Belorusy i Rynok chief editor Andrei Aleksandrovich passes away suddenly

On Feb­ru­ary 22, he was hos­pi­tal­ized due to inflam­ma­tion of the pan­creas. On Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 25, the death of the jour­nal­ist in inten­sive care was announced.

Andrei Alek­san­drovich began his pro­fes­sion­al career in the state press in the ear­ly 90s. He then worked fruit­ful­ly for the pop­u­lar Belorusskaya Delo­vaya Gaze­ta, the inde­pen­dent news agency Bela­PAN, and the Ger­man radio sta­tion Deutsche Welle.

In the sec­ond half of the 1990s, he and his col­leagues from Belorusskaya Delo­vaya Gaze­ta cre­at­ed Ezhed­nevnik, the first Belaru­sian dig­i­tal news­pa­per. It was pub­lished in PDF for­mat and dis­trib­uted by email to sub­scribers. How­ev­er, the Belaru­sian author­i­ties shut down the pub­li­ca­tion in 2021.

Lat­er, in the sec­ond half of the 2010s, he served as the edi­tor-in-chief of the web­site of the inter­na­tion­al con­sor­tium Euro­Belarus and cre­at­ed the media project Thinktanks.by.

In recent years, Andrei head­ed the ana­lyt­i­cal week­ly Belorusy i Rynok. When asked why he decid­ed to take this posi­tion in a pub­li­ca­tion that was going through dif­fi­cult times, he answered: “If there is a choice or an oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage in a busi­ness that I find inter­est­ing, then I decide to take part”.

The news­pa­per was one of the last inde­pen­dent print pub­li­ca­tions that pris­on­ers could receive. Many for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­ers have report­ed that Belorusy i Rynok was often the only source of infor­ma­tion that dif­fered from the offi­cial one.

In 2022, the direc­tor of Belorusy i Rynok, Kanstantsin Zalatykh, was arrest­ed on charges of incit­ing hatred. Law enforce­ment offi­cers searched Aleksandrovich’s apart­ment, seized his com­put­er, and took him to the KGB for ques­tion­ing. He was rec­og­nized as a wit­ness in the crim­i­nal case.

Despite fac­ing per­se­cu­tion and pres­sure from the regime, Andrei attempt­ed to keep the news­pa­per alive by uti­liz­ing oth­er media for­mats. He remained in Belarus until the end of 2023, refus­ing to leave, includ­ing because of the need to take care of his elder­ly par­ents.

In the ‘90s, Andrei became inter­est­ed in the Arc­tic and the Polar Regions and went on north­ern expe­di­tions. Recent­ly, short­ly before his forced emi­gra­tion, he bought a dacha on the Usha Riv­er and was look­ing for­ward to learn­ing how to fish. He enjoyed ama­teur paint­ing and read­ing books. He was a sen­si­tive col­league and a good friend.

Andrei left behind a young son in Belarus.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists extends its deep­est con­do­lences to Andrei’s fam­i­ly and friends.

You can donate to the fundrais­er ini­ti­at­ed by his friends to sup­port the fam­i­ly of the jour­nal­ist.