into the car.

And she couldn't stand it and called them fascists," Andrei Sharenda recalled.

On the second of January, while Andrei was in the Brest ICU, the police came to their house to search.

The reason was a criminal case for the fact that Polina called the police and the government fascists.

On January 3, Polina Sharenda-Panasyuk was put behind bars, and her husband Andrei was soon released from the ICU.

As he drowned in the swamp

Belarusian political refugees in Lithuania and Poland tell each other this story.

It was, Andrei admits, but assures that everything was not so dangerous.

Explaining how everything was right.

That he crossed the border together with a girl, also a political fugitive, and together they got into the swamp.

But not because they were wrong.

"Why did you have to leave the planned route?

Then the emigrant crisis flared up and we came across the camp of these refugees.

And they saw that Belarusian border guards were with them, actually guarding them.

After all, migrants were lighting fires, and border guards' cars were standing behind them.

They were with dogs, but they did not push anyone out.

We quietly, until we were not noticed, turned off the path and took another path that led us into the swamp.

They really experienced some difficult minutes there.

Trembling reached the chest.

But they got out.

The more it was summer, they dried up.

And when they crossed the border, they quickly met Lithuanian border guards," said the fugitive.

According to Andrei, he did not feel great joy that he escaped from Belarus

"Rather despair, emptiness, that you are being deprived of your homeland, and ahead of you is life in exile.

And this is not a fairy tale, it is hard work, responsibility, and for me, in any case, it is foreign.

The Lithuanian border guards treated us well.

I applied for political asylum in Lithuania - this is a standard procedure.

By the way, while we were at the border post, the migrants we saw with our border guards came there.

And they were clean, in white sneakers, because they were clearly not walking through the swamp, like us, but on the road.

Our border guards escorted them to the border, that's understandable.

At that time, Lithuanians still allowed migrants to cross their border.

I know that some of them were later returned to Belarus, but some of them were later sent to Europe.

Those who were with their families definitely received asylum."

Do the children ask Andrew where their mother is when she comes back?

The interlocutor admits that this is a difficult question for him, and explains why.

"If the eldest son remembers his mother well, he lived with her all his life, he understands everything himself, then it is more difficult for the youngest, he only has his mother in photographs.

He was only 4 years old when he last saw her, and in a few days he will be 7 years old.

Almost all conscious life without mom.

That's why I tell a lot about Polina, I play videos with her for the children, we look at photos so that she seems to be there.

The eldest son writes her letters.

But letters from her are very rare, they are simply not passed from SHIZA and PKT, where she is kept all the time," Andrey says.

The activist is outraged that hundreds of children have to go through this in Belarus today.

Do the letters of the eldest son reach Polina?

Andrei answers this question positively.

But with a caveat: it was like that before, and what will happen now is unknown.

"The only thing that was missed was the letters from the eldest son.

When Polina was in the Gomel colony, letters from me were also missed, but not now.

Of course, my son does not write about political things, he writes about success at school, how to study, about our travels.

Fortunately, words about love for mom also reach.

In any case, until December, such letters arrived, but now the connection has been lost and it is difficult to say what is arriving and what is not.

One thing is clear: that she is now in complete isolation."

The capital, where the president walks without a cortege

Andrei Sharenda lives with his children in Vilnius.

In his opinion, refugees from Belarus are very friendly in Lithuania.

The warm reception, care for everyday life and integration were not damaged by the problems that arose in connection with Russia's aggression against Ukraine, believes the Belarusian activist.

"Lithuanians understand that the aggressor towards Ukraine is not the Belarusian people, but Lukashenka's regime.

Another reason why we are happy here is because there is a very friendly diaspora here, there are organizations that help Belarusians.

They help to adapt here in such a difficult period.

And the difficult period is the first months when a person arrives here.

For example, I was waiting for refugee status for the first 5 months.

Unfortunately, this process was delayed because there was a migrant crisis.

This led to the fact that the Lithuanian migration services simply collapsed and the cases of Belarusian refugees were considered for a very long time."

Andrei Sarenda recently completed the training course for an accountant and auditor, received a diploma and spent a month interning in a Lithuanian company.

He says that he has better understood the mentality of Lithuanians and how their financial system is structured.

It is hoped that this knowledge will be useful during life in the new Belarus.

"What is happening today in Lithuania can be called an economic miracle.

Such an economic miracle happened a few years ago in Poland, and now we see the same in Lithuania.

And one of the engines of this success was several tens of thousands of Belarusians who came here after 2020.

This is the IT field;

also many Belarusians have occupied the niche of drivers, work in the field of logistics.

Lithuania supports those Belarusians who came here in every possible way," says the fugitive.

Andrei Sarenda believes that Belarusians should imitate the Lithuanian experience

"First of all, I got a good look at how democracy works.

That people here really pick and choose.

And how does the presidential system work.

Here I live not far from the Old Town, and before that I lived in the Yellow Town.

So many times I have seen how the President of Lithuania Nauseda goes to work.

There is no cortege with them, there are no guards.

He comes with one, probably an advisor and one bodyguard.

It's going smoothly.

And he goes to have lunch in a regular restaurant, where you can also go, sit down at the next table and eat at that time.

This is real democracy, when the president does not need to hide from his citizens.

This is exactly what Belarus should strive for, so that everything is open and transparent."

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