Henadz Veratsinski: “If a photograph captures a moment, then the photographer is not its shadow — but its witness in history”

This inter­view is part of the col­lec­tion “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion”, a liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny to the cre­ative and civic pres­ence of those who have not lost their voice even in exile.

Henadz Ver­atsin­s­ki

The col­lec­tion tells the sto­ry of the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award, found­ed by the Belaru­sian PEN in part­ner­ship with the Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Press Club Belarus and Free Press for East­ern Europe endow­ment fund. The col­lec­tion will be pre­sent­ed on Novem­ber 15, 2025 at 5:00 PM dur­ing a dis­cus­sion with the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award at the Euro­pean Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cen­ter (Europe­jskie Cen­trum Sol­i­darnoś­ci, Gdańsk, pl. Sol­i­darnoś­ci 1).

In Moscow, people were allowed into stores only with their passports, and in Omsk, you wouldn’t be sold a loaf of bread if you weren’t a local

Henadz, has it ever occurred to you that the click of a cam­era shut­ter is akin to the sound of a sniper’s rifle trig­ger?

Today, pho­tographs, film footage, and tele­vi­sion reports can all become grounds for severe per­se­cu­tion. My under­stand­ing of respon­si­bil­i­ty for what’s in the frame didn’t come right away. I was for­tu­nate to have tak­en up pho­tog­ra­phy at a dif­fer­ent time. It wasn’t easy, but it was much safer. When­ev­er I saw some­thing inter­est­ing, I took a pic­ture. Every­thing was sim­pler, like crack­ing nuts.

The abil­i­ty to observe and tru­ly see isn’t giv­en to every­one… In your case, was it shaped by your work as a pho­to­jour­nal­ist — assign­ment after assign­ment — or is it the result of your own intu­ition for sto­ries?

I am an autonomous pho­to hunter. I searched for events and tracked them based on a sim­ple prin­ci­ple: what, where, and when. Over time, I real­ized that, for many peo­ple, the cam­era serves as emo­tion­al sup­port and moti­va­tion to be deter­mined. I began to con­trol myself so that, in pur­suit of a cool shot, I would not harm any­one in it.

When the crack­down start­ed, I removed any­thing that could be con­sid­ered dan­ger­ous from my Face­book feed. I did so wher­ev­er pos­si­ble to avoid putting peo­ple under fire. I absolute­ly can­not fath­om why peo­ple ignore today’s polit­i­cal pho­to hygiene.

When and why did the desire arise to cap­ture a moment in time with­in a sin­gle instant?

I bought my first Kiev-19 film cam­era in 1988. My work played a role. I trav­eled con­stant­ly around the USSR. It was a vast coun­try with so much beau­ty every­where. So I start­ed with land­scapes. Then the break­down of the 1990s hit. There was no time for emo­tions — we had to sur­vive. I earned mon­ey by pho­tograph­ing chil­dren in Gorky Park between my work trips. Then, I began teach­ing chil­dren in my dark­room.

If I may ask, what kind of work was that? Few peo­ple man­aged to trav­el all across the Union. Back then, peo­ple didn’t trav­el much — not to Europe, not even around the Sovi­et Union. Vis­its to Vil­nius, Tbil­isi, and Bratsk gave you emo­tions that were sup­posed to last a life­time. Peo­ple only went some­where once every few years. Did you com­pare Belarus with oth­er republics?

I hap­pened to work on refrig­er­at­ed trains. We trans­port­ed food and oth­er goods. The wheels rat­tled, and the land­scape out­side the win­dows grad­u­al­ly changed, but life hung in the bal­ance along the assumed admin­is­tra­tive bor­der. By the way, our coun­try had already become “squeaky clean” long before Lukashen­ka came to pow­er. Even then, there was no mod­el of order along the roads. As soon as you enter Rus­sia, you’re greet­ed by garbage, mud, and knee-deep pud­dles.

When the train stopped, we would go to the store, but the shelves were emp­ty. We didn’t even both­er ask­ing about meat or sausage. If the sta­tion shops had bread, canned food, and cheap fish, you were lucky. It was the oth­er way around — the sell­ers want­ed to buy some­thing from us for their own tables: “Come on, you’re from Byelorus­sia!” The nineties saw a peak short­age. Even Moscow stores required pass­ports to enter and checked reg­is­tra­tion. In Omsk, they wouldn’t sell you a loaf of bread because you’re not a local.

Henadz Ver­atsin­s­ki. Self-por­trait. 2015

Did you notice any shifts in people’s atti­tudes or sen­ti­ments? First, sausages became unavail­able, and then liv­er­wurst dis­ap­peared. And then — unthink­able — vod­ka coupons were intro­duced. Did anger and protest ener­gy accu­mu­late? They were drag­ging us into the swamp!

Strong pub­lic apa­thy pre­vent­ed an explo­sion. Accord­ing to Sovi­et tra­di­tion, peo­ple wait­ed for some­one good to come and fix every­thing for them. And, in a way, they did see some­thing arrive. After a brief out­burst in Moscow in 1990, goods they had long been wait­ing for sud­den­ly appeared on store shelves. As long as you had the mon­ey in your pock­et, you could have it all. But every­thing soon returned to its for­mer state of pover­ty.

It was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent in the Union republics. Peo­ple every­where grum­bled qui­et­ly that they were feed­ing Rus­sia and the entire Union while receiv­ing only crumbs them­selves. When I was in Kaza­khstan or Uzbek­istan, the sit­u­a­tion was worse. “We will slaugh­ter the Rus­sians,” some said. In Azer­bai­jan, it went even fur­ther. We were trav­el­ing along the Caspi­an Sea when the train was shot at repeat­ed­ly. The attack­ers demand­ed mon­ey and engaged in rack­e­teer­ing. You were sup­posed to pay them when­ev­er you passed through their train sta­tions.

Did you ever have to talk your way out of emer­gen­cies, say­ing some­thing like, “Guys, I’m not Russ­ian — I’m Belaru­sian!”? Did it work?

I did. Some­times, how­ev­er, the sit­u­a­tion was esca­lat­ed by fools or provo­ca­teurs. In Uzbek­istan, I saw one like that — a big man with a long beard like Ivan the Ter­ri­ble, shout­ing, “I’m Russ­ian! If I want to, I’ll walk into anyone’s place! Close the door — I’ll kick it down with my boot.” Out­ward­ly, only a few behaved that bru­tal­ly, but per­haps that fool­ish feel­ing of being enti­tled lived inside many.

But we were taught for a hun­dred years dur­ing our child­hood and youth: Kaza­khs, Uzbeks, Rus­sians, Ukraini­ans, Yakuts, Esto­ni­ans, Lithua­ni­ans, Tatars, Bashkirs, and Belaru­sians are all equal; there are no dif­fer­ences. We read books about the new “com­mu­ni­ty of Sovi­et peo­ple,” named streets after heroes from oth­er republics, and print­ed fairy tales from dif­fer­ent cul­tures — yet peo­ple lived iso­lat­ed from one anoth­er. Have you thought about it?

At first, I thought we were vic­tims of Bol­she­vism. Every­one: Rus­sians and non-Rus­sians alike. How­ev­er, when I looked more close­ly and saw what was real­ly hap­pen­ing, I changed my mind. We were all vic­tims of the “great Rus­sia.” The trou­ble came because of it, because of the Bol­she­viks. Wher­ev­er they appeared, chaos, filth, and dark­ness fol­lowed.

What was your rea­son for leav­ing your job at the rail­way, where you could earn mon­ey and learn a lot of inter­est­ing things?

At that time, I received 1,000 or 1,500 rou­bles a month, along with trav­el expens­es and bonus­es. That was already in the nineties. But my health failed me: I almost died twice in Cen­tral Asia.

The servant editors did more than return to the tradition of Potemkin villages; at times, they surpassed their Soviet predecessors

You grad­u­al­ly became involved in pho­to­jour­nal­ism. Who taught you the craft? Who was your exam­ple?

I bought pho­tog­ra­phy mag­a­zines, stud­ied the pic­tures there, and learned from them. I was cap­ti­vat­ed by the image, as if it was a pow­er­ful mag­net. I upgrad­ed my lab­o­ra­to­ry. I edu­cat­ed myself, both tech­ni­cal­ly and aes­thet­i­cal­ly. At that time, a new group of pho­tog­ra­phers was form­ing in Min­sk. New com­mu­ni­ties and stu­dios emerged, each with its own diverse inter­ests.

So the pho­to­graph­ic life wasn’t just lim­it­ed to news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines. It’s a much broad­er com­mu­ni­ty!

Absolute­ly. A dis­tin­guish­ing fea­ture is that, in addi­tion to pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­ti­tion, there was peer sup­port. I vis­it­ed the Peo­ples’ Friend­ship House, where I found a well-equipped lab­o­ra­to­ry. Belarus­film and Bel­pro­jekt also had peo­ple who were always help­ful. It was the net­work of acquain­tances, with one tak­ing pic­tures, the sec­ond devel­op­ing, and the third print­ing. Our love of pho­tog­ra­phy, not our posi­tions, brought us togeth­er.

Ulti­mate­ly, the path of friend­ship must have led to anoth­er chal­leng­ing endeav­or: an offi­cial, more demand­ing edi­to­r­i­al role.

That’s right. Through the same con­nec­tions, I gained access to the edi­to­r­i­al office of Vasil Yakaven­ka, a famous writer, pub­li­cist, and envi­ron­men­tal­ist. He told me a lot about the fight against land recla­ma­tion in Pole­sia. If it weren’t for ordi­nary people’s efforts, the area would have been com­plete­ly drained. It’s a fact that, thanks to his direct involve­ment, the project to straight­en the Pryp­i­at riverbed was stopped. You can’t mind­less­ly fling the insult­ing word “Sovs”[1] at the past: both then and now, the peo­ple around you are all very dif­fer­ent. Vasil suf­fered great­ly in his bat­tles with thought­less author­i­ties.

Henadz Veratsinski/ Self-por­trait. 2024

His news­pa­per is wor­thy of recog­ni­tion: it cov­ered the Chornobyl dis­as­ter exten­sive­ly. In the end, it was shut down. Did you feel cap­ti­vat­ed by edi­to­r­i­al life?

It’s like div­ing into a riv­er and get­ting car­ried away. My next har­bor was with an adver­tis­ing pub­li­ca­tion. I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn about the print­ing house’s work first­hand, gain insight into design, and dis­cov­er the intri­ca­cies of lay­out. I was soon able to pre­pare the issue inde­pen­dent­ly, from start to fin­ish. After that, I end­ed up at a seri­ous news­pa­per. I got a job at Femi­da led by Iry­na Sakalo­va.

One of the first human rights media out­lets in Belarus. What was the team like from the inside? What was spe­cial about it?

First of all, it was about the peo­ple, who were, by and large, fas­ci­nat­ing his­tor­i­cal fig­ures: Andrei Bas­tunets, Ali­ak­san­dr Patu­pa, Sabi­na Bry­lo, and Iry­na her­self, who is a beau­ty in every sense. Once, at a con­cert, Bulat Okudzha­va[2] ded­i­cat­ed his songs to her and, to everyone’s amaze­ment, gave her his gui­tar. Under such an edi­tor-in-chief, the news­pa­per struck mighty chords. 

I con­tributed my tech­ni­cal exper­tise to the tal­ent­ed team and quick­ly became involved in the process. I remem­ber the day we cre­at­ed an issue with emp­ty pages. Sakalo­va took such a step because cen­sor­ship banned the mate­ri­als. It was a strong mes­sage.

Why were you per­se­cut­ed? What top­ics annoyed the author­i­ties?

Every­thing that the author­i­ties deemed “too truth­ful.” We report­ed actu­al legal vio­la­tions, and not every­one was pleased about it. Back then, telling the truth was also con­sid­ered the biggest crime. The pun­ish­ment was just less severe. The rep­utable human rights orga­ni­za­tion PEN Belarus, head­ed by Car­los Sher­man, pub­lished a sub­stan­tial Yel­low Book on the per­se­cu­tion of the media and free­dom of speech. Femi­da was men­tioned mul­ti­ple times in the book.

The cri­te­ria and require­ments for images in the media have changed in the new era. The Sovi­et pho­tog­ra­phy school fea­tur­ing smil­ing work­ers and fore­men hold­ing pen­nants for win­ning social­ist com­pe­ti­tions did not last long.

It lost because of its posed nature. What was the main thing then? To make every­one look hap­py. In the film Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, there is a mock­ing moment when an employ­ee recites mem­o­rized lines to the cam­era. The heroine’s life is dark, but there is light and smiles in the frame.

And yet it looked stun­ning, didn’t it? Don’t you notice the tra­di­tion of the Potemkin vil­lages[3] today?

Let me cor­rect that: not stun­ning, but pret­ty-ly — feel the dif­fer­ence. The embell­ish­ment of char­ac­ters dis­ap­peared for sev­er­al years, but the staff of offi­cial bod­ies’ edi­tors soon restored the tra­di­tion. They’ve even enhanced it, ele­vat­ing the stan­dard for serv­ing high­er author­i­ties with cut­ting-edge equip­ment and tech­nol­o­gy. Instead of a par­ty card, each pho­tog­ra­ph­er had an edi­to­r­i­al tem­plate and shot as required.

 Near the Sports Palace, people grappled with riot police. There were screams and noise everywhere, and cars were overturned

Do you remem­ber your most pop­u­lar pic­tures?

Yes, I post­ed a series of pho­tos titled “Lithua­nia” to a Lithuan­ian group on Face­book, and they received thou­sands of likes. Such feed­back is unimag­in­able in Belarus. It may be because my per­spec­tive seemed new and fresh to Lithua­ni­ans.

Have you ever par­tic­i­pat­ed in a col­lec­tive project, such as a pho­to album?

No, I’m a Face­book pho­tog­ra­ph­er.

This is the first time I’ve heard this…

Now you have, it’s my own descrip­tion.

You see, pho­tog­ra­phy is always about pub­lic­i­ty. As with writ­ing, tak­ing pho­tos with­out pub­li­ca­tion prospects does not work. They must be seen. Face­book gives you this oppor­tu­ni­ty: to expose, to get feed­back, to feel con­nect­ed. Com­ments, likes, and sim­ple atten­tion to your work are strong sup­port. When peo­ple react, I want to keep work­ing.

Folk­lore Belaru­sian cel­e­bra­tion of Kupala in War­saw. 2024. Pho­to: Henadz Ver­atsin­s­ki

Are there any spe­cif­ic pho­tog­ra­phers that you fol­low?

I’m not a nar­cis­sist in the end! For exam­ple, Dzmit­ry Brushko has excit­ing works. His father, Siarhei Brushko, doc­u­ment­ed the era of glas­nost and per­e­stroi­ka. His every shot cap­tures a fate, a sto­ry, an era. With­out any pre­tense, he con­veyed the char­ac­ter through his skill in shoot­ing.

I am attract­ed to all mas­ters with an excep­tion­al eye for com­po­si­tion and an under­stand­ing of the moment.

What about Insta­gram? It was cre­at­ed for pho­tos.

I tried, but it didn’t work. Face­book has become my plat­form — a famil­iar space that offers more com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Don’t you ever wish you could do more with your work? Like to have an exhi­bi­tion, cre­ate an album, or par­tic­i­pate in com­pe­ti­tions?

I’ve nev­er tried. I just shot what I saw. I’m com­fort­able behind the scenes, away from the spot­light.

Like the late Uladz­imir Karmilkin, he was cap­tur­ing, not invent­ing.

The man was a leg­end. He was a pho­to chron­i­cler of the strug­gle against com­mu­nism and the Lukashen­ka regime.

I admire this for­mer officer’s skill at cap­tur­ing the sto­ry as it is, with­out manip­u­lat­ing the light or using com­po­si­tion­al tricks. Today, his pho­tographs cap­ture the essence of a hope­ful era. And the evi­dence: doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­phy does not require effects. You can pho­to­graph a yard, a house, or peo­ple — and some­day, it will all become evi­dence of time.

Are there peo­ple who con­tin­ue this tra­di­tion today?

Even if in a dif­fer­ent vein, yes — peo­ple are work­ing in this field, and the results are fas­ci­nat­ing. For instance, Dzmit­ry Masliy shares pic­tures of Min­sk from the 1950s and 1970s on Face­book. Some are his own pho­tos, and some are from archives. They get a great response.

If the unfor­get­table Karmilkin was the chron­i­cler of the Belaru­sian Pop­u­lar Front, then you are the pho­to-chron­i­cler of the Unit­ed Civic Par­ty. What winds car­ried you there?

In 2004, after Femi­da, an acquain­tance offered to shoot some­thing for them. That’s how it start­ed. At first, it was just a short-term, ama­teur col­lab­o­ra­tion. Then it became increas­ing­ly sys­temic. The party’s leader, Ana­tol Liabedz­ka, lat­er includ­ed me in the party’s prac­ti­cal activ­i­ties. We trav­eled a lot togeth­er.

Henadz Ver­atsin­s­ki. Self-por­trait. 2024

He’s been beat­en by police more than once. If you were near­by, did you also have to take the hit?

I did. His usu­al approach was to dis­tract the riot police, if he could. I remem­ber an inci­dent near Ali­ak­san­draus­ki Gar­den Square. They sur­round­ed Ana­tol and tried to arrest him. I rushed over to the reporters and said, “Run over there! They’re going to arrest him. Film it!” And every­thing was resolved. But near the Pech­ki-Lav­och­ki restau­rant, the ploy didn’t work. They dragged Ana­tol inside and beat him behind the win­dows where he was out of reach. Then, they took him out the back door and shoved him into a police wag­on.

In 2006, Ali­ak­san­dr Milinke­vich, the can­di­date from the pro-democ­ra­cy oppo­si­tion, ran for pres­i­dent. You worked a lot in the protest camp set up on “Kali­nous­ki Square.”[4]

That’s right. Every morn­ing, I went there as if I were going to work. I greet­ed peo­ple, took pic­tures, and then returned to the office in Vera Kharuzhaya Street. Day by day, I cap­tured it all.

How did it all hap­pen? What was going on by the tents between the white-red-white flags on the fish­ing rods?

It was a strange feel­ing. Under­cov­er cops roamed the police perime­ter while peo­ple talked, read poet­ry, and sang. Young men and women stomped their feet to warm up in the cold. Step­ping from the sub­way into the crowd was like cross­ing a bor­der. Inside was the ter­ri­to­ry of free­dom. Despite con­stant deten­tions of vol­un­teers car­ry­ing food and of ran­dom passers­by, I felt no fear. Many of us end­ed up in deten­tion after. In the camp, I instinc­tive­ly felt human. But the moment you stepped out­side, you were once again sur­round­ed by sur­veil­lance and shad­ows.

A pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er must have noticed how people’s faces changed back then.

Moments of excite­ment made every­one look beau­ti­ful, ele­vat­ed. More smiles, open­ness, and will­ing­ness to help. A cir­cle of friends, no for­mal­i­ties, actions straight from the heart. That’s why there are so many tru­ly excel­lent pho­tos  — a cel­e­bra­tion of a free spir­it.

You’ve wit­nessed more than one demon­stra­tion with this mind-blow­ing ener­gy.

For exam­ple, the Chornobyl March of 1996. Near the Sports Palace, peo­ple grap­pled with riot police. There were screams and noise every­where, and cars were over­turned. It was a shock­ing pic­ture at that time. Still, the secu­ri­ty forces and judges exhib­it­ed a con­fi­dent human atti­tude.

I was detained for the first time that same year. They brought me a com­mu­ni­ty police office in Kam­samol­skaya Street. A police­man named Taus­ta­mon­avich was check­ing people’s doc­u­ments and tak­ing mon­ey from their wal­lets. How­ev­er, it was still pos­si­ble to talk to those peo­ple.

Talk­ing is point­less with the cur­rent ones, though. Now they are robots. With­out mind, with­out shame, with­out faces. They are told, so they run to fol­low the order.

By the way, dur­ing the “Bat­tle on the Niami­ha Riv­er,”[5] there was a rare moment of inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty. Quite a few Ukraini­ans came to sup­port us.

Our peo­ple made it up to them. Belaru­sians sup­port­ed their neigh­bors’ rev­o­lu­tions. When some­one would crit­i­cize the fact that the Russ­ian offen­sive on Kyiv began from our ter­ri­to­ry, I replied that it was nec­es­sary to dis­tin­guish between the government’s posi­tion and that of the peo­ple:

“We were on all your Maid­an Rev­o­lu­tions, stand­ing next to you. But when we were in trou­ble in Belarus in 2020, no help arrived.” I know a sup­port train from Ukraine was planned, but it was can­celed at the last moment. Per­haps, if cir­cum­stances had been oth­er­wise, every­thing would have tak­en anoth­er course.

 There is a political logic: a public person should be visible. It’s part of their job

But there are also pho­tos of a dif­fer­ent kind, with­out mass protests, stun grenades, batons, or tear gas. In these pho­tos, only one per­son is stand­ing or walk­ing, yet the entire nation is present in that soli­tude, hold­ing its dig­ni­ty high. For exam­ple, pic­tures of Nina Bahin­skaya[6] hold­ing a flag…

This is like­ly the most impres­sive pho­to, indeed. One of Valer Shchukin, for instance. He alone could embody the protest. I’ve shot him many times, too. I first saw him on TV when he was an oppo­si­tion Com­mu­nist deputy. Then, after get­ting to know each oth­er per­son­al­ly, I saw a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent per­son. Sim­ple, bold, sin­cere, open-mind­ed. Authen­tic.

Nina Bahin­skaya on Inde­pen­dence Avenue in Min­sk. Pho­to: Henadz Ver­atsin­s­ki

What was par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing about him?

Per­se­ver­ance, fear­less­ness, and faith in jus­tice, even in the face of over­whelm­ing false­hood built on police vio­lence. Three crim­i­nal cas­es, mul­ti­ple arrests, beat­ings, dozens of fines — yet he stood his ground. He dis­played incred­i­ble tenac­i­ty in defend­ing his rights. For four years, he strug­gled against the ille­gal depri­va­tion of his reg­is­tra­tion in Polatsk. So many pic­tures were tak­en by my col­leagues when he spent the night at the Vit­seb­sk Rail­way Sta­tion in protest. This strug­gle for dig­ni­ty was just one small episode in his tur­bu­lent human rights and polit­i­cal activ­i­ties. Above all, Valer fought for a demo­c­ra­t­ic Belarus, putting his own well-being last.

Where did he get all that rest­less ener­gy?

It was in his nature. He just couldn’t do it any oth­er way. Maybe he was over­ly emo­tion­al, but always real.

He didn’t pose for the cam­era?

No. Typ­i­cal­ly, when some­one sees a cam­era lens, they tense up, smile, and pose. Shchukin behaved nat­u­ral­ly. I under­stood that I was pho­tograph­ing him — for­give me for the tau­tol­ogy — not for his sake, but in the inter­est of a com­mon cause. He knew that pho­tos are often the most sub­stan­tial evi­dence. I have many pic­tures of Shchukin embody­ing civic courage. One against the sys­tem. He was ter­rif­ic in his courage. Naval offi­cer tough­ness: twen­ty-sev­en years in the Pacif­ic Fleet. And he was a real Belaru­sian. It’s no coin­ci­dence that he received the award from Ales Biali­ats­ki in the “Per­son­al­i­ty” cat­e­go­ry. Per­for­mance man, action man…

For a pho­to­jour­nal­ist, peo­ple with­out masks, with­out pre­ten­sion or affec­ta­tion, are a trea­sure. The audi­ence instant­ly picks up on gen­uine sin­cer­i­ty. Yet many of your sub­jects, with long expe­ri­ence in front of the cam­era, sensed its pres­ence and auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjust­ed to it. For exam­ple, you have dozens of pic­tures of Liabedz­ka. Frankly, did he real­ize that, includ­ing through his pho­tographs, he would secure a place in his­to­ry?

I think so. But that’s not nar­cis­sism. Ana­tol under­stood the polit­i­cal log­ic: a pub­lic per­son should be vis­i­ble. It’s part of his job. Fame isn’t the point. What’s impor­tant is the pres­ence of your cam­paign, par­ty, and cause through you.

Barys Niamt­sou and Ana­tol Liabedz­ka. Min­sk, 2013. Pho­to: Henadz Ver­atsin­s­ki

Which of the oth­er par­ty mem­bers did you pho­to­graph for that very rea­son — because you knew they were coura­geous and hon­or­able? Whose por­traits were no coin­ci­dence, but rather a record of their time?

Many of them remained in Belarus, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to name them all. I don’t want to jeop­ar­dize their free­dom. But I respect many peo­ple very much because they are brave, sin­cere, and pro­fes­sion­al. I recall Uladz­imir Shantsau, a ven­er­a­ble fig­ure with a resilient spir­it. Mary­na Bah­danovich, a coura­geous woman, though she and I are so dif­fer­ent. Lud­mi­la Hrazno­va, a small, intel­li­gent woman with great dig­ni­ty.

 If you witness violence and injustice, you can’t remain neutral

Through the lens, you can see a lot: protests, vio­lence, and deten­tions. How does an engaged pho­tog­ra­ph­er feel in acute polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tions?

Always sus­pense­ful. Each time I went to a protest, I thought, “You might not make it home today.” You are stand­ing between peo­ple and riot police amid screams and smoke. But you must remain calm. I kept a safe dis­tance, but it’s dif­fer­ent for every­one. The main thing is not to show fear.

I once heard you say that pho­tog­ra­phers can­not be neu­tral.

I still believe it. If you wit­ness vio­lence and injus­tice, you can’t remain neu­tral. You’re either with the peo­ple or with those who oppress them.

Are objec­tiv­i­ty and indif­fer­ence two dif­fer­ent things?

Any­one who claims to be “above the fray” is either a cheat or a fool.

Min­sk dur­ing peace­ful protests in 2020. Pho­to: Henadz Ver­atsin­s­ki

How many times have you been detained?

Count­ing only seri­ous cas­es, four times.

What was your ini­tial desire then? Was it to con­ceal your SIM card and cam­era? Or per­haps you tried tak­ing some pho­tos?

I even shot in court­rooms, for instance, dur­ing hear­ings of yet anoth­er case involv­ing Liabedz­ka. It was already for­bid­den at that time, but I was able to get a per­mit from the judge. Anatol’s entire speech was record­ed on film, mak­ing it an essen­tial his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ment. By the way, he was acquit­ted in that episode.

A sim­i­lar thing hap­pened once in Astrashyt­s­ki Haradok. The police stopped us and began an inspec­tion. I calm­ly took out my cam­era and start­ed shoot­ing them. They were stunned by the unex­pect­ed audac­i­ty and let us go.

My pro­fes­sion­al stress isn’t fear; it’s the knowl­edge that some­thing could hap­pen at any moment. Despite my out­ward calm, a thin thread still flut­ters inside.

What about oth­er pho­to­jour­nal­ists who worked at oppo­si­tion ral­lies where secu­ri­ty forces were always near­by? There have been cas­es where they were beat­en, impris­oned, and had their equip­ment smashed. Have the police ever fought with you or blocked you from tak­ing good shots?

First of all, they attempt­ed to pre­vent the doc­u­men­ta­tion of their crimes. We have been pun­ished for bear­ing that pho­to­graph­ic truth.

I’ve nev­er worn a vest with the word “Press” on it or car­ried any kind of pass­es. I didn’t reveal my iden­ti­ty as a jour­nal­ist. I was just walk­ing around tak­ing pic­tures. There’s a say­ing: A pho­tog­ra­ph­er should be like a shad­ow — or bet­ter yet, an invis­i­ble man — so they can’t be seen or heard. You should be every­where.

When you start show­ing any kind of dis­tinc­tive­ness — even through sup­posed neu­tral­i­ty — you imme­di­ate­ly attract atten­tion. And it only gets in the way.

What about those who did the oppo­site?

Even in the past, they often got the full treat­ment. I first saw a bro­ken cam­era back in 1996 when cars were over­turned. A Beta­cam flew up and crashed onto the asphalt. An expen­sive thing, it’s a pity.

For the edi­to­r­i­al office, it’s just a loss — but for the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, per­haps it means some­thing more?

It is a per­son­al tragedy. After all, a cam­era is like an exten­sion of your hands. It’s a part of you.

For­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er Ihar Kar­ney. 2025. Pho­to: Henadz Ver­atsin­s­ki

What hap­pened in 2020? How did you end up in Poland?

The last ral­lies were held in Decem­ber. Our back­yard, near Chkala­va Street, was the site of neigh­bor­hood protests. As usu­al, I went to take pic­tures. Sud­den­ly, the police arrived. There were cadets from the mili­tia school dressed in green with batons. I shot it. They rushed toward me, grabbed the cam­era, and took me to the Mask­ous­ki Dis­trict Police Depart­ment. I tried to resist. “I’m a jour­nal­ist. I’m just tak­ing pic­tures,” and so on. “You’re shoot­ing every­thing the wrong way.” I tried anoth­er approach because I real­ly felt unwell in those days, and I wasn’t try­ing to deceive them: “I feel bad. I have high blood pres­sure.” “Me too.” They didn’t even call an ambu­lance. On the con­trary, they took me direct­ly to hell, the Min­sk deten­tion cen­ter. I got real­ly dizzy, and they kept say­ing, “Accord­ing to the report, your vitals are nor­mal!” In the end, they had to take me direct­ly from the deten­tion cen­ter to the hos­pi­tal, where I was pumped out.

After that, they stopped both­er­ing me for some time. But this was short-lived. The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee start­ed call­ing, and sub­poe­nas arrived in the mail. The choice was sim­ple: either go to jail or leave. I moved to Geor­gia in May 2023 and applied for a human­i­tar­i­an visa. By July, I was already in War­saw. Now my apart­ment in Min­sk is sealed by the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee. That indi­cates that a case has been opened.

If you count them — how many ral­lies, demon­stra­tions, and com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings have you pho­tographed over the years?

Hun­dreds. Dozens every year.

When I start­ed tak­ing pic­tures, it was just out of inter­est. But grad­u­al­ly I came to under­stand: you can’t live your life on “neu­tral ground.” Neu­tral­i­ty is fake. You have to take a side — the one that aligns with your con­science. In your judg­ments about life, you should remain calm, but in life itself, you’re either with the whites or the reds.[7] Chang­ing posi­tions isn’t an option.

It’s a bad sign when a per­son thinks they’re above every­thing.

That only hap­pens when they’ve stopped feel­ing any­thing at all.

The project “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” is co-financed by the Pol­ish Coop­er­a­tion for Devel­op­ment Pro­gram of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland. The pub­li­ca­tion reflects exclu­sive­ly the author’s views and can­not be equat­ed with the offi­cial posi­tion of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland.

[1]  Deroga­to­ry word used to describe peo­ple cling­ing to Sovi­et men­tal­i­ty after the col­lapse of the USSR.

[2] Bulat Okudzha­va was a Sovi­et and Russ­ian poet, writer, musi­cian, nov­el­ist, and singer-song­writer of Geor­gian-Armen­ian ances­try. He was one of the founders of the Sovi­et genre called “author song”, or “gui­tar song”, and the author of about 200 songs, set to his own poet­ry.

[3] A Potemkin vil­lage is an impres­sive but fake facade designed to hide an unde­sir­able real­i­ty or a bad con­di­tion. The term refers to any con­struc­tion, either lit­er­al or fig­u­ra­tive, that is built to deceive and impress, often used in pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics, or pub­lic rela­tions to cre­ate a mis­lead­ing impres­sion of pros­per­i­ty or suc­cess. 

[4]  In 2006, pro­test­ers estab­lished a camp on Kas­trych­nit­skaya Square in Min­sk and renamed it Kali­nous­ki Square, in hon­or of Kas­tus Kali­nous­ki — a sym­bol of the Belaru­sian strug­gle for peas­ant free­dom dur­ing the 1863 Upris­ing.

[5] The Bat­tle of the Niami­ha Riv­er, fought on March 3, 1067, was a con­flict from the feu­dal peri­od of Kievan Rus’. Its descrip­tion marks the first men­tion of Min­sk in his­tor­i­cal chron­i­cles. The inter­view­er draws a par­al­lel between this bat­tle and the clash­es between pro­test­ers and riot police dur­ing the Chornobyl March.

[6] Nina Bahin­skaya is a life-long Belaru­sian human rights activist, pub­lic fig­ure, and geol­o­gist. She was detained dozens of times by police and spent many days in tem­po­rary iso­la­tion cells. The cumu­la­tive fines that Bahin­skaya owes to the gov­ern­ment for her par­tic­i­pa­tion in hun­dreds of protests account for tens of thou­sands of dol­lars.

[7] A ref­er­ence to the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion in 1917 and the civ­il war between the tsarist troops (the whites) and the social­ist units (the reds).