2023-06-16 13:08:27
- Vitaly Kozlovsky 49 years old, he is from Zaslav.
- In April 2022, he was sentenced to two years of “chemistry” under Article 342 of the Criminal Code “Organization or preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them.”
- The man was convicted for participating in the Sunday march on August 30, 2020.
- Mr. Kozlovsky did not make it to “chemistry”, he was evacuated to Lithuania with the help of the BYSOL Foundation.
Vitaliy Kozlovsky told the correspondent of Svaboda about his life.
“The Case of the Middle Finger”
“When about a thousand protesters gathered on the sidewalks, we went out onto the avenue. Police vans were sneaking here and there along the avenue, trying to drive us off the road. It happened that the bus stopped, and people “in civilian clothes” ran out of it, simulating the beginning of the arrests. But we did not give up. Then they climbed back into the bus and drove off. A psychological resistance arose.”
This is how former political prisoner Vitaly Kozlovsky recalls the events of August 30, 2020 in Minsk. Then Vitali once again took part in a protest march against election falsification. That day, the man was caught on surveillance video, which brought him to the dock in the “middle finger case” a year and a half later. This is how Vitali calls his own case according to part 1 of Article 342 – about participation in actions that grossly violate public order.
“We gradually became bolder, and the police – on the contrary. He himself saw how the protesters tried to fight back the detainees. Or how the “quiet” hid from the protesters in their beads. And so we walk along such a squad with batons, which stands ready, but I did not receive the command to use force, and I dare to show the middle finger of the hand to the Omapo video cameraman. That’s how I got into their video database,” Vitaly Kozlovsky recalls the event that led to his arrest and later trial.
But they did not come to detain him immediately, but only after a year and a half – on the last day of January 2022. Now he mentions it almost with a smile.
“A guy who looked like an electrician rang the doorbell. I opened it – and immediately three operatives of GUBAZiK jumped into the house. They showed me screenshots with my middle finger and announced that they would take it with them. They also conducted a search, took two phones and a laptop. They took out under the elbows. Next, I was expected to spend ten days on Akrestin and 78 days on “Valodarka”.
“As a historian, it was interesting to see the Gestapo”
Mr. Kozlowski’s memories are especially emotional – about GUBAZiK employees and riot police.
“Their hatred for people with different views is simply insane, they treat us like garbage. “We will put you in prison” is the mildest threat,” says former detainee GUBAZiKu.
After the interrogation, Vitaly sat on the floor facing the wall for a long time. He remembers how he heard a boss shouting at the detainee.
“I could never imagine such a thing anywhere. Except in the fascist Gestapo. As a historian, of course, I would be interested to see the Gestapo. But in life, God forbid we meet again,” Vitaly admits.
Why did he plead guilty?
At first, Vitaly did not admit guilt. Even during the recording on the camera, he refused to identify himself in the video, where he shows the middle finger to the riot police.
“The recording was not of very good quality, it was possible to pretend that it was not me. But he met a detainee on Akrestsin, who convinced him with his own experience that it is better not to be heroic – the necessary evidence will still be obtained. All the more so the investigator promised: “If you confess, you will only get “chemistry”. That’s how it happened.”
According to Vitaly, the marches in Minsk were a difficult test, although they brought great satisfaction and hope for victory. And also the feeling of involvement in an important, historical case.
Vitaly is no less proud of his participation in the actions of a small number of protesters in his native Zaslav, which took place between the capital’s Sunday marches. After all, he came to Minsk with his friends as a participant, and in Zaslav his role was more significant.
“Marching through a town with 16,000 inhabitants is not at all the same risk as in Minsk with a population of two million. And there are many more difficulties. We had to foresee everything: not only where and when we would gather, so that the police wouldn’t have time to “cover up”, but also where we would leave later, what transport we would be able to use in order to save ourselves and get out again.”
“They put flip flops under the kidneys so as not to fall on the concrete”
Vitaly Kozlovsky has been writing poems since his youth. Here’s what he wrote on “The Sovereign”:
Remember bones, kidneys and liver
Akrestsyn concrete of the evil kartsar.
And on the “Voladarka”, sitting on the bench,
I am waiting for “longitudinal” letters.
Vitali stayed in Akrestin for 10 days, most of them in prison.
“At Akrestin, in the first place, my cell on the fourth floor was led on all fours, with handcuffs behind my back, my left arm was broken so that I was touching the nose of the steps. Probably, after that I had a micro-rupture of the brachial muscle. During certain movements, it burned and tingled for the next two months,” Vitaly recalls the first days in Akrestin.
Vitaly describes the conditions in the prison in short sentences:
“Concrete floor, one bed, which is attached to the wall for the day. A small window closed with “blinds”. Open toilet, sink. Suffocation and overcrowding, because there are eight of us in a tiny cell. They slept like seals: they put a plastic bottle under their heads, and flip flops under their kidneys so they wouldn’t catch a cold.”
“Starazhenka was all bruised”
Vitaliy Kozlovsky calculated: for six days in the prison, he met at least 25 people detained for political reasons. Among them were well-known people: guitarist Vasyl Yarmolenko, former investigator Nikita Starozhenka, who resigned in protest against violence.
“Somehow Nikita pulled up his shirt and showed his bruised back, arms, legs – all covered in blue spots and bruises. He explained that this is how they beat out his mobile phone password. He endured for a long time, he didn’t give up until they put a plastic bag on his head and even at that moment they beat him on the head.”
According to Vitaly Kozlovsky, Nikita Starozhenka did not have a high temperature in Akrestin prison.
“They even refused to take him to Voladark from Akrestin – such was his risky state of health. But the Akrestin guards themselves did not suffer – they don’t care,” Vitaly Kozlovsky is surprised.
In the detention center on Volodarsky, where Kozlovsky was waiting for trial for almost three months, he met and befriended another well-known political prisoner – the former director of the BelaPAN agency Dmitrii Navazhilov. They sat in the same cell, endured the hardships of prison life together.
“It smells like thyme”
About himself, Vitaliy Kozlovsky says that he was helped by several things to withstand the trials of slavery: the solidarity of his friends, his passion for Belarusian culture, and the hardening he underwent in his youth when he served in the Belarusian army.
“The importance of words of support increases tremendously in prison. When you receive such words in a letter or from friends on the phone, it’s like recharging the battery. New forces appear. True, there were very few letters: the prison censorship allowed only letters from relatives – brother, father – but blocked letters from friends. Only postcards for religious holidays came from them. But somehow, during a walk in the prison yard, I found the inscription “It smells like thyme”. I felt like I was among like-minded people again, as if I had received support from them. And then he rhymed those impressions,” Vitaly Kozlovsky said and quoted a piece of his prison poem.
They slammed the door with an old bolt,
Maybe they will lead to yard No. 5.
Again I will read the words on the plaster
It’s too early to miss that our thyme smells.
“Charka-crack, paw-fiddle”
Vitaly Kozlovsky graduated from the Belarusian Academy of Arts, has a diploma of art critic. In Zaslav, Vital worked for many years in the local museum, started as a guide, rose to the position of deputy director, and dreamed of improving the exposition.
“The idea was to give the museum in Zaslav a scientific level that would correspond to the historical status of the city of Iziaslav. I worked on this scientific concept in a purposeful way, because what we had then and what we have now, when we turned our museum into an ordinary provincial exposition – a glass-squeak, a lapti-fiddle, was not satisfactory,” Vitaly Kozlovsky explains.
Acquaintance with the artist Viktar Markauts was the impetus for such serious work. They met quite by chance. At the art exhibition, Vitaly, an ordinary employee of the local museum, himself approached the famous master of painting. The conversation became interesting for both, they shared views, found many common topics and gradually became friends. Vitaly believes that then he was doubly lucky, because he met both a talented friend and a Belarusian teacher.
In the mid-2010s, Vitaly had to leave the Zaslav museum. He worked at various enterprises of Zaslav – for a much higher salary, but not according to his specialty and not because of the desire of his soul.
“But he did not break the connection with Belarushchyna, it even strengthened. All of us remain devoted to our cause,” says Vitaliy Kozlovsky.
As a historian and researcher, he continues to work – regularly publishes parts of scientific work about his native Zaslav.
How hazing helped
Vitaly shared a specific experience that helped him withstand the trials of imprisonment. The future museum employee acquired this experience in the mid-1990s, when he served in air defense in Volozhin. What Vitaly saw in the army will forever be remembered as an example of stupidity, corruption and waste of human resources.
“When I went to the conscription point, I assumed that hazing remained in the Soviet army. But it turned out that it did not go anywhere in the Belarusian army, and even acquired new forms,” Vitaliy recalled that period of his life.
The man listed what he encountered during his service near Volozhin: endless and senseless murder, humiliation, including for profit, moral abuse of young soldiers, elementary robbery.
“For example, young people were forced to participate in fist fights, during which “grandfathers” made food bets. Or such a test: every trip of young soldiers to the store ended with their elders beating them, trying to take away the purchased products. Because, you see, they had to share with “grandfather” and “great-grandfathers”.
According to Vitaliy, when relatives came to the young soldier, then the elders took away the food and gifts from him. According to the former political prisoner, officers play a special role in maintaining these orders in the Belarusian army.
“You ask why the officers don’t keep order so that there is no hazing? So they have something completely different in mind – how to snatch a piece for themselves. Almost every day at our place began with a kind of distribution of work orders: the colonel needs three fighters to dig potatoes, the major needs two barn builders, the captain needs to move to a new apartment, a whole department is sent to haul furniture. And so all one and a half years of service. And when the commander leaves the territory of the unit, the senior officers go to the warehouse to take what is left. Only young lieutenants still cared a little about the service, but not until they became captains. And then the same thing. I guess not much has changed since then,” says Vitaly Kozlovsky about the Belarusian army.
“Belarusians pull any job”
At the end of 2022, having received a sentence of two years of “chemistry”, Vitaly Kozlovsky escaped from Belarus. First he went to Georgia, from there he moved to Lithuania. Now he lives in Vilnius, works in a company engaged in eco-services – cleaning up garbage, waste, and cleaning. He admits that the work is difficult, sometimes he is busy from morning to late evening. Lithuanians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Poles work in the company with Vitaly. Vitaly’s observations about joint work with them are as follows.
“I can honestly say that employers especially appreciate the endurance and work capacity of Belarusians and Lithuanians, in this sense we are very close – both endurance and stamina are enough. I am satisfied, although, of course, I dream of returning to my native Zaslav. I can imagine how beautiful it is now, what warm evenings there are over the Chernitsa River. I imagine how recently, in May, nightingales were singing in the vicinity of the city. I dream of returning there even for a day, but I know that the way to the homeland will not be easy for political refugees like you. You can’t do without a struggle.”
Here is the last part of the poem that Vitaly Kozlovsky wrote in prison:
And let the passage of the sky be closed
I have left from the blue distances,
Friends, because of you, because of you, I breathe in the crypts
Every walk from bars to bricks.
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