Natalia Pinchuk flew from Oslo to Lithuania on the night of December 14th. Her husband – Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski – and journalists from «Svaboda» met her at Vilnius Airport.
Ales told that after his release, he called his wife from the phone of American diplomats who were accompanying the released prisoners.
Natalia Pinchuk said that she was already waiting for this call — «everyone was waiting, it just seemed that it all had to happen.»
Natalia says that she has no plans for the future yet. «I'm used to living one day at a time for now, so, probably, this habit won't go away for a long time. There will be a day, there will be life — we'll see,» she says.
Ales Bialiatski said that it was difficult to maintain contact with his wife from the zone.
«Sometimes we didn't have any contact for months, because for this year, for the 25th [year], I only received one letter from my wife, and she didn't receive any of mine at all. Not a single letter during all the time,» he says.
But, Bialiatski says, there were always people he trusted, gave them his phone number, who contacted his wife and, at least, talked, told her how his situation was, how things were.
«Now it's easier compared to my previous term, when I was in prison, because there are a lot of political prisoners, and it was, well, quite easy to find people who were willing to help, who were themselves political prisoners,» he says.
Bialiatski says that, unfortunately, some friends — Valiantsin Stefanovich — are still waiting, they are still in prison.
«But I think that today's release gives good hope that other political prisoners, Belarusian political prisoners, will be released,» he says.
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