Kasia Syramalot, 32, sat beside her apartment window, watching snow blanket her native Minsk and waiting for news of her sister, imprisoned the last three months. This past November, Kseniya Syramalot, a student of philosophy and social science at the Belarusian State University, was taken from her parents’ home by the secret police, becoming one of tens of thousands of people detained by the government in the wake of last August’s presidential elections, which the European Union declared rigged. She turned 21 inside the infamous Amerikanka penitentiary, used since the Soviet era to house political dissidents. Although she and her family were initially allowed to exchange letters, the prison censor recently took ill with COVID-19, and since then all communication has gone through their lawyer. “It is still hard to cry,” Kasia told me via Zoom. “I have no tears. It is a constant situation of danger … [but] normal life is still here—like nice coffee shops, friends, good people.”
And so Kasia keeps going as best she can, waiting for her sister’s release or for the visit from the secret police that will reunite them. Kasia and Kseniya are part of a generation of Belarusians who make up the majority of the opposition in Belarus, young people caught between the hope of normal, democratic life and the stifling reality of Europe’s most persistent dictatorship. As the regime cracks down, the most productive and creative portions of Belarusian society are being forced into prison, exile, or retreat.
