The main thing then and now is to defeat the evil, to defeat Lukashenko’s dictatorship
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Aleh (Oleg) Myatselitsa was born on 9 March 1972 in the village of Starki in Byalynichy District, Mogilev Region, Belarus. His father, Mikhail Nikolayevich Myatselitsa, was born in 1948. His parents, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers were all born in the same village. They are all Belarusians. Aleh knows his family tree down to the fifth generation. He has an older brother, Nikolai, who was born on 16 July 1968. Aleh spent almost all of his pre-school years in the countryside with his grandmother and grandfather, and so his primary, native language is Belarusian. He likes to use colourful dialectal expressions, which he heard used by his grandparents, who were born in the early 20th century. Their names were Andrey Nyetuk (born 1918) and Yeva (born 1920, née Belyatska). Aleh later compiled a dialectal dictionary of his native village. He spent the holidays each year with his grandmother and grandfather in Starki, while his family lived in Byalynichy. He attended school there, and in 1989 he was launched into adult life after enrolling at the Faculty of Geography of the Belarusian State University. He concluded his school-going years of 1979–1989 at Secondary School No. 1 in Byalynichy. When asked at school what he wanted to be, he would say: “An Indian.” As a student, he took an active interest in hiking and would attend hiker rallies in various cities of the Soviet Union. He met his future wife when they were both in the seventh year at primary school. Natalya was a USSR junior triathlon champion. They both completed secondary school in 1989. Natalya was accepted to a university in Minsk, but Aleh was not. He worked at a small village school in Polesí for a year. He managed to lead his pupils to take first place at a USSR orienteering race before being finally accepted to the Faculty of Geography. Aleh and Natalya married a year later. The student wedding took place in 1991, the married couple lived in the student halls, and in 1993 they had a daughter, Yauhena. Aleh entered public and political life in 1996. In 1997–2000 he served a restricted-freedom sentence at the Mogilev Special Commandant’s Office. This type of punishment specified by the penal code consists of the restriction of freedom and placement in an open-access correctional facility. In 2000 Aleh joined the Belarusian Social Democratic Party and founded a Youth “hramada” (organisation) in Belynichy. That same year, he helped create the Bison movement, whose main aim was non-violent resistance to the authoriatian regime. He was active in the movement until its dissolution in 2006, while also working at construction sites and on his own startups. He was often arrested for participating in peaceful democratic events. He ceased counting the number of times he has served 15-day detentions. In 2010–2013 he was a political exile in Lithuania, where he founded and directed the Civic and Political Representation of Belarus. When the situation relaxed, he returned to his homeland, worked at an insurance company, reconstructed his family’s old house in strict adherence to the traditions of Belarusian architecture, built up an agritourism farm, and organised folk festivities according to old customs. He was active in the opposition movement against the authoritarian regime. In 2020 Aleh took part in the presidential election campaign of an opposition candidate and then fled Belarus to avoid politically motivated persecution. His farm and all his property were confiscated, and he is the target of several criminal prosecutions based on false charges. Since 2020 Aleh has been living in Lithuania, where he works in a small repair shop while participating in Belarusian opposition activities abroad. The Office of the Prosecutor General of Lithuania has recognised Aleh’s status as a victim of lawless police action and has launched an investigation against Belarusian security forces within the framework of universal jurisdiction.
