«Baked until six in the morning.» How Ukrainians fed Belarusian political prisoners

When the political prisoners were brought to Ukraine, Maria started looking for phones for them:

“The first thing to do was to provide everyone with equipment so that they could contact their relatives and generally read the news. Many people participated in this, people got very involved. Phones were brought in little by little, but it was necessary to urgently buy them so that there would be enough phones for everyone.

It was also necessary to buy power banks, because in Ukraine [due to Russian missile strikes] there is not always light now. Plus, they quickly needed to hit the road, and they had to be able to stay in touch. And this task fell on me.»

Maria lives in Kyiv. There, she began frantically looking for a place where she could quickly buy a lot of phones and pay for them from the European Union, because funds from the «Free» initiative were used for this.

As a result, she was helped in a Kyiv electronics store.

“I sat in that store with a consultant for five hours, until closing, until we found all those phones and figured out how to pay for them. The next day I took more power banks.»

And in the evening, before the ex-political prisoners were taken to the European Union, Maria had to solve another problem. Which cafe in Chernihiv will cook 109 full-fledged takeaway meals so that Belarusians have something to eat during the long journey?

Permission to give food to political prisoners on the road appeared at 8 p.m., and they had to leave in the morning:

«I started calling just all the establishments.» Who would want to take on such a task at night, and even in wartime?

Finally, she got through to the cafe «Project» (Chernihiv, Preobrazhenska, 18).

Павялічыць

“I asked them about 109 portions, they took a couple of minutes to think about whether they had enough products.”

While here, while there — only at 11 p.m. the cafe started cooking food for Belarusians. But everything was ready in the morning. Moreover, not dry sandwiches, but buckwheat, cutlets, salads and fruits.

The cafe staff themselves admitted to Nasha Niva:

“At first, we thought to refuse, because it was late and we didn't have the required amount of products. But we were told that it was for prisoners who were brought from Belarus. We took time to think about it and decided to take it. We quickly went to the store to buy products before curfew. We prepared simple nutritious meals, the main thing is that it was tasty and satisfying.

It took all night to cook, we listened to music and chopped salads, made cutlets. We managed to do everything by 6 am and deliver it. This is certainly a challenge, because of the large volume and we had to work all night, but we managed.”

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