“Lukashenko became president. I expected him to stay for quite a long time, as he did so much to grab power. There was no one like him, no one with such a lust for power. But you could tell he was a populist from the way he behaved in the Superior Council, it was evident that he was a populist. That he wasn't a professional politician who could lead a country, who wasn't able to build all the pillars of a democratic state and who couldn't build this country according to those principles. That he wasn't a politician who could revive the industry after the collapse of the USSR, who could rule the whole country. As Lukashenko was able to do this thing, he is the sole operator of the power structure.”
“I can recall the time I was living in the orphanage. The war years, as well as the years after the war. The endless winter of the Arkhangelsk oblast and the persistent hunger that we all had I suppose. I recall that we were being served this weird mash, I recall dried carrot, dried onion, and potatoes that were used to make this mash or a soup. Also this hulled grain, and barley coffee – they would give you maybe half a cup of it with no milk of course. Canned fruit was also completely without sugar, there was just some dried fruit. The bread was scarce. And we the kids – as we were hungry most of the time – we were running from the orphanage and we would raid some gardens that belonged to I don't know who. We would also go to a forest and we would gather the fruits of the forest and also this so-called wild spinach. We would make tea from a willow tree peel and we did many kinds of things just to keep our stomach full.”
„Every person born in the camp stayed in its territory. There were orphanages where babies of people being persecuted had been living. And there is this event I can recall: as my mother brought me with her to this women's quarters, even though it was forbidden. I was three years old maybe. And I remember those two tier beds, those plank beds as they called them, this long corridor and a blond female warder who had been guarding the area, keeping everyone in order. Those women would hide me under the blankets so that she won't see me. So she wouldn't find out that someone dared to resist this order of theirs, bringing a child inside. And those women gave me all kind of sweets and candies... Well, that's a story I just can't forget.”
Garri Petrovich Pogonyalo was born on October 14th, 1943 in Plesetsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast where his mother had been held in a labour camp. His mother’s name was Lydia Filippovna Pogonyalova, his father was Peter Nikolaevitch Safronov. Lydya Pogonyalova had been persecuted in the USSR as the wife of an enemy of the people. Garri Pogonyalo grew up in orphanages since he was three years old. After graduating from secondary school, he was reunited with his mother who had already been rehabilitated and got a flat in Minsk. He was working in a factory, did his compulsory military service and in 1969 graduated from the Faculty of Law, Belarus State University. While at the university, he practiced Greco-Roman wrestling and was a member of the BSSR’s junior national team. After graduating, he had to work in the communal counselling office in Mihailov for a year, from 1970 to 1971 he was the director of the communal counselling office in Kastsyukovitchy. Since 1971 he had served as a judge in the Bykhov district in the Mogilev oblast. From 1979 to 1989 he led the Justice Department of the BSSR’s Ministry of Justice. For many years he was a CPSU member and a deputy chairman of the Party’s department for ideology at the Ministry of Justice. Since 1989 he has been working as a lawyer, becoming the president of the Belarus Association of Lawyers. He served as a defense lawyer in many well-known cases: the case of Vyacheslav Kebich, the former prime minister, Pavel Kazlousky, the former defense minister, Alexander Samankov, the chairman of the First Republic’s Privatization Fund, Slavormir Adamovich, a poet, Tamara Vinnikova, chairman of the Belarusian National Bank’s board of directors, journalists Pavel Sheremet and Zmicer Zavadsky and many others. Since 1998 Pogonaylo had no longer been allowed to practice law. Since 1997 he has served as the vice-chairman of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee. On September 30th 2020 Svetlana Tikhanovskaya made him a shadow government representative for human rights. In 1973 he married Zinaida Grigorievna
Garri Pogonyalo during his second year at the Faculty of Law, Belarus State University, during his training at the public prosecutor's office in Minsk, 1966
Garri Pogonyalo during his second year at the Faculty of Law, Belarus State University, during his training at the public prosecutor's office in Minsk, 1966
