"Maybe Korzh Doesn't Even Remember Me." Nobel Laureate Ales Bialiatski Shared How He Knows Vanya Dmitrienko and Max Korzh

Human rights defender and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski was a guest on the "Ordinary Evening" program.

Before his arrival, the hosts discussed what young people are listening to these days.

— "Well, we usually discuss all the topics that were on air with our guests, but I feel a bit awkward asking you about this... How can I ask Ales Bialiatski about Vanya Dmitrienko?" said Konstantin Kaverin.

— "Please do!" Bialiatski replied.

It turned out he was completely up to date, as he had learned all about this contemporary Russian culture while he was incarcerated — having listened to it in the penal colony.

— "How do you generally feel about this youth culture?" Kaverin asked.

— "Oh, it's fine. I myself never parted with my guitar in high school during my youth. I played in a band when I was already studying at university. So music has always been close to me," he says, adding that music is listened to more readily in the penal colony than Belarusian news:

— "We really watched all this Russian pop, because, in fact, the detachment in the camp was divided into two groups: one for music, the other for news."

Belarusian news is not liked there, he says; no one watches it, they turn it off.

— "There's nothing substantial there. As soon as Azarenok starts shouting, obscenities begin, and they quickly switch him off. They watch Russian news and try to read between the lines to get something about the international situation, about what's happening in Russia, about the war with Ukraine. They try to extract these topics from the general information, disregarding the ideology."

"Well, as for music, whether you want to or not, you listen to it. So, naturally, I now know these stars of Russian pop music, including Dmitrienko. There's a certain energy coming from him; he's an energetic boy. He's just starting, and how he'll develop further — we'll see. I understand why teenagers are drawn to him: they're of the same generation; he speaks their language," Bialiatski said.

This is captivating, in a certain sense, just like our Max Korzh.

It turned out that Bialiatski has known about Korzh for a long time.

— "Incidentally, I knew him when he was still a student. Maybe he doesn't remember me, but there was a period when he filmed his Belarusian-language music video at my house, right at the very beginning. That was a long time ago. I was just there on the side, chopping firewood. They worked on that video for two days when he was still singing in a Belarusian-language band," Bialiatski recalled.

The human rights defender himself played rock music in his youth, but he didn't mention what he sang about with his friends.

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