The most reassuring thing is getting feedback from the audience”. Belarusian independent media’s take on the year’s results and their plans for the future

Volha Loika, Plan B editor-in-chief and founder

“The year 2023 was final­ly just nor­mal. Prob­lems arose and were solved, new projects were designed, we trav­eled, met our part­ners, and faced some tragedies. Every­thing was lit­er­al­ly fine.”

Vol­ha Loi­ka is a for­mer edi­tor-in-chief of the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sec­tion at TUT.BY media out­let. She was detained in May 2021 in the TUT.BY case. Two years lat­er, she left the pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter await­ing tri­al. In 2023, she launched the Plan B media. 

“The fact that you are alive and well is the great­est achieve­ment of recent years. My col­leagues and I launched Plan B. My whole fam­i­ly and many friends left Belarus. We are set­tling down, sup­port­ing each oth­er, fight­ing, build­ing a new life. And that’s a good thing. On the last New Year’s Eve, I was here alone and it seemed like that lone­li­ness was ever­last­ing.

“Above all, our work has been affect­ed by repres­sion, fear, and the stigma­ti­za­tion of the pro­fes­sion and of myself per­son­al­ly. The sta­tus of ‘ter­ror­ist’ may seem ridicu­lous, but it is not actu­al­ly fun­ny.

The scari­est thing is to say good­bye to friends for­ev­er. The death of my col­league and friend Aleh Anufry­jen­ka is irrepara­ble. Meet­ing him in Paris in May was one of my most enjoy­able encoun­ters this year. I am very hap­py for those of my col­leagues who have been released from prison this year. The real prob­lem is the heavy prison sen­tences my oth­er col­leagues have received.

Our wish for the new year would be to sur­vive. To estab­lish a new nor­mal­i­ty. To help your loved ones to do the same. We dream of see­ing friends and col­leagues being released from prison. Free, safe, sound, and full of life and opti­mism.

Our wish for our col­leagues is to stick togeth­er, sur­vive, write, and talk about things that mat­ter. Reach finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty. Final­ly see all our col­leagues on the out­side.

As for me, I would like to final­ly imple­ment the plans I had for 2020. I dreamed of being done with the elec­toral hus­tle and get­ting a nor­mal job [smiles]. Noth­ing has changed, only the elec­toral hus­tle nev­er end­ed. But nev­er mind, I’m not in a hur­ry.”

Pavel Sviardlou, Euroradio editor-in-chief

“The year was dif­fi­cult, but very event­ful. We have done a lot of exper­i­ment­ing, search­ing, and find­ing new ways to reach out to Belaru­sians. We test­ed a vari­ety of for­mats. We had to come to terms with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. And we are good at what we are doing.”

Euro­ra­dio is an inter­na­tion­al radio sta­tion oper­at­ing in Belarus since 2006. In 2020, they lost their office in Min­sk and failed to get accred­it­ed.

Our achieve­ments include part­ner­ing with Psiphon VPN ser­vice, which has result­ed in our site being vis­it­ed by 400,000 unique users per month, most­ly from Belarus. Anoth­er advan­tage was the con­sor­tium formed with Malan­ka Media, which is now start­ing to broad­cast on the Reporters With­out Bor­ders satel­lite. The next achieve­ment is the Gen­der Gap show, in which we dis­cuss women’s rights and gen­der stereo­types. It has allowed us to learn a great deal about our­selves, about our audi­ence, and about Belarus in gen­er­al.

Attend­ing large con­fer­ences such as RightsCon has influ­enced both our work and world­view. It takes you out of your bub­ble and gives you a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the world. And final­ly, we hap­pened to put in a good word for Belarus in front of a large audi­ence.

I think the most ter­ri­ble thing is that we’ve become used to vio­lence, as a media and as a soci­ety, influ­enced by wartime news. Mur­der videos no longer fright­en, sur­prise, or evoke much emo­tion.

The most pleas­ant thing is when our lis­ten­ers get in touch with us and give some feed­back. For exam­ple, in May, a res­i­dent of Min­sk informed us that he had seen a motor­cade with a sick Lukashen­ka on its way to the med­ical com­mis­sion. Or when we received some doc­u­ments on how Belaru­sian Steel Works was cir­cum­vent­ing sanc­tions and con­tin­u­ing to trade with the Euro­pean Union. 

The voic­es of Belaru­sians should sound loud­er in the world. And it is the Belaru­sian media, and not some­one else, who should inform for­eign­ers about the events in our coun­try. I think it’s very impor­tant to do this.

I wish my col­leagues sta­ble devel­op­ment and clear prospects. I’m not going to say what I want for myself, oth­er­wise it won’t come true.”

Fiodar Pauliuchenka, Reform.By editor-in-chief and co-founder

“This year has been a time of exor­bi­tant repres­sion in Belarus and the swing of the war between Rus­sia and Ukraine. Per­son­al­ly, I saw every­thing through that prism.

I hoped that the author­i­ties would stop the repres­sion, but it’s only get­ting worse. The mad­ness seems nev­er-end­ing.

I asso­ciate Ukraine’s suc­cess­es in the war against Rus­sia with many oth­er events. It became clear by autumn that the war would be long. Noth­ing good awaits us all.”

Reform.by has been oper­at­ing since 2018. Due to the per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists, crim­i­nal cas­es, and inter­ro­ga­tions, its staff have left Belarus. In Decem­ber 2023, it became known that the project was on the verge of clo­sure. The read­ers donat­ed 17,000 euros with­in a few days to keep the project run­ning.

“My life is our project, Reform.by. We have con­duct­ed thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tions and received the Free Media Awards. Over­all, we have been suc­cess­ful in our work. This is an achieve­ment in itself.

We can­not con­tin­ue our work due to a lack of funds and oppor­tu­ni­ties for devel­op­ment. The fund­ing impasse is lim­it­ing progress.

I went on vaca­tion for the first time in many years. It was the most pleas­ant event of the year [laughs]. I pre­fer not to dis­cuss any ter­ri­ble events. Against the back­drop of repres­sion and war, every­thing is bear­able.

I want Reform.by to sur­vive. This is impor­tant because I don’t want to lose our team. This is my dream and my inten­tion.

What are my New Year’s wish­es for my col­leagues? Remem­ber to hyper­link when re-pub­lish­ing! But seri­ous­ly, Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists are very cool. What is sur­pris­ing is that against all odds, the Belaru­sian media mar­ket is qual­i­ta­tive­ly dif­fer­ent from many of its neigh­bor­ing coun­tries.

My wish for myself is audi­ence atten­tion, pros­per­i­ty, and suc­cess.”

Nasta Utkina, Palatno copy editor

“We launched in the sum­mer of 2022, but we had to go through a rebrand­ing process and that sto­ry dragged on until 2023. Real work on the project start­ed in Feb­ru­ary. By June, we achieved the desired qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of pieces.

It was a year of exper­i­men­ta­tion and attempt­ing to find our place among oth­er Belaru­sian media. We work as a small team, so it’s much more dif­fi­cult.”

Palat­no is a project run by inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists that focus­es on life in the Belaru­sian provinces. It was cre­at­ed by jour­nal­ists of Rehi­janal­na­ja Haze­ta who emi­grat­ed from Belarus due to polit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion. In Novem­ber 2023, Ali­ak­san­dr Mant­se­vich, the edi­tor-in-chief of the news­pa­per, was sen­tenced to four years in prison.

“We planned to issue two pod­casts, but in the end, we have four. This was our first achieve­ment.

Anoth­er one is we chose not to cre­ate a Russ­ian ver­sion of the site because Belaru­sians typ­i­cal­ly read in Belaru­sian. We are not seek­ing to expand our audi­ence.

The third achieve­ment is that we have been able to retain the core crew and expand the team, as well as estab­lish work­ing pro­ce­dures in a short peri­od.

The PlaySta­tion has had the biggest impact on my per­son­al work. The effec­tive­ness of the team has been pos­i­tive­ly influ­enced by the plan­ning of both con­tent and work in gen­er­al. The sit­u­a­tion in Belarus that none of our jour­nal­ists can escape remains the neg­a­tive side of our work.

On a per­son­al lev­el, the worst thing this year has been the death of my father. The most pleas­ant aspect was work­ing on our project, which dis­tract­ed us from all the sad stuff.

Palat­no found it most frus­trat­ing when grandiose plans were made, and a large amount of pieces were con­ceived, only to find that lit­tle could be achieved. Cal­cu­lat­ing the strength and avail­abil­i­ty of staff mem­bers is cru­cial for effec­tive plan­ning and man­age­ment. The most enjoy­able aspect is the team-build­ing meet­ings.

Our focus for 2024 is launch­ing two new pod­casts and design­ing the visu­al com­po­nent for pod­casts.

The Palat­no team wish­es our col­leagues suc­cess and dili­gence in their work for the bet­ter­ment of Belarus and its peo­ple. We hope to come back home soon, full of ideas, strengths, and oppor­tu­ni­ties, as our read­ers are eager­ly await­ing our return.

I want my team to main­tain their pro­fes­sion­al­ism and hon­esty.”

Editor-in-chief of GayPress, a Belarusian LGBTQ+ media outlet (name withheld for security reasons)

“This year has brought us many new things, includ­ing authors, spe­cial projects, read­ers, and view­ers. Gay­Press has a growth point in its spe­cial project for Belaru­sians, which focus­es on LGBTQ+ migra­tion.

We have designed detailed guides, includ­ing texts and videos, for LGBTQ indi­vid­u­als in eight dif­fer­ent coun­tries. As well as pod­casts fea­tur­ing Belaru­sian queer peo­ple, psy­cho­log­i­cal guid­ance, instruc­tions on obtain­ing refugee sta­tus for LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als in the EU, and more.

The main accom­plish­ment of the year is the increase in audi­ence size. Tak­ing into account the web­site, social media pages, and the Telegram chan­nel, we reach about 100,000 peo­ple month­ly across all plat­forms. In March, the site had almost 60,000 unique vis­i­tors. Our activ­i­ty did not go unno­ticed and we were blocked in the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion.

The sec­ond achieve­ment is our spe­cial projects. In addi­tion to cov­er­ing LGBTQ+ migra­tion, we are the only media out­let report­ing on LGBTQ+ Belaru­sians through our HUKANNE [The Call] spe­cial project.

Third, we give the floor to LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als who are mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the lives of both those who remain in the coun­try and those who have left. For instance, our pod­casts fea­ture a queer poet and per­former Artur Kamarous­ki, as well as LGBTQ+ ini­tia­tives such as ‘This is OK’ and ‘Future’. We also high­light the sto­ry of a gay man from Belarus who crossed the bor­der into the Unit­ed States 11 times and is now pur­su­ing an act­ing career there.

The tight­en­ing of the human rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus influ­enced the work. The imple­men­ta­tion of a new dis­crim­i­na­to­ry law against the LGBT+ com­mu­ni­ty, raids on gay clubs in Min­sk, and video record­ings in which secu­ri­ty forces expos­ing Belaru­sian indi­vid­u­als who iden­ti­fy as gay. Police harass­ment of LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als on dat­ing apps has been one of the most trou­bling events of the year.

One of the most sig­nif­i­cant events for me was deliv­er­ing speech­es to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion in Brus­sels.

Although the polit­i­cal agen­da is dis­heart­en­ing, I am pleased to have informed Euro­pean offi­cials about the sit­u­a­tion of LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als in Belarus. Addi­tion­al­ly, I was able to bring atten­tion to our issues and gain the sup­port of offi­cials in Brus­sels.

In the new year, I hope to add to the improve­ment of atti­tudes towards LGBTQ+ indi­vid­u­als among my fel­low cit­i­zens. We are all human beings and we have equal rights! 

We hope our col­leagues have the chance to take a break. It is very dif­fi­cult to work in the cur­rent con­di­tions. Burnout is our con­stant com­pan­ion in work. I wish we could rest.”

Aliaksei Shota, Hrodna.Life editor-in-chief

“2023 was a tough year for many of us. I attempt­ed to bal­ance work and rest to avoid burnout, but the scale tipped too heav­i­ly towards work. The end of the year was par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing due to long work hours from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.”

Hrodna.life is a region­al media orig­i­nal­ly based in Hrod­na. In Novem­ber 2022, the orga­ni­za­tion was deemed extrem­ist, prompt­ing its employ­ees to quick­ly depart from Belarus.

“Through­out the year, I man­aged to find time for hob­bies, includ­ing a new one – jog­ging. Run­ning 10 kilo­me­ters with­out col­laps­ing is a per­son­al achieve­ment for me, as I have nev­er been par­tic­u­lar­ly ath­let­ic. A year ago, I did not expect to be able to run even a thou­sand meters.

I man­aged to read more books than I could have imag­ined. I planned sev­er­al short trips and vis­it­ed the coun­tries I had long want­ed to see, includ­ing Andor­ra and Nor­way.  How­ev­er, it was impos­si­ble to com­plete­ly dis­con­nect from work and take a break for at least a week, like most peo­ple do. I am accus­tomed to this because if you have nev­er had a nor­mal vaca­tion, you do not expect it.

We have been work­ing remote­ly for a year. While some progress has been made, I am not com­plete­ly sat­is­fied with the results. There is still much work to be done. Enter­ing 2024 with uncer­tain­ty about the future is unpleas­ant. How­ev­er, every­one is accus­tomed to the uncer­tain­ty of the future.

Per­son­al­ly, I con­sid­er it an achieve­ment to have been invit­ed fre­quent­ly as a train­ing facil­i­ta­tor. I enjoy work­ing in the field of non-for­mal edu­ca­tion and feel ener­gized by it. I rarely decline requests to facil­i­tate work­shops. This year, I was pleased to con­duct class­es offline for the first time in a long time, rather than through Zoom. It felt like the good old days.

I am pleased to have joined the Belaru­sian pub quiz com­mu­ni­ty in Bia­lystok, where I cur­rent­ly reside. We fre­quent­ly orga­nize our own down­home quiz nights, which has its own audi­ence, allow­ing us to earn some extra income. I enjoy the role of the pre­sen­ter as it is sim­i­lar to that of a tour guide, a role I have often per­formed in Hrod­na.

My work was pri­mar­i­ly influ­enced by the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day, and I need to sleep for at least 6 of them. There­fore, I did not have time to do every­thing I want­ed to.

I pre­fer to not describe my per­son­al life changes. In gen­er­al, I share sim­i­lar­i­ties with oth­ers in our field, as we are all affect­ed by the same events and fac­tors. Some­one got out of prison — great news. Some­one has passed away. It’s a trag­ic event. That’s it.

In the new year, I aim to enhance the man­age­ment of our edi­to­r­i­al office. We spent the entire­ty of 2023 in a state of cre­ative chaos, and it is time to put an end to it.

I want to increase my stress tol­er­ance and that of my col­leagues. If every­one per­ceived their work and sur­round­ings with more calm­ness, it would ease the work­load for the entire edi­to­r­i­al staff.

I wish my col­leagues good health and pros­per­i­ty – some­thing that is con­sis­tent­ly lack­ing. Every­thing else is either there or quite eas­i­ly acces­si­ble.

What do I wish for myself? I’ve already made a wish. And I am not going to tell you, because then it will not come true.

Read more:

Support for journalists and media, solidarity campaigns, European awards, and TikTok launch: BAJ yearly closure

E‑newsletter “Mass Media in Belarus”, #4 (74)

Aliaksei Batsiukou, vlogger and journalist from Mahiliou, reportedly detained