81-year-old mother of Skitov, the figure from "Babushkina Krynka", thrown into KGB pre-trial detention to make him finally speak

Henadz Skitov. Photo: mnsvu.org

In November 2023, KGB raids took place at a number of dairy factories. As it soon became clear, the main target was Henadz Skitov, the head of "Babushkina Krynka" (Grandma's Spring), as well as managers of other state-owned factories close to him and relatives in managerial positions.

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The KGB and Lukashenka suddenly remembered Skitov's criminal past — a man appointed by Lukashenka's decisions after KGB checks and approvals — and began to portray him as a corruptor of the state vertical, a bribe-taker who even corrupted Lukashenka's aide for the Vitsebsk region, former Minister of Agriculture Ihar Brylo.

Brylo was also detained; he crumbled in his testimonies. But Skitov — he did not.

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There is still no verdict in the case, although it is already 2026. This is due to Skitov's uncompromising stance, who refused to testify so stubbornly that this story of his firmness in Barysaŭ — Skitov's small homeland — became legendary.

The trial in the case is already underway, but few details are known so far. Only that Brylo "admitted, recalled, invented receiving bribes worth $2 million."

But we can infer the position of the main accused from new testimonies of those being released from Lukashenka's prisons.

"Nasha Niva" spoke with Siarhei Paulavitski, Skitov's former cellmate in the KGB pre-trial detention center. They spent several months together in early 2024. This was exactly during the period of active pressure on Skitov to testify.

According to Paulavitski, even the attitude of the guards towards the cell occupants indicated that Skitov posed a problem for the investigation because he refused to cooperate and acknowledge everything he was accused of.

"Skitov believed that the root cause of his problems was his refusal to leave "Babushkina Krynka" at the end of 2021, when Anatol Isachenka was appointed governor of Mahilioŭ instead of Leanid Zaits.

In Lukashenka's system, there is an informal tradition that when a new governor arrives, the heads of the region's largest enterprises leave with the old one, so that the new one can appoint someone from their own team to key positions.

But Skitov claims he stood firm, saying: "Don't involve me in bureaucratic games, I haven't fully realized my ideas at the enterprise yet, there's still potential."

And this stance, he believes, worsened his relations with the new governor and, in principle, opened up the possibility for his prosecution. And Brylo's arrest is already a consequence," our interlocutor said.

He considered the schemes Skitov was accused of to be common practice, for which there was a simple explanation.

"In this system," Skitov told us, "managers' achievements are not properly valued or incentivized. Henadz Viktaravich gave abstract examples, saying, 'Imagine someone is put in charge of a struggling enterprise, that person assembles a team, and together they reach a new level of profitability. And then there's a situation: there's no legal way to reward team members for achieving results; you can't pay them much officially.'"

Skitov believed that there was nothing wrong with paying financial bonuses to top management through grey schemes: it motivates professionals to stay in their positions rather than resign and thereby weaken the enterprise.

Skitov claimed that this is done everywhere in Lukashenka's system. And whether to imprison someone or not is not a matter of whether such a scheme has been detected.

Павялічыць

Valuables found at Henadz Skitov. Photo distributed by the State Security Committee

Skitov considered himself part of a narrow group of the country's best managers, capable of solving non-trivial tasks.

"Skitov recounted comical stories, like once he came to work at some state-owned factory with a large — hundreds of thousands of dollars — accounts receivable from a firm in Kazakhstan. They took the products for sale but wouldn't return the money.

He flew there himself for a showdown, and the Kazakhs told him: "You want money? Well, Gena, let's play backgammon..." So he sat down and beat them. And they immediately, like honest players, paid everything.

Or how the Vietnamese at MAZ tried to cheat him: they stopped paying, but through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they began to complain to Lukashenka's Administration that MAZ was delaying and not fulfilling the contract, "which we, comrade president, agreed upon." Consequently, MAZ got flak for failing to fulfill the presidential order. And Skitov, with a whole combination of moves, restored the truth," his cellmate recounts.

Skitov also told cellmates how he once "escaped a criminal case — he hid for a couple of months in China until everything settled down," the cellmate continues.

Nasha Niva's interlocutors from Belarusian business circles do not rate his abilities as highly as he does. "Whatever Skitov touched — everything fell apart," said one businessman.

It also became known from Siarhei Paulavitski that the investigation used dirty tricks to pressure Skitov.

In neighboring cells to Skitov in Amerikanka (a common name for KGB detention center), they placed the director's mother, his son from his first marriage, and his own brother.

Skitov's 81-year-old mother was literally in the next cell from Henadz, and the elderly woman was forced to sleep on the floor in an overcrowded cell.

"Until his mother was imprisoned, Skitov didn't speak to investigators at all," his cellmate recounts. "But when she was placed in such conditions, when Brylo started talking... Skitov's words were, 'If it weren't for my mother... would I even be talking to these people at all?'"

As for Brylo, Skitov disdained even calling him by name. From Skitov's perspective, testifying against someone is unacceptable, but if a person betrays you first, then from that moment you have the moral right to respond to them more or less in kind. That is, he also testified against Brylo without much remorse.

Skitov's son was released in the summer of 2024 due to health reasons. He had a severe injury after an accident, a plate in his skull, and problems with his legs. He endured imprisonment with extreme difficulty.

Skitov claimed that there was absolutely nothing to accuse his son of and that he was simply being held hostage for the same purpose as his mother — to exert pressure.

It's worth noting that it wasn't easy for Skitov physically either. He ended up in the KGB pre-trial detention center shortly after almost dying in China the day before — he went on a business trip after stomach surgery, and a hemorrhage opened. Chinese medics saved him; Skitov was supposed to undergo rehabilitation in Belarus, but he was detained.

His cellmate also shared a rather personal detail. Skitov emphasized that his father was Jewish, and his mother was of Pomor origin. Pomors are an ethnic population of the Arkhangelsk region.

Skitov was proud that on both sides, the blood of people who had not experienced serfdom, who had submitted neither to authorities nor to nature, flowed in his veins. And this worldview, combined with criminal concepts and principles, according to his cellmate, gave him such self-confidence and fortitude behind bars.

He is a self-confident man and believes in his luck. "Luck favors the prepared" is one of his favorite sayings.

Skitov spoke of his criminal past without enthusiasm. He said that he once served time in Valadarka (a prison in Minsk), that everything was different back then, generally speaking. Skitov, according to his cellmate, became very angry when it was hinted that he had been an accountant for the "Barysaŭ gang."

He says there was no such thing, old wives' tales.

Павялічыць

Siarhei Elkіnd (third from left) with his crew at the grave of the authority "Matsvei," whose successor was "Zayats" (Hare). Photo: Yezhednevnik

"One cellmate once came back from an interrogation and said, 'Oh, Henadz Viktaravich, you're a mafioso, it turns out! The investigator told me that all of Barysaŭ breathed a sigh of relief when you were detained.' Skitov then got furious: 'I know who's throwing this shit at the fan, who's spreading these rumors about me.' He didn't name names, though," says Nasha Niva's interlocutor.

Павялічыць

Henadz Elkіnd (his current surname is Skitov) far right in the company of people, some of whom were considered part of the Barysaŭ criminal underworld. Photo: Yezhednevnik

Skitov's mother spent several months in the KGB pre-trial detention center and returned to her home on the outskirts of Barysaŭ, where she lives alone.

"Once his mother was released, a roasted pig began to appear in our cell every week. His mother specifically bought it from someone there, roasted it herself, and sent it to us.

The piglet usually lasted two days, after which any leftovers, if there were even 300 grams and not half a kilo, went into the trash. Because we didn't manage to eat it all.

He received all sorts of things: friends from the meat processing plant, from "Belryba," from MAZ, from "Babushkina Krynka" — everyone sent something. Historically, the KGB pre-trial detention center has been more liberal about food packages than other places.

Letters were mainly written to him by relatives. He has two marriages. The son from the first one was the one in the next cell, and two sons from the second — at that time, one was in 11th grade, the other in 9th.

And his mother, after she was released from the pre-trial detention center, sometimes wrote funny things. He showed how she advised her son: "Henochka, with your stomach, you absolutely must eat soups! I know — they're delicious there."

In response, Henadz wrote about how many squats he did during walks, that he tried to stay in shape, walked fast during exercises, and did core exercises.

By the way, he was taught core exercises by the Ukrainian saboteur Mikola Shvets.

Shvets also sat in their "star cell." There was no particular reaction to him. Yes, he immediately said, "I'm the one who..." "Well, he blew it up, he blew it up. War is war," his cellmate describes the reaction to Shvets. Mikola would occasionally indulge in reflections, telling stories about his farmstead near Kyiv.

Shvets was simply an honest person by nature, but there were also those who hadn't blown up any Russian planes but would start in the cell: "that's what Muscovites deserve," "that's how they should be treated." Skitov saw this as a provocation, believing they were trying to provoke him into something.

Because there is such a practice now, when an official is arrested for corruption, and during the investigation, they start expressing certain views and also earn themselves a charge of state treason in the process. And they go to the colony already as an "extremist," while the corruption charge might even drop. Therefore, he was very cautious here.

Skitov expressed the opinion that if Belarus were drawn into the war, the country would not be ready for it.

He reacted with a condescending smirk to news about territorial defense. When pot-bellied uncles were paraded and told that they were a reliable bulwark, he sneered.

He himself gladly told how he had set up a system of mobilization training at his "Babushkina Krynka." That they regularly practiced air raid drills.

How he arranged the enterprise's security there so that no saboteurs could truly sneak in, if anything. He had chemical substances in cisterns there, perhaps ammonia. And if it exploded there... he believed saboteurs might consider the factory a target.

When Shvets left, special forces analyst Vasilets moved into our cell. He said, 'I could have sneaked in there with explosives,' and Skitov replied, 'Maybe you could have snuck in somewhere, but not into my factory, because everyone there is trained.'

Skitov participated somewhat in conversations about internal Belarusian topics because he had a stance on them.

"He agreed that the system was inefficient, but, he believed, without "the Father," as he called Lukashenka, it would collapse. He said, 'Everything rests on Lukashenka, and if he is removed, things will get worse.'"

The cellmate understood that Skitov valued the same qualities in Lukashenka that he valued in himself: the ability to wriggle out, to escape dangerous situations, to hold onto a profitable position.

"And do you know where the largest red-green flag was sewn in 2020?" he boasted. "At 'Babushkina Krynka'! Go check it online. And then they carried it at demonstrations."

"And do you know who maintained power in Mahilioŭ in 2020?" Skitov could get agitated. He claimed he was the one who came to the Mahilioŭ city executive committee demanding to convene a rally in support of Lukashenka. And on his own initiative, he sent four buses of his employees to Minsk on August 16.

What prognosis did Skitov give regarding his fate?

"At the moment I left him, he was still facing a dilemma: 'Either you admit everything now and get 9 [years], or you don't admit it and insist that you took this but not that, and you get 12.'"

And he was more inclined towards the second option. Although he admitted he might not survive the colony.

"I even tried to cheer him up: 'Viktaravich, maybe an amnesty?' — 'They're unlikely to give me one,' his cellmate recalls.

"But if, he said, they give me a kolkhoz (collective farm), I'll be grateful. I'll be sincerely grateful, I'll put the kolkhoz back on its feet and once again prove that Skitov belongs to the top managers in Belarus and that such talents should not be buried in the ground."

And if the kolkhoz doesn't work out, he has an idea to get into the funeral business, crematories.

Skitov does not entertain thoughts of emigration.

He says: "I only understand how to conduct business in three countries: Ukraine, Russia, Belarus. He says, I even went to Central Asia, to Kazakhstan — I don't understand it. I can negotiate with them there, I can promote goods, engage in marketing, but I still don't feel in my element. Only Ukraine, Russia, Belarus. Here I perfectly understand people, I understand what a person needs — a richer person, a poorer person. And here I am in my place."

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