Alyaksandr Atroshchankau: “They just need a reason…”

Political prisoner Alyaksandr Atroshchankau doesn’t lose sense of humour even in prison.

We remind that Alyaksadnr Atroshchankau, the spokesman for presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, was sentenced to 4 years in a medium security penal colony for presence at a protest action on December as a journalist. The journalist marked his 30th birthday on March 22. He was transferred to Vitsebsk penal colony Vitba-3 to serve his term on March 25. Alyaksandr’s wife, Daria Korsak, has received a letter from him. As she concluded from its content, the letter was written in the KGB jail. We offer some extracts from the letter Daria Korsak gave to charter97.org website.

“Now I’ve turned 30. Though I was born in late evening, so I have about an hour before my 30, my pension age (according to the passport) let it know. We were playing Backgammon during the day and I was severely beaten several times. Well, but I did physical exercises with due responsibility. I need to care for my health at this age.

All in all, my birthday didn’t differ much from other days. My cell mates congratulated me, said a lot of warm words. We drank tea. The chief of the detention facility came to congratulate me in the afternoon. Then we had a dinner. I was jokingly rebuked that I didn’t offer alcohol.

The best present was cards and telegrams, of course. I received many of them today and yesterday, and also two big letters from you.

The story about flowers made me laugh so much. (A wife of a political prisoners asked the jail staff is she could pass flowers to the cell and the officer replied, ‘No! And the same for pets!’) I do not have people here to discuss Japan. Nobody was impressed it may have been caused by the Moon. By the way, as I understood, one of the most damaged towns was Sendai, Minsk’s twin city. I’ve heard that Moldovans are cool guys, they are sending 28,000 bottles of reserve wine as humanitarian aid to Japan. The people of Japan will be unhappy, but drunk, almost like Belarusians.

By the way, about the Moon. Barys Kit is 101 soon (April 6). If our friends congratulate him, like last year, let pass my greetings as well. Moreover, we are of almost similar age…

You muddled with ravens. They do live here, but they work somewhere else. They return at 6:00 pm sharp. They fly home earlier on Saturday, perhaps, they have short Saturdays. Earlier, cranes were flying above us and crying so piteous. Now ducks are flying and quacking. One a pigeon pooped on my cell mate on a walk and he got a money transfer on that very day. I’ve got enough money, so do not transfer, I don’t want to be pooped by pigeons. They just need a reason...“