A booze-related death happened on the first night of July in Maloje Sitna. Two guys, who had come for the weekend, drank in a village club – spirit “maksimka” was sold at the disco bar – and decided to race each other on motorbikes. A 29-year-old Polatsk resident ran over a female pedestrian who had worked at a local timber mill. The girl’s life was fortunately saved, but the drunken rider was less lucky – he was transported back home in a coffin.

Right you are if you thought that the villagers did not quit drinking after the accident. Such a death does not scare the local amateurs of “maksimka” – they are much more afraid of a sober life.

“To drink or nor to drink?” – this is out of the question for majority of Sitna residents. The paradigm is different: “How much?” “With whom?” “To what?” “On what occasion?” And finalizing this rhetorical line, comes death in the finale – poisoning, drunken brawl, arson, intoxication, suicide.

“Where are the authorities?” you might exclaim.

They see to the very root of the issue.

Turning citizens into drunkards is a highly profitable business. Apart from economic gains, “alcoholization” of the nation assures its passivity. Booze drowns protest sentiments – an employee had been spotted overdrinking, and boss could evaporate his courage by threatening to fire him for alcohol abuse. This guarantees calm and dozed conformity to the foggy reality. Workers scarcely reach the retirement age – the village is gradually dying out. The economy is similar to that in the Third Reich. Thus, apart from ice hockey arenas and the National Library, the current epoch will hand down a legacy of the great alcoholism of the millions, hampering any chance for reforms.
[…]
The guy who died in Sitna was of my age. According to sociological studies, such folks – even in villages – support the opposition. However, they drink a lot.

I have seen this paradox throughout the country – in Minsk. Vitebsk, Maloje Sitna. Democracy supporters drink – students, small business owners, intelligentsia, local bureaucrats, etc. They say they do it out of despair. Of course, you can envision it as a cool way to express your protest. You take a bottle neck, holding your booze like a grenade – screw you, scoundrels!.. However, numbers suggest that such drinking is the best way to foster the regime. Consider this – our educated, qualified, cultured, and predominantly city-born cohorts regularly consume not a home-brew or imported whisky, but they buy state-manufactured vodka. This product costs peanuts to our Beldzyarzhharchpram, but it brings the biggest portion of budget revenue to the state. And now let us count. Let us take 3-4 million people who usually back opposition candidates and multiply them by 10-15 liters of pure alcohol, which, according to statistics, is annually drunk by an average Belarusian. The cost of producing those 10-15 liters is about 400 roubles, while the state sells one half-liter bottle of vodka for 5-20 thousand roubles… Thus, by drinking, Belarusian democracy supporters subsidize roughly half a billion dollars to the regime.

Dear democrats, Europeans, nationalists, businessmen! I guess it’s enough to expect liberation from dictatorship via the Russian pipeline. Don’t you think it’s time to leverage changes by means of a comparable pressure?

Attention! I suggest that all opponents of the authoritarian rule should give up drinking until the full capitulation of the regime. Conscious Belarusians and disciplined party members should spend the funds they allocate to alcoholic beverages on issuing 10 million copies of anti-alcohol leaflets (it has been counted: the collected sum could cover the costs of full-color print, Finnish paper, and even transportation), and then we should widely publicize the company of “bankrupting the regime” throughout the nation. Instead of another toast, why not run around the block with a ream of leaflets? Plus – you get a moral satisfaction, minus a hangover.

“I don’t drink, because I am against Lukashenko” – sounds good, doesn’t it?

Time will come to drink a shot to our victory. Eventually, if we wish to drink at that point… Giving up bad habits leads to the national revival.

Maloje Sitna,
Paval Sieviaryniec