Organizers of Belarusian TEDx in Warsaw Still Haven't Received Money for Sold Tickets — Belarusian's Company Has Been Delaying Payments for 4 Months
On April 18, 2026, Belarusians organized the TEDx Ulica Mińska conference in Warsaw. Four months have passed, but the money from ticket sales has not fully reached the organizers.
Photo: TEDx Ulica Mińska / LookByMedia
TEDx Ulica Mińska was organized under license from TED Conferences — a format of non-commercial conferences where speakers share interesting ideas from science, technology, art, and business, or simply from their own experience. At the April TEDx Ulica Mińska, for example, Arkady Dobkin, Lev Lvovsky, Ryhor Astapenia spoke — a total of 12 speakers from various fields.
Tickets for the event were sold through the Relivent platform. Since this is a non-commercial conference, the money from tickets was needed to cover the work of contractors — for example, to pay for venue rental and video production from the event. However, it turned out that the contractors are still waiting for that money.
Hanna Kazlova, the conference licensee and representative of the organizers, spoke out on Facebook about the situation regarding the ticket money. The woman writes that Relivent received 84,000 zlotys (19,500 euros) for the tickets — Hanna clarified for "Nasha Niva" that as of today, Relivent still owes about 66,000 zlotys (15,300 euros).
Even before the conference, Relivent fully paid for printed materials and made two small tranches to the company B’FORT, i.e., the venue where the event took place. The rest of the payment was expected the week after the conference, but the first delay was recorded already at the end of April.
For several months, the organizers of TEDx Ulica Mińska communicated with the head of Relivent, Belarusian Pavel Tsishchanka. During this time, Tsishchanka repeatedly postponed payment deadlines, claimed that the money had been sent but the bank was blocking the transfer, and planned to settle the debt under his own guarantees. And in mid-July, he stopped responding to the conference organizers and contractors.
Hanna Kazlova admits that Relivent's behavior puts the organizers of TEDx Ulica Mińska in a difficult position:
“The money collected from ticket sales goes to cover expenses during the event. If we cannot cover some expenses with ticket money or partner funds, we cover them with our own money. Here, the amounts are such that I cannot cover them with my own money.”
Only one contractor saw any money after the conference — Slay Media, the company that prepared the video from the event. Its representative says that the ticket operator was supposed to pay them for video production, but it turned out to be difficult to receive any money:
“Payment delays began, unjustified postponements. Then, at Relivent's own request, an agreement with clearly stipulated payment terms was signed, which was not fulfilled.”
Next, Slay Media initiated direct communication with Tsishchanka:
“He sent unclear screenshots and promises to pay tomorrow, never providing SWIFT confirmations of transfers. Later, I issued a pre-court claim to him, demanding payment of the full debt within seven days. In response, he sent a payment schedule divided into four parts, which he also failed to fulfill.
The only thing is — last week, a quarter of the total amount arrived. But this does not correspond to his schedule or our claim; all payments are long overdue.”
Slay Media says that Relivent transferred about 4,000 zlotys to them, even though the total debt is 17,000 zlotys. However, they don't expect new payments — the company's representative says that Relivent owes money to many. Meanwhile, Tsishchanka himself issued a pre-court claim to the Slay Media representative, demanding that he delete the publication about him on Threads.
In a comment to "Nasha Niva", Pavel Tsishchanka admitted that there are debts:
“After the event, outstanding obligations to individual contractors remained. The company does not deny its obligations and is working to repay them. The delay in settlements is related to the company's financial difficulties.”
The post about Relivent was published on August 14, i.e., before the weekend. Therefore, Tsishchanka says, Relivent plans to draw up a further action plan after the weekend, sometime on August 17-18.
The conference organizers are ready to go to court if they do not receive the money and have sufficient grounds for legal action. They once decided to work with Relivent because they listened to a recommendation from one of the volunteers.
Now Hanna says she would have done things differently and checked information about Relivent in advance, rather than trusting a recommendation:
“I deeply regret that we relied on a single recommendation and did not gather information. Probably, the credit of trust we all have in Belarusian entrepreneurs and Belarusian actors played a role. It seems we've all been through the same thing, and it's quite difficult to imagine Belarusians deceiving each other. This will be a big and important experience for me; we won't do it again. And I endlessly feel for those who have suffered from this — our contractors, who have been without money for four months already.”