Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation

Support the Guardian

Fund independent journalism with $5 per month
Support us
Support us
The eye of a student who was beaten multiple times.
The eye of a student who was beaten multiple times.

The scars of Belarusian protest – a photo essay

This article is more than 3 years old
The eye of a student who was beaten multiple times.

Polish photographer Jędrzej Nowicki has won the Luis Valtueña international award for humanitarian photography for his project The Scars about the repression of the 2020 protests in Belarus against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime. His work addresses the physical and psychological wounds inflicted on hundreds of people, and suggests the persistence of long-lasting scars that deepen the country’s divisions

By Jędrzej Nowicki

The Scars is a record of what is now known as the largest anti-government unrest in the history of Belarus. Massive protests started in August 2020 and left deep traces on Belarusian society. President Alexander Lukashenko and his state apparatus responded with extreme brutality to the Belarusian resistance.

  • The walls of the detention centre at Okrestina Street in Minsk, Belarus. It is here that many protesters caught by the security forces were detained and tortured.

The scars left by these events, which are the subject of this project, vary in sizes and shapes. There are physical scars: bruises, abrasions, fractures. But there are also psychological scars: traumas. What is now happening in Belarus will also leave deep scars in the social fabric. A division into two Belarusian states is already emerging.

Left: police officers from Omon units stand on the bridge in Maksima Bahdanovic Street in the first hours of mass protests. The protests began on the night of 9 August. The blockade formed by the police on the bridge was the site of the first direct clash between the protesters and the police. Right: protesters on a barricade.
Left: Mariya, a volunteer who helps as a paramedic, poses in front of the detention centre on Okrestina Street. Hundreds of people were waiting in front of the centre for their relatives. Right: A boy hugs his sister as they stand in front of the centre, from where he was just released. The centre became a symbol of the oppression of the Lukashenko regime.

The protagonists of these photos are protesters beaten by the regime, families whose relatives have been tortured by the security services, or citizens who oppose violence and want freedom. But also teenage soldiers dragged into the middle of a conflict that was never theirs.

  • Siergiey – a former soldier who was caught and beaten as he walked to a shop on the second night of the protests

Siergiey:

I was going to the shop to buy vinegar in the evening. I came back from the dacha with my wife and wanted to pickle some pickles. The road was closed, and Omon officers stood by the barriers. I asked them how to go to the store as they blocked the way. They knocked me to the ground and started striking me on the head. I was immediately covered in blood. After a few forever minutes, they told me to get up and walk but I was too weak.

Left: soldiers stand in line in Minsk. Young soldiers were involved in the suppression of the protests by Lukashenko’s services. Many of them had never participated in any actual military operation before. Right: protesters create a ‘chain of light’ near the entrances to Pushkinskaya metro station minutes before the brutal intervention of special forces on the night of 10 August. The events of that night are considered the most brutal in the history of the protests in Belarus. It was here that Alexander Taraikovsky lost his life. He was the first to die in a wave of protests
Left: a woman kneels in front of the line of special forces protecting President Lukashenko’s residence. Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Minsk heading for the presidential quarters on the outskirts of the capital. Right: a flower drifts in a city fountain during one of the biggest protests in August, which gathered tens of thousands of Belarusians in the centre of Minsk

Siergiey:

I managed to crawl away, but they caught up with me. They beat me on the back with batons. It made them happy. I don’t know how I got to the hospital. The children don’t know where I am. I don’t want them to see me like that. Until now, I trusted the militia.

  • Daria was held in Belarusian custody for five days. Forty women were locked up in a cell where five people should be held.

Daria:

On 11 August, I left work with my colleagues. There were 10 of us. We wanted to go downtown to see what was happening, what the next protest looked like. We managed to walk several hundred metres when a blue undercover minibus cut our way. We started running away. Everyone ran to the right but I decided to go left. They caught me and immediately recognised me as the organiser. And then it started.

Left: friends of Nikita Krivtsov carry his coffin in the municipal cemetery in Molodechno. Hundreds of people marched through the streets of Molodechno during the mourning ceremonies and Krivtsov’s funeral. Krivtsov was missing for 10 days after he was last seen on 12 August protesting in Minsk. His body was found hanged in the forest on the outskirts of the capital. Police said there was no evidence of foul play, indicating it was a suicide. But many believe that he was killed by state forces during his detention. Right: one of the protesters stands with a flare on the ladder of a city bus
Left: mourners stand in front of a funeral home in the centre of Minsk. Mourning ceremonies took place in the capital after Alexander Taraikovsky died near Pushkinskaya metro during massive protests. Right: Artiom sits on a bed and poses for a portrait in the 2nd Department of Surgical Diseases in Minsk. He was arrested by the Belarusian militia as he was walking home with his friend on the second night of the protests

Daria:

I think that I did not lose my mind because there were strict rules of upbringing in my home. Since I was a child, I had to obey many dos and don’ts. That’s how my parents taught me discipline. I used to hate it but today I am grateful. I think it saved me these days. We were all beaten at the police station and Okrestino. The most memorable is probably the so-called stairs of death.

  • Alexander, above, one of the detained protesters, poses for a portrait in front of the detention centre on Okrestina Street in Minsk. Alexander was going to his friend’s apartment when he was caught by the Belarusian military on the first night of the protests (10 August 2020). He spent four days in custody. He was beaten multiple times. Alexander studies at the Minsk Polytechnic.

Daria:

This is a practice used at police stations. Detainees have to climb up to the third, fourth floor, and every second step is an Omon officer or a policeman who beats and insults those who climb. They beat the boys especially, the girls were mostly insulted. How? They called us sluts, threatened they would rape us.

Left: a woman holds a bouquet of white flowers and white ribbon. Red and white flowers and ribbons became a symbol of the Belarusian protests. Right: the grandmother of Nikita Krivtsov cries over her grandson’s portrait as his mother, wife, and sister-in-law stand by her side.

Most viewed

Most viewed