Yuri Khaschevatsky: «Putin has to do something with Lukashenka’s rating» :: Charter'97 :: News

Film director Yuri Khaschevatsky is known for his documentaries about Svyatoslav Fiodorov, “Gods of Sickle and Hammer”, ”Everything is Fine”, “Ordinary President”, which were prize-winners at many international film contests. His latest film “Ploscha” is about March 2006 events in Minsk when the youth protested against announced results of the presidential elections in Belarus. Yesterday’s statements of Vladimir Putin about his Belarusian colleague made Yuri Khaschevatsky think about the following:

-At his great press-conference Putin admitted: “Frankly speaking, we didn’t want to do any harm to the acting president of Belarus last year in terms of the forthcoming political events and, first of all, the elections. We didn’t want to cause any problems to the regime”. And on the eve of this statement the fragments of your “Ploscha” documentary were broadcasted on TV in the major information program “Vremya” where it was said that the regime still faced the problems. Don’t you think that the fact of your film broadcasting on the Russian TV proved Putin’s acknowledgement of his last year’s mistake when he actually supported the acting president of Belarus?

-The statement was very precisely worded as "… didn’t want to do any harm to the acting president…” They didn’t want to do “harm to the president” but what concerns Belarus, this harm has been done for many successive years. Because the most popular Russian scheme of privatization has being implemented in our country: they appoint their “private” director of the enterprise who then makes this enterprise bankrupt; after that the enterprise-and in our case, it’s the whole country - is being sold for petty cash. The support of the awful regime, actually, is the best way to bankrupt Belarus.

Their failure has been caused by the following – they had the wrong man, Lukashenka appeared not to be “their private “director, -he plays his own game. They considered him as a simple mind whom they would easily swallow. But it wasn’t like that -and they choked!

While the Russian authorities have been erecting their “sovereign democracy”(by the way, actually following the Belarusian route!) Lukashenka has acquired his numerous influential supporters as well as a considerably high rating in the Russian province. I know that for sure, as I have traveled much all over the Russian outskirts recently. The myth about the, supposedly, “most sincere and honest” president of Belarus has been firmly established step-by-step. When you start explaining that Lukashenka, himself, is the oligarch above all the oligarchs they treat you as a public enemy and the CIA agent.

On the whole, they “didn’t want to do any harm” to our regime but did harm to their own.

And now Putin has faced the problem: he has something to do with Lukashenka’s rating. Thus, the pieces from the documentary did the good job. On the one side, they have supposedly lowered the rating and, on the other side, they bared their teeth at Lukashenka: “Beware, or we’ll also “get you soaked in the loo”, if you do not behave yourself.

-What is the public response to “Ploscha” in Belarus and outside the country?

-At the www.tut.by in ”politics” section there is a forum dedicated to the documentary “Ploscha”. It is frequented by many people and hundreds of comments come to it. Practically all are favorable and only two or thee are negative. But even those have come apparently from secret service men who are professionally attached to forums. So, the documentary has got a warm welcome in Belarus. Someone has put the film into the network and it has been regularly copied. The copies have been distributed at a space speed-the pirates have not missed their chances and I am grateful to them for that.

But the film has being watched not only in Belarus: foreign messages have also been coming, for example, from Holland. A woman writes that” her husband without knowing the language has been watching the film with his mouth open for an hour and half”. I made a working demonstration of the film in Estonia – after the demonstration there was a storm of applause. And the questions went on for another hour and half. I’m aware that the documentary was demonstrated in Poland. Then I was phoned by three radio stations and answered their questions. So, it seems to me, that the interest is great. But the estimation, which was the most dear to me though I didn’t witness it personally, was told to me by my acquaintances: after the documentary demonstration a young men, who had not been at the square and so he saw the events for the first time in the film, smoked a lot in silence and then suddenly said: “It seems to me that I have missed something very important to my life”. Maybe, next time he will be in the square and that means, that one more person has felt himself freer and, thus, stronger.

- Lukashenka got used to expressing his critical attitude to Russian authorities and, personally, to Putin. If Putin’s latest confessions in the presence of a numerous journalist audience on TV- live could be heard by everyone concerned, Lukashenka’s confessions could be perceived only from edited reports of the Belarusian TV. It is to be mentioned that among his recent interlocutors there were German political scientist Alexander Rar, Russian policymaker Gennady Zuganov, and writer Alexandr Prohanov. Who of your colleagues could have extended the list of probable interlocutors of Lukashenko?

-Lukashenka’s terrible hatred of Putin is clear and explicable to me. The thing is that Putin have occupied Lukashenka’s place. And continues to occupy. And is going to name the successor. And it will not be Lukashenka but some one from the Putin’s surroundings.

No greater crime imaginable can be committed against Lukashenka. Everyone should have already understood that the only president of everything and forever must be Lukashenka and only Lukashenka!

This awful unfairness gets on the Belarusian president’s nerves and he looses his temper: instead of smooth clichés accepted among policymakers something different comes out, even pure insults. Actually, it is not the Union but a sort of the shared kitchen. ! Flies in cutlets, what a surprise! –We are no less cute; we can add something spicier into your borsch!

Thus, nobody else but the Belarusian TV ideologists are compelled to edit hastily the Belarusian president not to let the speeches result, for God’s sake, in the final relationship breakdown.

With Zuganov, Prohanov. …Who else…? He also talked to Poptsov …Do you remember that “mouth-wetting” poem under the epic title” I have been to another country’?

At the end of the masterpiece Poptsov, to my mind, was nearly singing. So what? Boria Moiseev may sing. And why may Poptsov not? But it would be interesting to listen to. May be even better to watch- Lukashenka’s talking to Leotiev. It would be nice, indeed. They might kill each other

-You have been among the founders of the Charter’97. What are the gains and failures of this initiative for the last 10 years of the resistance to the Lukashenka‘s regime?

Among the gains is the active work with the youth, creation of a good oppositional site, mass actions, the Marches for Freedom, for instance! We can’t deny the Charter’97’s influence on the Zubri’s performances.

They also helped me in my work at the documentary. And not only they, I can’t but mention the “Vyasna” human rights organization.

- What are the failures?

The major one, probably, is that changing of the power has not being achieved. But it is not only the Charter’97’s failure. They could not prevent the tactic drawbacks. Not always they succeeded in proving their viewpoints during discussions with relative political forces and in restraining them from failures. All of us have both gains and pains. But such is life. Hard but interesting.

Yuri Khaschevatsky was interviewed by Raman Yakauleusky