MINSK, 2011: A REPLY TO KATHY ACKER BASED ON REAL STORIES AND EVENTS Photographs © Nicolai Khalezin 48 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. Minsk, 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker had its European premiere at Edinburgh Fringe Festival on 22 August, 2011. Originally presented at the Pleasance, Edinburgh. Director, concept and adaptation Vladimir Shcherban Originally co-produced by Natalia Kaliada and Nicolai Khalezin, and Fuel Theatre Company (UK). Written and performed by authors/actors: Pavel Haradnitski Yana Rusakevich Aleh Sidorchyk Dzianis Tarasenka Maryna Yurevich Yuliya Shauchuk Siarhei Kvachonak Viktoryia Biran Kiryl Kanstantsinau Additional contribution in writing by Vladimir Shcherban, Nikita Volodko, Ryma Ushkevich. Text ‘Belarus is not sexy’ written by Natalia Kaliada in collaboration with Nicolai Khalezin. Original translation by Yuri Kaliada and Natalia Kaliada. English adaptation by Chris Thorpe. Production Manager Tom Cotterill, UK. Assistant Directors Svetlana Sugako, Nadia Brodskaya General Management of International Touring Yuri Kaliada in collaboration with Fenella Dawnay. 49 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. Developed in residence at the Dartington Space with the support of the Dartington Hall Trust. Funded by Arts Council England. Performed in Russian and Belarusian with projected subtitles. What are you doing?! I am a journalist! I have accreditation! What are you doing? You bastards! Fucking hell! President of the Republic of Belarus. Alexander Lukashenko, President of the Republic of Belarus is singing… ‘My fingers are like logs… I’m telling you. And the bellows are stiff. Now, I started telling you about Obodzinsky… Just a few lines… If I can’t manage it right away, I’ll try to play it again. But I will manage it. Yes? Yes?…’ I wait for you to come or maybe you will not… A moment when I see you… Oh, I am so happy!!! Minsk, 2011. Scars. 50 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. Scars are a man’s decoration. By that measurement, I might not be Adonis, but I’m still goddamn beautiful. And I got all my scars in Minsk. This one’s on my palm. I was five when I got it. Ended up in the Hospital for Communicable Diseases when I cut myself on a door handle. Behind the knee. I stole something in the first grade, brought it to school. My dad flogged me with a belt, and the buckle cut my leg open. Right arm. The biggest and my favourite. I climbed over the fence at Minsk Airport Number One and slashed my arm on the barbed wire. Under the left eye. Scar of a rock-n-roll lover. I had glasses as a teenager, and long hair, so the local dickheads beat me up. Index finger on my left hand. I was carving a statue for my darling girlfriend and I put a chisel right through it. The scar on my forehead. Jumping around in a flat, utterly in love, didn’t notice a doorway. I saw the colour of my skull. If the fractures had left scars as well, I’d be even more beautiful. 5th metatarsal in my left foot. Tripped going up the stairs, three weeks in plaster in hospital. 51 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. Left cheekbone. Someone pushed me as a joke – I face-planted on a concrete floor – which wasn’t actually funny. Spent a week having maxillofacial surgery. Right arm. We were jumping from three-metre boards on a building site as kids. The aim was to land on the sand. I landed on a brick. Right rib, left rib, sternum and all my other ribs too. 1996. 26 April. The Chernobyl Remembrance Rally. I was grabbed by the riot police, and they took me inside the KGB building. I spent three hours splayed against a wall while they took my “statement”, and then they beat me up. When I finally fell down, one kept hold of my hands, the other kept methodically kicking me in the chest. Just as I was blacking out, one of them said: ‘I guess we’ll let you live, you freak.’ So I lived. Scars are a man’s decoration. Girls think scars are sexy. By that measurement, Minsk is a damn sexy city. New Year 2011 didn’t happen on January 1st in Minsk, like it does in the rest of the world, but 13 days earlier on December 19th, 2010. At the Square. A bloody crackdown on a peaceful demonstration against the falsification of the Presidential Elections. New Year tore the shell off the city – off its routine, its asexuality and its covered skin – all the red green and white scars were revealed… 52 . Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. Welcome to Minsk. The sexiest city in the world! Flowers from the President …Fuck… Flowers from the President of the Republic of Belarus What the fuck are you looking at? What the fuck are you staring at? That’s a guy, standing behind me in the queue. He’s saying that. Looking me right in the eye. I don’t say anything. ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ In Minsk, you can’t look people in the eye for more than three seconds. If you look at them for longer, it’s read as aggressive – that you’re asking for trouble. If you don’t look away, you could get insulted, punched in the face, even arrested. ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ I look into his eyes. He stays silent now and stares back. We both stay silent and we just look at each other. After 19th December 2010 the duration of a look in Minsk got shorter. Just a second can define you now – define you, or define a stranger for you. ‘Hey you. You are brave. Come on. Let’s go get drunk. You’ve got balls. We both have. Respect.’ 53 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. In this city, that’s how respect gets earned. Legs. Arms. Head. The whole body. Breathing. Everything floats in front of my eyes. There’s a high-pitched whine in my ears. – Marina, what’s the matter? – What? – Marina. What’s going on? – I’m… I’m a bit under the weather. That’s all. – OK. Well I hope you feel better soon. There were mass arrests – anyone who’d been in the square, and I was sure they were coming after me. It’d be my neighbour, I thought. He was a policeman. I’d known him all my life. He was hurrying to work, and as he walked past me, I slid down to sit on the steps. Even now in Minsk, the sight of a man in uniform, someone who should be protecting me, makes me feel in danger. – So? And who are you? Well, sit down. Who are you? – Igor Ivanov. – Why are you here? – I don’t know. 54 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – You were pulled off the street, right? – Yes. – There was a march, yeah? What kind of march was it? – Pride. – Pride… What’s Pride? – Do you think I should smash his fucking face in? – What were you being proud of? – We were celebrating LGBT pride and freedom. – LGBT? What the fuck’s that? – Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. – So you’ve done that and you’re finished. Right? – What’s finished? – The thing. All that stuff, the march. It’s over? – No, we’ve got big things planned. – What? – The major event’s actually tonight. – Where? 55 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – Club 6A. – 6A. Where’s that? – Partizan Avenue. Faggots gather there. – So who looks after the club? – There’s security. Two men. – So, let’s say, if skinheads attack the club… How many of you are going to be there? – It’s a club. About a hundred people, maybe? – So who’ll be protecting you? – The police. – Oh. The police. Right… Who are you? What are you doing here? – I live abroad. – Do you work? – No, I’m unemployed. – Why did you come here? – I’m a member of a Catholic group that’s engaged in pastoral work. Outreach, to other Catholics. – And do you get paid for it? 56 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – Of course not. They pay for my ticket here but not for anything else. I’m here to observe. Later I’ll go home and make a report. – And what’s that over there? – It’s one of our group’s T-shirts. – I can see that. I mean what’s this, inside it? – And that’s our flag… – Show it to me. – A flag? What kind of flag? – It’s a rainbow. It’s our community’s flag. – What does it mean? – The different colours mean different things. One’s freedom, one’s brotherhood. Something about love… Look, why don’t you let us go? You’ve already kept us here for three hours. – What? Let you go? Skinheads from all over the city are after you. – Maybe we could take a taxi and get away, eh? – Where did you say this club was? – 6A. Partizan Avenue. 57 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. 6A Partizan Avenue. In the daytime it’s a “workers’ canteen”. Number 32 the shop floor guys from the tractor factory eat lunch there, and at midnight it becomes an art club 6A. ‘Belch Place’, ‘Sick Towers’, ‘Snake’s Cave’, ‘The Shed’, ‘Narcissus’, ‘Cinderella’s Ball’… Or just ‘Buttercup’ – that’s what the regulars call that hole. Lovers of free fucking… It’d be interesting to see what’d happen if the daytime clientele saw it at night…they wouldn’t believe who were drinking from their glasses… 1am. Taxi after taxi turns into a darkened street. A huge iron door. It opens if you’re lucky. It’s a semi-legal club. It’s only for the initiated. Their ‘Flower’ buried underground. Tonight, all the guys get in for free. They did up the toilets recently. Cool. If you find someone… Cool. …in the bogs – the best place for morality to die. Sweat, bleach, piss, cheap cologne – the smells of the night. 58 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. A long corridor. A green wall. A huge concrete staircase leads to the second floor. On the left the mincy kids dance by the banisters. Next to them, Valya Catastrophe – tall, fat and merry. Catastrophe lives in a communal flat. He says that he’s got aristocratic roots. That he wants to be a lady landowner with plenty of boy-serfs, who he’d fuck doggy-style for the slightest infraction. He gets his boys from the station and fucks them in exchange for bowls of soup. At the top of the stairs the dance floor is bouncing to some trashy tune or other. The DJ’s taking requests. Nobody gives a fucking shit. Two others stand out by the bar, on the other side of the room. Dana, who used to be Ashley – a hooker with impressive breasts and an equally impressive dick. Man’s knees in thick black stockings. High heels pushing up a man’s calves. Denim mini and white shirt. Sex, written on it in rhinestones. Wide eyes and a wet slash of a mouth held slightly open. Rabbit, can I crash a fag? How about a blow job? I don’t work when I’m high. Not working much, then, eh? Darling, I’m going to need a handler soon. 59 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. In the front, Syarzhuk. Tall and skinny with a beautiful smile. He got off the game when he was seventeen. Now he’s in charge of the community of Gay Belarus. It’s him who hangs the rainbow flag over the bar, the flag that turns canteen No. 32 into ‘Buttercup.’ It’s inevitable that society and public opinion have their dictates, but the way you choose to oppose those can lead to self-knowledge and perfection. It’s around 3a.m. Blurred vision. No one gives a fuck about art. Everyone’s offering themselves up thoughtlessly. An older man appears by the bar, he’s medium height. They all greet him. He’s truly the king of the club. The rumour is he’s got an influential relative on the City Council and that’s how the club survives, with the occasional name change. The bartender’s sweet. He tells everyone he’s straight, but he’s worked here five years in the Snake’s Cave and holidays occasionally with the owner in the Crimea. Any kind of power is a turn-on. Nobody sits at the tables. Nobody gives a fuck. Only tourists, and Sergei, who’s fifty, can afford ten bucks to sit somewhere the factory floor guys sit for free during the day. There are a few vodka shots on the tables, some cola, nuts, oranges. Sergei likes them tall and skinny. 60 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – Did you want something? – No. Just a chat. – Let’s chat, then, if you want. – What’s your name? – What’s that got to do with anything? – OK. Doesn’t matter. And you don’t care about my name either, right? – Absolutely. – Let’s talk, anyway. Do you come here often? – Don’t know. Sometimes. You? – No. Not that often. – There you go… – Can I ask you a personal question? – Of course. But I’m not saying I’ll answer it. – Tell me. Are you gay? – Who? What? What did you say? – I… are you gay? – I love beautiful things. – Why are you wearing a wedding ring? 61 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – Where? – Right there. – Where? – On your finger. – Oh. Doesn’t matter. – What d’you mean, doesn’t matter? It matters. – No it doesn’t. – Are you married or not? – If you want, you and me can go to my apartment, on Pushkin street. Two rooms, and it’s completely empty. You’ll see. – Actually, I’m here with a girl. – I’ve got Jesus in me! – But she’s pissed already. – Yeah, well. But I can’t leave her here. – If you want, we can put her in a taxi. I’ll pay for everything. – I can’t. She won’t let me. – Can I kiss you? 62 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – No. – Why? – She’ll kill me. – Why? Such a little thing. She won’t even notice. – I can’t. – Why? It’s just a kiss. – She’ll kill me. – Calm down, OK? It’s just a kiss. – Not here. – Where then? Let’s go to the toilet. – I can’t. She won’t let me. – Tell her that you want the loo. – I don’t. – Lie. – I’d better go dance. – At home I’ve got Jack Daniels. Hennessey. Why do we have to drink this horrible shit? 63 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – Let me get on the dance floor and I’ll think about what we can do. Sergei thinks: ‘I don’t give a fuck, really’ and immediately picks up some chubby student guy. It’s half-three. They put a metal table on the dance floor for the empty dishes. A drunk girl appears and climbs up on it. She takes her T-shirt off, makes her nipples hard, starts to masturbate. Her boots are unbuttoned so the fur’s on the outside. Absolutely no one gives a fuck. Only Ruslan the virgin cares. He’s pounding between her legs, in his dreams. Ruslans’s only had a cock for six months, he’s never had sex and he will never come. The girl bangs her knees bloody on the wall in her excitement. She comes, and then pukes on the floor. The bouncer steps over her mess, grabs her by the hair and drags her to the bogs. Her tits, jelly-like, bang together to the slow beat of the last dance. It’s half-five. ‘Buttercup’ is slowly washing away down the subway. A few drunken zombies, holding each other up, are heading to cars, the sick’s been mopped up, the rainbow flag’s been safely hidden away. The bouncer locks the big iron door. The 6A arts club becomes canteen number 32 again, and soon it’ll be filled with factory workers. Even the bouncer, the night’s last witness, has no idea what the club looks like in daylight. – Yul’ka! Why does your butter taste weird? – Because someone’s been sticking their cock in your beard! 64 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – Yul’ka! Give me some fruit in a cup! – Suck your own dick, I’ve got to wash up! – Yul’ka! I’ll have cabbage soup in a bowl! – I’ll get my cock in it so it’s all foul! – Yul’ka! Why is there hair in the soup? – Go and fuck yourselves! You bunch of cunts! Ooooh! Yul’ka’s all riled up, the silly fucker… The Expert Commission of the Republic Expert assessment No. 221. After studying the repertoire and familiarising themselves with the programme, the ECR noted a good choreographic standard, a high performative standard, and genuinely innovative artistry in several specific areas of the programme. The programme presented consists of topless shows, examples of which fall within the accepted societal standards of decency and morality. The programme presented does not therefore contain elements of pornography, but there is a need to be vigilant against movements that could slip inadvertently into it. The programme presented is passed as erotic. 65 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. According to the definitions laid down herein: pornography is crudely realistic, sickeningly cynical, obscenely fixated on the act of intercourse, a deliberate and self-contained display of sexual organs, contains representations of sex with no artistic merit in them, perversion, nudity that is outside normative moral criteria, insults personal dignity and decency, and puts people on the same level as unthinking animals. Get to my office to sign it. – Handsome, aren’t they? – Who? – The Beatles. McCartney, especially. – Don’t know. Don’t know what he looks like. – What do you mean, you don’t know? – I don’t know what any of the Beatles look like… – Are you serious? – Well, yeah. I’ve never seen the Beatles. – Wow. I’ll give you a clue then. Ringo’s the shortest. – So McCartney’s one of the other three… 66 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:17:41. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – I like your logic. – I don’t know! – OK. John Lennon wore glasses. – So McCartney’s the one with the beard, right? – No. That’s George Harrison. – So he must be the last one? – There you go. You learn something new every day. You really didn’t know what the Beatles look like, did you? – No. – And you’ve never seen them live? – Nope. – You know who Yoko Ono is, though? – John Lennon’s girlfriend. – So you know who Yoko Ono is, but you don’t know what John Lennon looks like, right? – No… – Yesterday I found out my boyfriend cheated on me. – So what did you do? 67 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – Tell me something interesting. – About two weeks ago, I was visiting some mates, and I got a call to say my grandma had died. I can’t remember leaving, but I ended up at a tram stop. I was walking and thinking that I had to call my dad and tell him, and my sister. I got onto the tram, and got some money out to buy a ticket, and then my friends called and tried to say something comforting, and I was saying something to them – I don’t know what. So I was in a kind of trance and the tram went past a stop, and at the next stop the ticket inspector got on. I’d totally forgotten to buy a fucking ticket. They were on me like dogs on a rabbit – ‘Tickets, please’ – ‘I’ve only been on one stop…’, ‘…I haven’t had time to buy it’; ‘Young man, if you haven’t got a valid ticket you’ll have to pay a fine.’ ‘Honestly, I was on the phone, look, I’ve even got the money in my hand. I’ll get one now…’. ‘You should do it as soon as you get on, not stand there on the phone.’ ‘Pay up.’ And this old woman stuck her nose in and said I’d been on for a few stops, not just one – She was going on about how pensioners have to pay, and she resents subsidising my free ride. And I was blushing, and my hands started shaking and I just couldn’t speak. And this shortarse ticket inspector was just breathing all over me… – Do you fancy a handjob? – No. Thanks. I don’t know why I did it, but I told them something awful had just happened – and they didn’t believe me! I started screaming at them. That they were fucking bitches, that their kids were going to burn in hell and they’d get eaten up by cancer and some other stuff, I 68 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. paid up, and they just wanted to get rid of me, they tried to give me the receipt and I wouldn’t have it so someone just stuck it in my pocket. So I got off at this stop, and I was completely in the wrong place. So I was standing there, totally alone, in this field in Serebryanka and I noticed this massive rat in the grass nearby, just staring at me. Have you ever seen a rat at a Minsk bus stop? – What? – I said have you ever seen a rat at a Minsk bus stop? – Alright. Well, we were standing there. Looking at each other and the fucker even stood up on its hind legs. We looked at each other for a fair while, and before it ran away, it smiled at me. Maybe I only thought that, but it could have been a real smile. And then I realized everything was going to be OK. With my dad, and my sister, and with me as well. Somehow, I just knew it. That’s kind of a story, isn’t it? – Right. I’d better be going. – Come on. – Listen. I don’t think I’m going to fuck you. – Fine. Don’t forget what Paul McCartney looks like… To be sexual in Minsk does not mean to want sex. Katya is twenty-one. She moved to Minsk four years ago to 69 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. study journalism at the University. Katya could get any man excited. Her long slender legs get shown off in high heels and flesh-tone tights. Tight top, pierced belly-button, thick hair, a bit of make-up, toned and flexible… She’s one of the best students at ‘Go-Go’ dance studios in Minsk. Katya believes any successful young woman who lives in Minsk should look exactly like she does. And she doesn’t associate that look with sex at all. Sex – says Kat – is dirty. Disgusting. She doesn’t even like to say the word. She turns off films if there’s a love scene. She could barely even stand to read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Katya lost her virginity to Roma, a guy from Minsk, when she was twenty. She didn’t like it. It was painful. Painful and embarrassing. After that, she just let Roma go down on her, sometimes. After Roma, Katya didn’t sleep with anyone else and only kissed a few guys. “If I kiss someone, I get so ashamed, I can’t see them again”, she says. A year ago, Katya went on a health kick, a diet, and got carried away with it, but it turns out there’s not much healthy food in Minsk. So Katya decided not to eat. Almost nothing. Her daily diet’s a bag of raisins and a low-fat yoghurt now. This year, a demon possessed Katya… The evening it happened, there was no warning. Katya invited two guys round, Dima and Sasha, who she’d met on the internet. She thought they’d just drink coffee and have a chat. The guys had other ideas. They brought a 70 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. bottle of brandy round, sat in the kitchen and got her drunk with practiced ease: ‘To meeting you! And friendship!’ Two shots – and Katya, so skinny, is mumbling her dreams to them: ‘I want to be… …a dancer! In a club!’ They say they have connections. They say they can help her. They’re lying of course – they just want to fuck her senseless. But she’s so pissed she believes every word. Katya is pissed and really wants to get that job. She goes into the other room to change into her costume, show them what she can do. She’s in full flow when her favourite song comes on. It’s called ‘Little Dirty Whores’. – OK. I get the idea, kind of. It’s good, you’re flexible, obviously… You’re holding back, though. Go on, let yourself go. You’re already embarrassed and there’s only two of us here. Imagine there’s three hundred blokes. Then don’t get freaked out by them. Forget them all. Relax. – I am relaxed. – OK…good girl…I need to see your tits now. Can you take your bra off please? – I don’t dance topless! – Look, we’ve seen nearly everything anyway – you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. This is just to be sure. You think I’ve never seen a pair of tits? You’ll have to get your clothes off when you’re onstage at the club. It’s the 71 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. rules. Do you want it or not? I don’t get it. Get over yourself… Thought this was your dream… So Katya got over herself – she went for it. She lined up the next shot of brandy for courage, turned around to show her arse, pulled her pants down a bit, kind of awkwardly, and that confused her, so she stopped. It was when she used one finger to pull her bra down a bit at the front that Dima lost control. He leapt from his chair and tried to pull Katya’s pants off. He was shaking with excitement. Then they were both whispering shit in her ear and trying to pull her pants off. They’d almost got what they wanted, too, when Katya’s flatmate turned up. The party was over. Luckily for Katya. They left empty-handed. They’ll get theirs in the night All the Mama’s girls will get it All the Dirty Little Whores will get it And their Mamas too. Early the next morning, Katya will go to the National Library – the sparkling, diamond-shaped symbol of Belarusian order and stability. The diamond shelters sinners for the price of a library card. She’ll stay there until it closes. Katya will drink coffee, she’ll smoke, and she’ll read books about the psychological effects of alcohol on humans. In the evening, she’ll come home and say to herself, ‘Yesterday I wasn’t myself – I was possessed. I can’t drink. Because it has a terrible effect on me…’ 72 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. And that way, Katya will stop drinking, and she’ll abandon her dream of dancing in clubs for money. The next month, she’ll quit smoking. A month later, she’ll stop eating completely, and they’ll put her in hospital and diagnose anorexia. Oh my God. I’m creating history. One day they’ll write about this in textbooks. Minsk has finally woken up. That first Wednesday, three hundred people gathered on the street – the next there were three thousand. We didn’t have slogans, flags, symbols. We just wanted to show we existed. Much cooler than the officially-sanctioned ‘City Day’, A real, spontaneous carnival. The powers that be have a slightly different view: an Investigative Committee was established, gathering in numbers greater than three was made illegal, the state machinery has unlimited power, what the KGB term ‘preventative conversations’ take place, people are expelled from the universities, gigs are banned, fines, arrests, trials. – You! In the purple swimming shorts! Hands behind your back! Get your fucking head down! The whole thing’s mental. Apparently, you can’t put your hands together in the streets of Minsk, you can’t drum, you can’t listen to music on your phone, you can’t arrange to meet your mates. 73 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. I’m standing on this concrete floor in the detention centre in Okrestin Street and I feel powerless. Right in my guts. All I want is to not get fucked up, get into a cell as quickly as possible, and sleep through my ten days’ detention. This is fucking brilliant. Finally, they had a moment of genius they enhanced the basic features of an ambulance to make it a ‘Special Stalin-style Police Paddy Wagon’. This is genius. So now the red-and-white-magic-bus can take away protesters as well as patients. For example: – So where’s Egor? – The ambulance took him. – Why? – I don’t know. There was a problem with his head… – And who called the ambulance? – I did. What more can I say? There’s no need to hide now. They can pick you up any time, day or night. They’re just a call away: dial 103 – they’ll know from your voice which kind of ambulance to send. Everyone will get it, eventually… 74 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. For example: You’re on a bus, an ambulance passes, through the window, you see two men in white coats holding down a third, who is twisting and struggling, and isn’t wearing a white coat. What might you think? You might think a lot of things. But there’s no way you can tell what’s going on for sure. I think the ambulance that picked me up was one of the normal ones. You do? Let’s go to the dining hall. Minsk. 19 Pulihova Street. There’s a shop called ‘Trust-94’. It was built in ’94 as a sign of trust in the President we elected that year, and it’s gradually shrunk its inventory until it sells the only thing the local consumer wants – cheap wine made from fruit and berries. It’s called ‘byrla’. Ink. And due to its competitive pricing, it’s the favourite tipple of workers, old soldiers, almost-tramps – or ‘voters’, if you like. On delivery day there’s always a long queue of happy faces. Normally they sell the ‘ink’ straight from the box it comes in. It doesn’t make sense to put it on the shelves because it sells out straight away. The cheaper the drink, the bigger a seller it is. Even in these times of economic crisis, of inflation, the price of this medicine hasn’t risen – not as fast as diesel 75 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. or unleaded anyway – it’s still about a dollar. Less that 80 pence. ‘Charlie’, one of the brands, gets made out of rubbish – mainly apples, too unripe or rotten to juice or make into jam – then they add sugar, dye, alcohol. It’s the opinion of the majority of drunkards that the one called ‘Kryzhachok’ is uniquely likely to give you blackouts. ‘Ink’ really fires people up to invent their own names for it, and the workers at the winery come up with epic ones. There’s an unwritten rule, a kind of drinkers’ code, that all names are good enough, and anyone can come up with one. For example, there’s a brand that’s just called ‘Wine’, but it’s also known as: Musically: That Old Sad Song, Last Year’s Quadrille, Kupalinka, The Maestro, Gilbert and Sullivan, The Magic Flute, Autumn Sonata, Zhaleyka, Polonaise, Serenade… Geographically: The Concrete Jungle, Summer Evening, Alma Valley, Dawn over Schara, The European… Femininely: Very Berry, Goodnight Girl, The Witch, Naughty Naughty, Galathea, To My Valentine, Last Love, Charm, Vasilisa, Ragneda, Sweetheart, Azalea… 76 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. Romantically: Scarlet Sails, Radiant, The Hussar, Brotherhood, Garden of Eden, Mr. ‘X’, Alexander and me… ‘Trust-94’ wasn’t named for Lukashenko or the election that he won back then. It was named for the choice that the people of Belarus made in ’94. The choice that’s defined the urban environment of Minsk for years. Today all the dreams and hopes of voters are reflected on the stickers from the bottles that the homeless try to clean with dirty water. There’s this tramp who’s nicknamed ‘Dad’, and he’s sitting on the riverbank near ‘Trust-94’, and he’s tearing the label off a brand of wine called Happiness, and he’s saying: You see that fish down there? It’s whitebait. Small fry. It’s us. The bums. The bigger fish eats us, then that fish gets eaten by a bigger one, and that one gets eaten by the biggest one of all… Then a fisherman catches the biggest one. He cuts off its fucking head and he eats it. And then the fisherman gets eaten by liver cancer, or kidney disease, or having kids!… I haven’t got any kids. See. I’m going to quit drinking, get the fuck out of fucking Minsk. And outlive all of you! Poem by the Belarusian poet, Anatol Sys 77 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. I’d devour my people, when the wheat crop fails and as if it was wine I’d wash them down with my blood. To the West and the East live strangers – I’d feed their eagles My own vomit That I’d put back on the Earth, Or venom from a snake, I’d return only the women And I’d say: Don’t bow before those eagles The land that bore us needs more men! Therefore, I devoured the people, when the wheat crop failed, Because I was hungry And destiny and freedom were dead. Charon’s ice has melted, So we’ll walk across the River Styx, And make a new Fatherland. Conceive a son in the empty field. There was an unspoken Soviet tradition that only cities of a million or more deserved a Metro. The millionth inhabitant of Minsk was born in 1975, and in 1977 they started the first serious work on the subway system. Initially, the designers were going to make the subway lines follow the relevant city streets. They quickly 78 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. abandoned that plan though, when they realised the resulting Metro map would be – almost exactly – a swastika. The grand opening of the Minsk Metro – a new major artery for the city – took place on June 30, 1984. Thousands of people went down into the subway for the first time, tears of joy in their eyes and bouquets clutched in their hands. The architecture of Minsk’s first subway stations was in keeping with the Avenue of Heroes – the main street above ground – and the artwork was sort of ‘Stalinist Imperial’, harking back to when that style dominated. Lenin Square, October, Victory Square were stations with platforms made of granite and walls faced in marble. Here were the symbols of the Soviet era – a bust of Lenin, a hammer and sickle, murals of buxom workers on collective farms and muscular proletarian buttocks. The newer stations – Sport, Youth – reflected the national priorities for the future. The third line is scheduled to open in 2017. Right now the Minsk Metro consists of 2 intersecting lines, 28 stations, over 40 kilometres of tracks, and is used by more than a 1.5 passengers a day. A popular and affectionate term for the subway among ordinary residents is ‘the hole’. Or even ‘the little hole’. 79 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. It’s cool in summer, warm in winter and dry in autumn. The favourite meeting-place for ordinary people, the G-spot of the subway’s vagina, if you like, is the bridge at October station that connects the two lines like an umbilical cord. Here’s where meetings are arranged, couples are formed, and destiny keeps an eye out for you. Please mind the closing doors. The next station is October. – Control! – I’m here. What’s happened? – Listen, there’s been an explosion on platform two at October Station. Just got a report from the driver on train 9. – An explosion? – I think so. The whole place is full of smoke. – OK. Roger that. – Emergency. What service? – There’s been an explosion. October station. – Are you outside the station? 80 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – We’re not out yet. We’re still inside, coming up the escalator. There was an explosion. Lots of smoke. We can’t get out. – Right. We’re sending some equipment, – Hello. We need an ambulance. Kupalovskaya Station – OK. Where are you right now? – There’s a woman with an open fracture. – OK. Where are you? – She’s got an open fracture. – There are ambulances on the way. They’re on the way. – Listen up. Attention everyone – gather round. We need all back-up vehicles and all appliances. Get everyone you can on scene. – 19th! – Roger that! – 2nd! – Got it! – 4th! – Copy that! 81 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. – 5th! – Copy that! – 6th! – Got it! – 7th! – Got it! – 17th! – Roger that! – 13th! – Got it! – … (Inaudible) – Got it! – 40th! – Got it! On April 11, 2011, there was a massive explosion at October Station that claimed fifteen lives and injured three hundred more people to varying degrees. The authorities immediately called it a terrorist attack. Before this, the words ‘terrorist attack’ were an abstraction. It 82 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. was something that happened to people on TV and in movies, or abroad. It happened in rich countries where there was something worth attacking. Terrorist attacks weren’t about us. Not at all. The station was closed for two days, but there were a lot of pictures of the scene posted online. I have a very clear memory of one photo where among the naked bodies, mutilated, blown out of their clothes by the blast, lay three bags of sugar. The explosion happened at the height of a food supply crisis, when people were buying anything they could from the shops. Someone had stood in a queue, for a long time, for these three unlucky bags of sugar, which were now absorbing the spilled blood on the platform. On the third day, the station reopened, but it wasn’t the station, the subway, that the residents of Minsk were used to – the steps at the entrance were carpeted with flowers and thousands of candles. When I got inside, I could smell it: a sweet, sickly smell of burned flesh that three days had done nothing to dissipate. The smell of blood and sugar. The station itself was unusually quiet. In many places the marble had been blasted off the walls. On the platform, in the gaps between the slabs, you could see traces of blood that they hadn’t been able to wash out. Where the epicentre of the explosion was, there was a new piece of granite. About a metre by a metre and a half. Everybody kept walking up to it, looking at it carefully, for a long 83 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. time, but all they could see were their reflections. And nobody dared tread on it. It’s been a year since the bomb. The subway’s back to normal. There are as many people as before. The blood’s washed off the granite. There’s sugar in the shops, although it’s three times as expensive. And every time I pass through October Station, when the train doors open, I see the platform and I think. It could have been my body. Snow The long-awaited snowfall only arrived in Minsk on December 31 2011, so it was a real New Year’s miracle. So much snow fell that the City Council didn’t have chance to clear the streets and squares quickly enough. So an instruction came down from the City Operations Committee after their meeting: get everyone who’d been sentenced to forced labour for prostitution and use them to clear the streets of snow. Nikolai Ladutko, Mayor of Minsk, put it this way – ‘That’s forty-two street walkers giving something back to the city. So then it’ll be more pleasant for them to hang around under the streetlights.’ Nemiga Street – the most perplexing place in the city. The street is named after the river. The river that gave a beginning to Minsk city. Nemiga means sleepless, running wild, and frenzied. 84 Khalezin, Nicolai, Shcherban, Vladimir, and Kaliada, Natalia. 2013. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre. London: Oberon Books. Accessed July 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:19:08. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. Incidentally, in March of 1067 there was a battle on the river, and after the battle almost nobody in Minsk was left alive. It lasted for seven days. Nemiga River is a ghost river, not shown on any map. In some way it doesn’t even exist. In the middle of the last century the Nemiga was forced into pipes underground. Since that time for some reason Nemiga Street has the highest recorded incidence of suicides and car crashes. And each year the river overflows in the summer rain. Nemiga is another deep scar on Minsk’s body. And on May 30th 1999 there was a tragedy in an underpass near Nemiga Station. 53 people were crushed to death. People say that’s how the river takes its revenge on the people of Minsk. A Belarusian folk-song – ‘Early on St Ivan’s Day’ Belarus isn’t sexy! Sexy countries have oil, and gas, a coast and mountains. Belarus is the only European country with no coast and no mountains. Belarus is flat. Nobody fancies Belarus. Not even the closest neighbours. Even if we assume that parts of it could be beautiful…it’s definitely not sexy. The closest thing to the sea is a man-made reservoir near Minsk. We’ve got two ski resorts. They had to dig them 85 Khalezin, Nicolai, et al. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre, Oberon Books, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1623713. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:23:21. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. into the ground so the slopes were big enough. The highest point in Minsk is three hundred metres. The only way the country can get attention is to get its kit off in front of the whole world. I suppose another idea would be to have a massacre or two, like in Syria, Rwanda, Iraq, Libya, Tibet. It attracts attention when a man kills his kids by slicing them up, roasts the pieces and forces his wife to eat them just after she’s given birth. And when she refuses, he bursts her caesarian scar open, dumps the pieces of the kids back into her womb and sews it up again. Is this what the world’s waiting for? I think so. But what Rwanda taught us is that even if that happens, the world takes at least three months to react and to stop the violence. It’s much easier to watch it like a thriller that might have an exciting, unpredictable ending. And then, after that, sitting in front of the TV with a scotch, one European politician turns to another and says, ‘Well, it’s happened. Time to do something.’ Then they go into the UN Security Council and they vote to revive the country like they were giving a teenage girl the kiss of life. To help her recover so they can get a fuck in gratitude – part of her territory or something she has. They do this because they’ve been dead themselves for years, and they need the pure flesh like an oxygen mask, to give them a new lease of life for a while. 86 Khalezin, Nicolai, et al. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre, Oberon Books, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1623713. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:23:21. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. The only resource Belarus has is its people. But people are an unpopular commodity. Unattractive. If you put them in a cage, people kill each other, they create a tornado of sexual violence. The ones who hold society’s power crush the weak and defenceless ones. A dark mass…thousands upon thousands…clawing, growling, screaming, banging their sticks on their shields… black leather gloves with metal plates in them, boots laced high, patent leather helmets… Jumping on a body to hear it crunch… Splitting skulls like watermelons… Screaming bitch or whore or animal or pussy at you… ‘I’ll show you what you can use a chair leg for’… ‘I’ll make you think the Nazis were just playing’… ‘Get down, bitch’ … ‘I’ll take you into the forest and we’ll see what happens then’… And then they print you. A little roller, dipped slowly into black ink, as they roll up their sleeves as if they’re getting ready to do not just your fingers but all of you. Taking each finger in turn. Taking each tiny area of your phalanges, your palms. Pressing your fingers down with their two sweaty hands. It’s enough to make you non-stop gag. After that you can’t wash it off. You’re properly printed then. There’s nothing you can do. They just slap their thighs, and express regret. There was nobody to protect you. You’re sexless. You’ve nothing to give. Only your teenage body. Only that. That girl grows up. Her body will get wise and realize that you don’t sell just beautiful breasts, long legs, plump red lips. In sex, you sell your creativity. When 87 Khalezin, Nicolai, et al. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre, Oberon Books, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1623713. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:23:21. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. you know how to do something the others can’t. And if she’s got used to violence, a sadomasochistic sophisticate will be born that’ll make the world tremble. Hear the whip crack, and start to understand. That girl. She’s grown up. Minsk is right there! Maryna: For some reason I come back to Minsk every time. Why? I don’t know. Actually, here’s a thought – maybe Minsk is some kind of…black hole. It sucks in all the interesting people, all the ideas, the hopes, the aspirations, and if you don’t try to escape for a while, it sucks your energy out, you turn into a couch potato. Every time I’m abroad, I stay in close touch with my parents. I promise them, and I mean it, that when I get back we’ll spend a lot of time together. But as soon as I’m back, we hardly speak. Sometimes I think ‘Damn. Minsk is beautiful. I should go out for a walk. I’ll do that as soon as I’m back!’ And then I see all the dull grey buildings, and I just take a taxi instead. Although Minsk is the only place I’ve fallen in love. In 2011, despite the problems, the elections, the crises, the arrests, the currency queues, I actually fell in love! Honestly, I was going to give it all up, quit theatre, screw my career, get married, have kids – a boy and a girl – learn how to cook, make breakfast for four, dress us all in sailor suits. That was the dream. Unfortunately, that dream got stuck in 2011. Really, I’ve got nothing in Minsk. But I can’t imagine myself anywhere else. I mean, living somewhere else would be… 88 Khalezin, Nicolai, et al. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre, Oberon Books, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1623713. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:23:21. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. Pavel: 2011 ended, but I didn’t feel it, because for me, the end didn’t live up to what had started, nothing had changed, really, no watershed moment. I was born in Minsk, I lived there for twenty-nine years, and although I lived away from it a lot, I kept coming back because my loved ones were there. Those people are Minsk for me. And the city can be different places – funny, sad, smart, stupid, honest, dishonest. Generally European. Viktoriya: My university just turns out political whores. And I don’t want to be one of those, so I don’t go anymore. My mum’s dream is that I’ll live abroad. I think, in Minsk you can live the same way you would in any other city. All you need is a laptop, a shelf for your books, somewhere to sleep, and someone you love. The rest will take care of itself. Dzianis: Last year, for the first time in thirty-two years living in Minsk, I rented a place of my own. What will I do when I get back? I’ll drink. I’ll chill out, I’ll travel round in taxis, and I won’t give a fuck about the crisis because I’ll have money coming out of my arse. I’ll get my red guitar, put my snazziest shirt on, shades, and I’ll play. If I’m not banned of course. And the girls are going to scream. Yeah baby, I’m a rock star – young, good-looking, sexy! Where will I go? Might go to Chelyuskintsev Park and drink ‘Bulbash’ Brandy . Let’s go to Chelyuskintsev Park and drink ‘Bulbash’ Brandy! I’ll teach you how to fuck on a park bench in Chelyuskintsev park so well that they’ll put a plaque on it. I’ll release your sexual potential, baby. Minsk will shake. The subway will stop out of sheer envy, because 89 Khalezin, Nicolai, et al. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre, Oberon Books, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1623713. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:23:21. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. I’ll get inside you like the trains go into it. But a hundred times harder. Yuliya: 2011 was an important year for me. The National Theatre fired me over an article in the independent press. Nothing seditious in it – it just reported me going into prisons with a play about AIDS. And I said that in Belarus it was better to be in prison than homeless. That I’d rather commit a crime and get sent down than die on the streets in winter. I’ve got nothing in Minsk – no flat, no man, no direction. I don’t even own a chair. Just clothes in different friends’ flats and unpaid debts. I’ll go back to Minsk, where there’s nothing, and nobody. But there’s no other city more dear to me than this one. Kiryl: When I was 20, I tried to find a job for the first time. But after six months I hadn’t found anything in Minsk. I went to Moscow for a better life. Minsk had quietly stowed away in my head, though – it travelled with me. Every chance it got, it called me a traitor, told me to go back home… So I live in Minsk now, and I’m still unemployed. I realised long ago – Minsk doesn’t like me, and I don’t like Minsk either. But still, for some reason, it’s the city where I want my dreams to come to life. Aleh: I was born in Minsk, and I lived there for forty-nine years. I was away a lot. Never for long, though. But on January 2, 2011 I left for a fortnight and I haven’t been able to get back since. I’m a political refugee – got leave to remain here. I’ve lived in London for more than a year. More accurately, every three or four days I go to the local Tesco and stock up on 90 Khalezin, Nicolai, et al. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre, Oberon Books, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1623713. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:23:21. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. groceries. The rest of my free time, I’m online. I’m in my virtual Minsk. This is me at home. Bedroom, living room and kitchen. Here I am in my back yard – my wife shows me what the weather there’s like today. Most often I’m looking at cloudy skies, or rain, or mounds of soft grey snow. But sometimes the sun’s shining and I see new snow falling behind our house. My wife’s in a different mood on those days. We smile. A couple of times a month I call my mum back in Minsk. I usually ask her the same questions about her health. She’s got Alzheimer’s, and thinks I still live there. Actually that’s not it. She doesn’t think I’m there. My mum knows the truth – I am still there. Siarhei: For me, 2011 was a year of firsts. First arrest. First trial, first introduction to KGB, first trip abroad. At the moment nothing holds me in Minsk, but something draws me back there. Maybe dreams of a rich and beautiful life, maybe just habit. I’ve been expelled from university now. Periodically, people from an army recruitment office have been wondering where I am. Minsk has become a place where you can disappear and remain virtually invisible. Yana: Before, I felt Minsk was totally asexual. Soviet-built housing. Gloomy people, concrete, shades of grey. But then I found the other Minsk, the hot, bright, sexy city! Nikita showed me that other city. The roof of a tower block. A bird’s-eye view at night. I’d never seen it like that! An abandoned house in the city centre. We kissed on the only surviving floorboards on the second storey. Nikita lied to me – said the house 91 Khalezin, Nicolai, et al. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre, Oberon Books, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1623713. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:23:21. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved. belonged to him! The Outer Ring Road, 4a.m. I’m in my old wedding dress, dancing on a bridge. Cars and trucks whooshing past and blaring their horns. He just looks at me. 5a.m. now. We’re sitting on a blanket outside the locked door of a church with a candle in front of us. Nikita can’t go back to Belarus now. He was arrested for lighting a candle next to KGB officers at a solidarity rally. Immediately expelled from the university on a disciplinary charge. Summoned to the recruitment office even though he’s unfit for military service. Now they’ve opened a criminal case against him and he’s officially not allowed to leave the country. The typical life of a modern Minsk-dweller. I have to go back. I have a small daughter there. Minsk today is an empty grey space containing nothing, just a constant sense of waiting and a terrible anguish. The only joy is snow. It covers the grey, the bitterness and resentment, with a clean white sheet. And on that sheet, the desire to write a very different history of our city. Dzianis: Right now I’m wondering if the snow’s still there. The word SNOW. Written in white paint on a grey wall. Usually, graffiti in the city limits gets painted over straight away, so there are dull grey rectangles of fresh paint everywhere. The one that said ‘snow’ held out – although it got painted over recently. Another grey square in the gallery of Minsk. Minsk. It’s right there. A Belarusian folk-song – ‘The Road’ 92 Khalezin, Nicolai, et al. Trash Cuisine & Minsk 2011: Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre : Two Plays by Belarus Free Theatre, Oberon Books, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1623713. Created from aul on 2024-07-30 21:23:21. Copyright © 2013. Oberon Books. All rights reserved.
