Sevyarynets Recounted How, in Summer 2020 at Akrestsina, Detention Center Staff Gave Him Salo and Water

“In late July 2020, incredible things began to happen at the Akrestsina pre-trial detention center.

Political prisoners, detained during protests, periodically ended up in the solitary confinement cell next to mine for several days. I started talking to them through the ventilation system and the sink pipe (it was dry without water, the sound was excellent) — and I learned that people were fighting OMON outside, that thousands of people were taking to the streets in Belarusian cities, and that a 60,000-strong rally in support of Tsikhanouskaya, where my Volya spoke, had taken place in Bangalore Square.

So, various detention center staff members silently began to pass me pieces of salo and candies, wrapped in a fresh page of "Belarusian Newspaper" with relevant news, through the neighbor's food hatch during lunch. It must be said, they risked their heads.

A kind shift, which secretly slipped me water in half-liter plastic bottles through the food slot, also silently brought a full five-liter bottle into the cell during one of the evening checks. However, I didn't have time to indulge — the next morning's check, accompanied by swearing, removed the water.

— Who gave it? Who allowed it?!

Well, I thought, my good shift is done for. They'll be fired. But no. They came the next day, winking. This means that even those who were swearing didn't report them to the superiors. Or the superiors just waved it off, as if to say, it's not the time for that.

On the fifty-sixth day after my detention (!), I was finally taken to the shower. Moreover, the citizen head of the detention center did it personally, accompanied by only one guard.

— Maybe I should give you a razor, so you can shave? (and I had an almost two-month-old beard).

Ah. If anything happened, they wanted to pretend that they kept me in good conditions here. Well, I thought, they've started scurrying, comrades. They don't know how it will turn out. They're starting to waver. A little more pressure — and colonels and generals will tumble.

I refused to shave. I decided I would emerge like Fidel Castro.

— As you wish, — the head courteously shrugged. — It suits you like that too.

(Imagine such a dialogue today in Kalyadichy or Shklov, my political friends. What?! You won't shave?! They'd tear your head off along with that beard.)

Finally, during one of the “trials” (and I was repeatedly sent back for “days”), one of the guards whispered a warning that criminals in the cells with water, to which I was transferred once a week, were informing on the administration.

In short, by early August, all signs of a classic wavering among security forces before decisive events were evident from within the system. As it is written in the Bible — “even the demons believe—and tremble!”

The only part of the system that remained unwavering turned out to be the informants. They continued to skillfully 'dig up information' and 'expose,' provoke and report, even though they understood what was happening outside.

I did not notice a single 'slip-up' among the informants, neither in July nor even in August. Even then I remembered Solzhenitsyn, who knew and described this breed perfectly. While the security forces at a decisive moment could switch to the side of the people and hope for amnesty — the informants knew there would be no mercy for them.

In 2020, the system largely held up due to operational departments and informant networks. Every security officer knew: if he acted truthfully — the informant and the operative would betray him and 'eat him alive'.

More details about the informants with whom I found myself in a cell in early August 2020 — next time,” wrote Pavel Sevyarynets.

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