Tucked under a bridge in the center of Warsaw is a bar like no other, Karma, which over the years has fled repression and war, moving from Belarus to Ukraine to Poland.
And along the way, the bar has become a home away from home for tattooed young men who drink beer, roll cigarettes and engage in conversation in their mother tongue.
“This bar never wanted to be a street bar… It was just to keep our community together,” says co-owner Gleb Kovalev, with a scruffy black beard and body tattooed from head to toe.
“When things became much more political, we had to move and stay together,” the hyperactive 31-year-old man tells AFP, eating a sausage and drinking whiskey and cola.
The Belarusian regime unleashed a brutal crackdown on historic opposition protests in 2020. And, in February 2022, it served as the platform for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
These events have driven thousands of Belarusians and Ukrainians to seek refuge in neighboring Poland, a furious critic of both the Kremlin and its allies in Minsk.
Many of these newcomers end up at Karma, a bar that was born in Belarus in 2017.
Kovalev, who speaks seven languages, is sitting in a makeshift lounge on the pavement behind the bar. There are a couple of cabinets, a worn rug, and potted plants.
It’s a weekday and the night is still young, but a dozen Belarusians are already enjoying drinks, their laughter blending with the traffic above.
“I’ve been to every Karma bar,” says Anton Lutsevich, a 3D artist from Bobruisk Municipality (central Belarus). All around him he sees familiar faces from the original Karma.
“Many of them are here now, many were in kyiv (…). Karma is like a sitcom. You come here and you see the same characters,” the lanky 23-year-old tells AFP.
His friend once escaped from riot police through a cemetery in Minsk.
“Your homeland is not a place, it is the people of your country,” says Andrey Makarevich, a 27-year-old engineer from the northeastern city of Vitebsk. “I feel like I’m home here,” he adds.
– Police raid –
Karma opened at the end of 2017 in the Belarusian capital as an artsy bar with music and free tattoos every Monday. A place to “have parties” as Kovalev says.
Then came August 9, 2020, when veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko crushed protests against allegations of fraud in his election for a sixth term.
“It was the night that changed everything in our lives… My bar was raided by riot police,” says Kovalev.
“I was inside hiding people and I saw the police out of control, smashing faces,” he adds.
“I was within two meters of being stopped. So yes, I decided to march.”
The second Karma opened last year in kyiv, before the Russian invasion forced it to pack up again.
Warsaw’s version of Karma has been going on since June, attracting mainly Belarusians, but also Ukrainians, Russian opponents, other foreigners and occasionally Poles.
“It’s quite a migrant bar… We welcome everyone who shares our values,” says Kovalev. “Art, music, tattoos, a certain degree of democracy and freedom that we didn’t have in the places we fled from, and also peace,” he lists.
For Alex Chekonov, a regular customer, Karma is a refuge where “everyone will help you”. “He’s always happy, always cheerful,” says the 32-year-old computer scientist.
– “Russian Roulette” –
Although young and jubilant, many clients carry a traumatic past.
“I’m not going back because I’m scared,” says Veronika Lindorenko, a 32-year-old consultant who participated in the Belarusian protests.
“There’s a high risk of jail time, because I’ve been quite active and it’s like Russian roulette. You never know,” she says, making a hand gesture of shooting herself in the temple.
The woman has already spent ten days in detention after an argument with the police while supporting some strikers in court.
“I don’t want to remember all this because it’s quite painful,” he says.
Lindorenko fled to Ukraine when she learned that the authorities wanted to question her. Then he had to start again from scratch in Poland.
His case reaffirms Kovalev’s theory about being an immigrant.
“It’s very hard to lose everything just the first time. The second time is fine. And the third,” he says.
“It’s going to be even easier now because there are a lot of people who have lost everything like me. You just have to come together and recreate it,” he says.
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