Adobe Photoshop is not only a must for web designers and photo correction specialists, but it’s also a wonderful program for political satirists and pranksters. In authoritarian countries like Belarus, the former often become the latter. Isn’t it a pretty decent hobby to express your views anonymously making fun in Photoshop of political leaders you dislike? I don’t know, I would rather say yes. In Soviet Union, many writers expressed their opinions about the communist government indirectly, figuratively mocked at it. Many satirists wrote funny stories with stupid, fake and shallow bureaucrats as the main characters. And many political jokes circulated among the general public, especially during the times of perestroika. I heard a rather naïve but interesting view that those jokes contributed to the collapse of the empire of evil. Well, maybe there is some reason in this assumption. If it was really so, then maybe political jokes, anecdotes and collages could fuel people’s will for change within Belarusian society.
A few months ago, some anonymous pranksters have launched a website that would collect Photoshop artwork on the topic of Belarusian politics.
They called their project “Belarusian Toad.” Why toad? The matter is that Belarusian equivalent for that word sounds like “Zhaba.” And “photozhaba” is a techie slang word for a Photoshop collage.
The creators claim their being unbiased in selecting material to put online. Indeed, there you can find Photoshop images on both Belarusian officialdom and the opposition. There is no question in who gets more bruises. Belarus’ president has become a real star of the web resource. And below you can see a few examples of creative works by Belarusian Photoshop wags.

lukpb

lu

lu

All images are taken from http://www.belzhaba.com