"GUBOPiK officers told me to my face that they killed Krivtsov." MTZ Fan Pipiya — about fights, torture, and humanity
"They lifted me up, gave me water, and continued to torture me. Sometimes they pointed a pistol at me."
32-year-old Tamaz Pipiya is a fan of the Minsk club MTZ-RIPA, a former political prisoner. He was detained on September 26, 2020, in Hrodna on suspicion of organizing mass riots on the day of Alyaksandr Lukashenka's secret inauguration. On July 2, 2021, the Maskoŭski District Court of Minsk sentenced the young man to four years in a reinforced-regime penal colony. Tamaz was released only in May 2026, as he was allegedly given an additional year and a half for violating the regime. His brother, Timur Pipiya, was also a political prisoner.
Tamaz Pipiya told "Tribuna" how he joined the fan movement in the 8th grade, what Minsk "calcio" (football subculture) was like in the 2010s, how the state monitored fans, and about his time behind bars.
"Joined the fan movement ideologically"
Tamaz joined the MTZ-RIPA fan movement as a schoolboy — in the 8th grade in the late 2000s.
"I came there ideologically," the young man says. "I watched a lot of different videos, noticed a lot of everyday racism. It mostly came from Russia. RNE and all these Nazi organizations were already everywhere there."
Tamaz himself wasn't particularly interested in football at first — he supported Manchester United, and was skeptical of Belarusian teams. "Belarusian football can't even really be called football," he notes even today. He had no favorite Belarusian players then and still doesn't.
Pipiya first got onto the stands in January 2010, for a friendly match against BATE.
"I was greatly impressed. Simply wow! I saw a charged crowd actively supporting their team. What impressed me most was that at that time, the MTZ sector consisted of ideologically sound people; there was almost no one random. You come as if to your home, you know everyone. Such a holistic atmosphere of unity."
What united the fans, according to the interviewee, was an anti-fascist idea. "I was an opponent of racism. I didn't categorize myself as left-wing — that's already a political branch, and I don't belong to it. I simply spoke out against discrimination — religious, national, any kind. I understood: it's wrong to judge a person by the color of their skin."
Tamaz, who is of Georgian descent, himself encountered racism in everyday form — he remembers certain jokes in childhood. "This is everyday racism that was drilled into our heads. I believe it shouldn't exist," he says.
Confrontation with "Dynamo" Fans
Answering a question about opposing fans from the Minsk "Dynamo" camp, Tamaz says: "They did not hesitate to display imperial Russian flags. There was a mess in their heads; essentially, they could simultaneously display the Pahonia and the 'imperial flag'."
Over time, according to him, much has changed: some of those with whom he feuded in his youth ended up in Ukraine and began fighting against Russia. Pipiya believes that the Belarusianization of fan sectors began precisely with MTZ. Later, fans of other clubs picked up this wave.
The confrontation between the two Minsk teams also had its own distinct geography. MTZ fans, according to Tamaz, hung out near the "Maladzyozhnaya" metro station, as well as in nightclubs like "Africa."
Dynamo fans, in turn, gathered near the "Kastrychnitskaya" metro station, at McDonald's. Tamaz describes the crowd there harshly: "At 'Tsentralny' there were many drunkards with ultraright views. They didn't even have much to do with the football movement. But they strongly loved Hitler."
Fights, Tamaz admits, were regular, but principally within the city; he and his comrades did not recognize forest fights: "We were not fans of fights outside the city. And they didn't really want to fight us in the forests, because we are left-wing." Arranged "wall-on-wall" clashes took place on city streets and in locations known to both sides. Often, the matter ended with the appearance of riot police (OMON).
Tamaz connects his most memorable fight with a football arena — around 2013. It was a friendly match between "Rudensk," which MTZ-RIPA fans considered a friendly and ideologically close club, and the reserves of "Dynamo" Minsk. About 50 MTZ fans came to the game, while the "Dynamo" support group numbered 150-200 people. The fight, according to the narrator, ended when a security guard ran out of the arena building, whom the opposing side mistook for OMON — and began to scatter.
On Zybitskaya Street, Tamaz and a friend were once beaten by seven Dynamo fans. The young man admits that for several years he was sometimes scared to return home:
"It probably happened for two years. You go down into the metro, look around. It was real street football (calcio). There were serious head injuries, concussions. Sometimes they would even wait in the entryway."
Nevertheless, personal relationships with some "Dynamo" fans were simpler. Tamaz says he stuck to a simple rule: "There are good people, and there are bad people. I don't care which club he supported, if he's a normal guy. We might fight somewhere at general events, but then celebrate New Year together, for example."
Surveillance and Pressure Long Before 2020
The regime's interest in the fan movement, according to Pipiya, did not begin in 2020. Already from 2011-2012, before the start of each season, fans were called to police stations to sign papers regarding the inadmissibility of using pyrotechnics and "extremist symbols."
"There was a precedent — in Hrodna on an away game, we had a banner with a drawn SpongeBob and a crossed-out swastika. They said it was extremist symbolism. They turned everything upside down and started calling us fascists," Pipiya recalls.
From a certain point, the KGB took over surveillance of fans. "They interrupted our intersections: we would arrange with opponents for a fight within the city, and then OMON would be there. This happened repeatedly. Mostly, there was phone tapping without any sanctions," Tamaz is convinced.
And cases of police beating people happened much earlier. The young man attributes one of the harshest episodes to approximately 2014. He was simply walking in his district when a conflict broke out nearby, to which he had no connection. Officers from the Zavodski District Internal Affairs Department of the capital, who arrived, according to him, immediately grabbed Pipiya, and not "those who started to scatter." When the fan began to argue, they started beating him right in the car:
"They even said: what is this, American movies to you? Should we call a lawyer? They avoided hitting the face, working with batons on the legs and body. They understand everything. The fact that they kicked me, I can't prove that."
Recruitment Attempt and Departure to Kyiv
In 2016, according to Tamaz, he was summoned to the 6th department of GUBOPiK, which dealt with fans. The formal pretext was a fight at the "Spartyvnaya" metro station a year earlier. "They started leveling some accusations against me, saying that I had organized an extremist formation. I had no idea what that was," the fan recalls.
The officers presented Pipiya with a choice: either go to prison for 11 years himself, or organize a fan fight where GUBOPiK officers would detain all participants. "I hired a lawyer, and a couple of days later we were called for a joint conversation. Afterwards, the lawyer said: 'You have 24 hours to leave Belarus.' Otherwise, detention and placement in a temporary detention facility for three days followed by charges were threatened."
Tamaz was 21 at the time. He left for Kyiv, where he was met by like-minded people — fans of Kyiv's "Arsenal." The young man spent more than a year there in total, periodically visiting Minsk.
"I was struck by what a GUBOPiK officer said then: you can organize against each other ostensibly to fight Nazism, but at some point, you will direct all your strength against the authorities. And that was their pretext for repression," Pipiya recalls.
He also claims that back in 2015, on election day, plainclothes officers openly, without hiding, accompanied him and his comrades from the entryway to the city center.
Detention in 2020 and Interrogations with Use of Force
In 2020, surveillance intensified even before election day. "In early August, I already saw plainclothes officers; in mid-August, I had to run away from them."
Regarding interrogations during that period, Pipiya says: "I was detained by officers of the KGB special forces 'Alfa.' Then, at the exit from Hrodna, I was handed over to GUBOPiK. The road to Minsk took about four hours and was very 'fun.' Electric shocks to the elbow area, they pulled a hooded sweatshirt over my head and tightened it with a rope until I lost consciousness. They would lift me up, give me water, and then continue to torture me. Sometimes they pointed a pistol at me.
GUBOPiK officers told me to my face that they killed Mikita Krivtsov (a former fan of 'Maladzyechna,' a participant in the 2020 protests. His body was found hanged in a forest belt in Minsk on August 22, 2020. This death and its causes raise many questions — author's note) — it was impossible to listen to.
I understood that they were truly animals. They sank to such depths... They threatened to rape a girl. You sit there and can do nothing. I realized for myself that the scariest thing is to be defenseless in the hands of terror."
Tamaz is convinced that after 2014, security forces reoriented from fighting real organized crime to fans and anarchists:
"They called all of us fascists. I saw that very serious pressure was exerted on Antifa — the security forces disliked even the social problems that were being solved when we helped shelters or the homeless."
In the penal colony, things were simpler for the young man: "Basically, they treated me normally. Nevertheless, several prisoners constantly watched me, with whom I communicated. People with radical views, mostly fans, consolidated around me. The local administration couldn't stand to see this. As a result, I was regularly assigned to the punishment cell (SHIZO), and then a criminal case was initiated against me under an article concerning malicious insubordination to the administration of a correctional facility."
In the colony, the young man became close with fans of "Torpedo-BelAZ," "Dynamo" Minsk. "We were very close friends. Because we are closer to each other in spirit than to ordinary prisoners."
Friendship Despite Ideological Disagreements
The left/right confrontation ended in 2014 when Russia began military aggression in Ukraine. The absolute majority of fans took pro-Ukrainian positions.
In 2022, while already in the colony, Tamaz learned that his former opponent from the "Dynamo" fan movement, Pasha "Bort" Horbach, had sent money and words of support through his sister.
"A person with absolutely different views, Pasha 'Bort', may he rest in peace, — I am very grateful to him," Tamaz says. "We used to feud, fought repeatedly. And here is an indicator of humanity. This is an example for each of us."
Pavel "Bort" fought in Ukraine from the first month of the full-scale war. He was in the Kastus Kalinoŭski Regiment, then commanded reconnaissance in the "Terror" battalion, and eventually joined Georgian volunteers. He died in October 2023.
"My sister simply wrote a letter to the colony, saying that your friend who helped was blown up. Humanity is important to me. We are all people, and it's important to always preserve that within ourselves. It doesn't matter if it's a colony or another place. We must treat each other with respect."
When asked if his views had changed after everything he had experienced, Tamaz replies that they remained the same. He draws a parallel with the situation in Ukraine, where people with different political positions can be in the same trenches.
"I have very good friends with right-wing views. That doesn't hinder us. We are reasonable adults, we might joke and argue about this topic sometimes, but no more than that," Pipiya assures.