Dzianis Ivashyn describes spending Christmas behind bars

He made kutya from oat­meal and drew a Christ­mas tree.

Dzia­n­is Ivashyn. Pho­to: t.me/dzianisivashyn

Belaru­sian inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Dzia­n­is Ivashyn wrote to his fam­i­ly about how he cel­e­brat­ed Christ­mas while in prison. His wife, Vol­ha Ivashy­na, shared the let­ter.

Ivashyn spent Christ­mas on Decem­ber 25, 2025, in Zhodz­i­na Prison. There was a Christ­mas tree in his cell — one he drew him­self.

“I cel­e­brat­ed Christ­mas with a beau­ti­ful (at least to me) lit­tle fir tree. This time it turned out espe­cial­ly fluffy and full, with a big Beth­le­hem star. I haven’t drawn the gift box­es under it yet. But it’s obvi­ous which gift we’re wait­ing for most. You can’t wrap it in fes­tive paper with bows. I real­ly hope the next tree will be a real one, and that we’ll dec­o­rate it togeth­er.”

He also man­aged to cook kutya using prison food. Kutya is a cer­e­mo­ni­al grain dish with sweet gravy tra­di­tion­al­ly served pre­dom­i­nant­ly in Belaru­sian and Ukrain­ian cui­sine.

“Today I made myself kutya. I know it’s usu­al­ly made the day before, but I decid­ed to do it today. It’s quite pos­si­ble I’ve already become some­thing of a spe­cial­ist in this Christ­mas dish. I think you won’t mind if I take respon­si­bil­i­ty for it in our fam­i­ly — I’ve gained enough expe­ri­ence! It turned out pret­ty good, hon­est­ly. Or maybe I should be more self-crit­i­cal? This time I had to make it from oat­meal. Of course, buck­wheat would have been tasti­er, but I liked it any­way.”

“Despite every­thing, my spir­its are high,” Ivashyn wrote, send­ing hol­i­day greet­ings to his loved ones and express­ing hope for a future reunion.

Christ­mas let­ter from Dzia­n­is Ivashyn. Pho­to: t.me/dzianisivashyn

Dzia­n­is Ivashyn has been impris­oned for near­ly five years, since March 12, 2021. KGB offi­cers detained him the day after he gave an inter­view to the inde­pen­dent TV chan­nel Cur­rent Time.

On Sep­tem­ber 14, 2022, the Hrod­na Region­al Court found him guilty of trea­son and ille­gal col­lec­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion about pri­vate life. Judge Valer Ramanous­ki sen­tenced Ivashyn to 13 years and 1 month in prison. He was also ordered to pay a total of $9,030 in moral dam­ages to nine secu­ri­ty offi­cers.

In late June 2023, his pun­ish­ment was tight­ened: with­out noti­fy­ing his fam­i­ly or lawyer, the court trans­ferred him to a high-secu­ri­ty prison.