Kufar Founder: Now is not the time to ask what Tsikhanouskaya can do for you. The question is what you can do

Mikhail Sender, ex-head of Kufar. Stockholm, Sweden, 2025. Photo: personal archive

Mikhail Sender calls his fate "atypically cosmopolitan." He was born in the BSSR, lived with his parents in Nigeria for several years in the late 1980s, then returned to an already independent Belarus. In the late 1990s, as a teenager, he moved to Sweden.

Despite Mikhail firmly settling in Scandinavia, gaining citizenship and education at the Stockholm School of Economics, he returned to Belarus in 2013. He was offered to lead a new project for the country – the classifieds platform Kufar, which belonged to the Scandinavian concern Schibsted.

"It was a very interesting offer – to head a marketplace in Belarus. Because I love Belarus, it's my homeland, and I like it there, despite all its flaws. At that time, the situation was not like it is now – not North Korea. Still, one could live and exist there if you were single, without children, and didn't have to bother with kindergartens, schools, state polyclinics, and so on. It was quite comfortable to live there then," Mikhail recalls.

His return to his homeland was not without bureaucratic blunders. Having lived in Belarus for almost five years and managing a large company, Mikhail was formally homeless.

"I had a passport of the RR series for Belarusians living abroad. By law, if you stay in the country for more than six months, you need to change it to a regular one. But when I tried to do this, I was told that I needed a certificate from the military enlistment office. I went to the military enlistment office, and they replied: 'We won't issue you a certificate without a normal passport; your RR is not suitable for us.' Checkmate. I couldn't resolve this paradox. As a result, I couldn't register anywhere. I lived in Belarus, worked as a company director for almost five years, formally having no registration anywhere," Sender laughs.

"They saw two men hugging in the advertisement"

In 2013, when Mikhail Sender took over Kufar, the online classifieds market in Belarus was highly fragmented. Four major players operated on it, but there was no obvious leader.

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Mikhail Sender in the Kufar office in Minsk, 2017. Photo: personal archive

"We had a clear ambition – to capture this market. At that moment, the situation played into our hands. There were slando.by, "Z ruk u ruki" (Hand to Hand), "Baraholka Onliner" (Onliner Flea Market), and second.by. So Kufar entered the fight in a situation where there was a window of opportunity. I can't say that we had any product advantages, but there was enthusiasm and know-how from other markets, because Kufar was then part of the Schibsted concern. And there was good financial backing, which is important," Mikhail explains.

Working in Belarus, according to Mikhail, was always associated with the need to navigate between the demands of officials. But there was never serious pressure on Kufar: the platform was purely commercial. However, it was not without curious situations. Once, in one of its advertising campaigns, the state saw propaganda for same-sex relationships.

"There was an advertising campaign with the slogan 'Be happy.' In one of the creatives, a man was lying on the shiny hood of a car, hugging it and looking very happy. And, I believe, in the Vitebsk region, officials found signs of homosexual propaganda in this advertisement. We had to remove it. And why? Some Sherlock Holmes noticed that the man lying on the shiny hood created a reflection of himself. And it looked like two men hugging, lying on top of each other. We liked it so much that we even drew a mural with this plot in our office," Sender recounts.

Despite the company being commercial and trying to stay out of politics, there was still a temptation to touch upon it.

"We had a survey on our website to quickly get feedback from the public on various issues. We collected five to six thousand responses per week. Sometimes I really wanted to just ask some question like, 'Who would you vote for in the next election?' But my employees always smacked my hand, saying, 'Don't.' So we didn't get into any trouble," Mikhail recalls.

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Mikhail Sender during his time at Kufar. Zahorshchyna, Belarus, 2017. Photo: personal archive

At Kufar, Mikhail tried to implement Scandinavian corporate culture: with a flat hierarchy, no dress code, and democratic communication. But it didn't always take root easily. According to him, the hardest part was fighting hierarchical thinking.

"I never liked it when people addressed me as if I were some demigod. I don't like being feared. I always tried to personally talk to each new employee so they knew me by name, called me by my first name. Many found it very difficult and unusual: how can you address the director informally? I believe that an organization where communication flows freely, without barriers or fear, where people are not afraid to make mistakes, will develop much faster," he says.

In 2017, Mikhail left his position as director of Kufar and returned to Sweden, as he himself said earlier, to marry his partner who lived in Stockholm. He admits that he continues to follow the project and is glad that Kufar has survived. He has been friends with the current director, Tatiana Lemesheva, since school.

Interpreter for Bialiatski

Recently, Sweden, where Mikhail now lives, was visited by the Belarusian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski. During his meeting with deputies in the Riksdag (parliament), the former director of Kufar served as his interpreter.

"From time to time, I am contacted when important guests come to Sweden. I once translated for Stanislau Shushkevich and Uladzimir Arlou. Apparently, there are not many people who know both Swedish and Belarusian well. This happens somewhere once every few years. Three years ago, when Ales Bialiatski was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, he was in prison, and his wife came. I translated for her," Mikhail recounts. "This is not public activity; I get paid for it. Although the money is symbolic, I don't do it for them."

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Mikhail Sender as an interpreter at the meeting of Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski with members of the Swedish Parliament. Stockholm, April 14, 2026. Photo: personal archive

Mikhail's impressions of communicating with Ales Bialiatski remained very positive.

"He always seemed like a very intelligent and interesting person to me. I see that Ales is not broken; perhaps he cannot be broken. He continues to fight for what he always believed in. You can imprison him as many times as you want, he returns and each time insists that we are playing for the long term and must not give up. Ales Bialiatski never tires of reminding us that for every political prisoner released, the Lukashenka regime tends to create a new one," Sender shares.

Despite close contacts with representatives of Belarusian civil society and the opposition, Mikhail himself declined offers to work in the democratic forces.

"I was once offered to lead something. It was another attempt to create some common platform for coordinating actions under the auspices of Tsikhanouskaya's Office. There was such a conversation, but I refused. At that moment, I didn't see much point in getting involved in this process because, frankly, I didn't really believe in the idea of yet another attempt to unite those who initially had no respectful reasons to separate," he admits.

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Picket organized by Mikhail Sender demanding the introduction of the correct name of Belarus in Swedish. Stockholm, 2019. Photo: personal archive

"Some people developed motives to pull the blanket over themselves, and you won't eradicate these motives with any conferences," Mikhail continues. "I would not advise Ms. Tsikhanouskaya to even waste time communicating with people who, for personal ambitions, try to artificially create a split that doesn't really exist. You can think whatever you want about Sviatlana, but she is objectively the only legitimate leader of Belarus, elected by the majority. And until free democratic elections are held in Belarus, there can be no other leader. At the same time, it must be understood that it is very difficult for her to bear this burden without real power in Belarus. I was at Tsikhanouskaya's meeting with the Swedish diaspora during her recent visit to Stockholm, and I was ashamed to see how people pestered her with consular questions and complaints, as if they don't understand that Sviatlana has no legal or diplomatic powers and that her authority is built on popular support. Therefore, now is not the time to ask what Tsikhanouskaya can do for you. As John Kennedy said, you should ask what you can do for her."

Secret life in anonymous UltraVożyk

Another little-known page in Mikhail Sender's biography is his participation in the anonymous music project UltraVożyk. In the mid-2000s, their satirical songs on political themes were very popular among fans of Belarusian-language music. In 2005, the rock ballad "Atlantyda" was included in the list of the best songs of the season according to the music portal "Tuzin Hitoŭ". It was only recently revealed that Sender was one of its members.

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Mikhail Sender and Dmitry Palagin with the first single of the band UltraVożyk. Stockholm, Sweden, 2003. Photo: personal archive

"Initially, we saw an interesting trick in this (anonymity. — Ed. note). We were somewhat inspired by the Gorillaz band. And then, somehow, this narrative of absurd characters – Piotr Adamavich, Sabachka Ibrahim, Yavhen Shafa-Uruguayski – began to form on its own. It was simply a lot of fun for us to invent this nonsense, and the songs went in that direction," Mikhail recalls.

The project was created together with childhood friend Dmitry Palagin, with whom Mikhail had been making music since the age of 12 – even before mass internet appeared in Belarus.

"We corresponded, wrote paper letters to each other, sent notes, lyrics. Once a year we would meet – I would come to Minsk or he to Stockholm. In a home studio with lousy, cheap equipment, we would do some completely incomprehensible things that seemed brilliant to us. UltraVożyk emerged as a spontaneous idea. We were sitting on a balcony in Stockholm, and someone had the thought: 'Let's just do something like this tonight. Why bother? Let's just churn out Lukashenka's statements'," Mikhail recounts.

According to him, UltraVożyk was always more of a mockery than a serious political statement. The band's first track was a compilation of Lukashenka's quotes set to a dance version of the national anthem. At the same time, the band's music noticeably stood out in quality against the alternative scene of that time.

"Everything is relative here. If you look at what was on the 'Tuzin Hitoŭ' hit parade then, it was mostly punk or garage rock. This genre stylistically does not imply high production quality. And we, probably, tried to aim for mainstream technical quality, but at the same time not make vulgar pop," Sender explains.

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Mikhail Sender and Dmitry Palagin in the studio of Dreamgale and UltraVożyk bands. Stockholm, Sweden, 2010. Photo: personal archive

Despite the quality sound, the project remained an amusement for its creators.

"Unlike other niche alternative Belarusian projects, UltraVożyk was always an unconventional mix of satire and simply wild mockery. Sometimes there was a political subtext, and sometimes we just wanted to make fun of everyone. We didn't take it as seriously as our main band Dreamgale. UltraVożyk was always a secondary project for us. We didn't dwell on it too much. It was purely for fun, a warm-up," says Sender.

Nevertheless, it was the side and unserious UltraVożyk that became famous, while the main project Dreamgale, by Mikhail's admission, did not quite take off, and its only album was a complete fiasco. In this, the musician sees the irony of perfectionism.

"With UltraVożyk, we really didn't bother with quality. But with Dreamgale, we did a lot. And sometimes, by bothering too much, you just spoil everything, you only make it worse. Listening to those songs today, I realize we should have kept it simpler. And with UltraVożyk, it turned out just right," he concludes.

Disappointment in humanity

While working at Kufar, Mikhail started a political blog "Antimif." According to him, he initially wanted to reach out to the part of Russian-speaking society most susceptible to the influence of Kremlin narratives. But over time, he became disillusioned with this.

"I realized that my audience was increasingly made up of like-minded people. And the people I wanted to convince weren't particularly convinced. When the Crimean events began, it became clear that there was an ideological and cultural rift. And 'Antimif' couldn't bridge this rift. It's very difficult. I just got tired of clashing with these fanatics who constantly harassed and insulted me," Mikhail explains.

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Mikhail Sender signing copies of his book Aliens About Humans. Shelby, Sweden, 2024. Photo: personal archive

Mikhail poured his disappointment in humanity into a satirical Twitter account Aliens About Humans, which at its peak gained over 100,000 followers and later turned into a book. Now he is preparing a new, more serious project – a blog about the future of society in the era of artificial intelligence.

"The world as we know it seems to me to be ephemeral. It's unknown how many years we have left until the entire socio-economic system in which we live becomes incompatible with reality. We are rapidly moving towards a world where human labor is not in demand and, to a large extent, meaningless. Under such conditions, the market economy and capitalism, built on the exploitation of labor and consumption, will simply collapse. Humanity has never been so close to a complete collapse.

But in this cataclysm, I see a glimmer of hope. If we stop clinging to familiar approaches, humanity has a rare chance to build a world of boundless wealth and freedom for all – a world where work is not necessary for happiness. I want to urge people to start this dialogue, beginning by discussing the problems and challenges. I want there to be people who are interested in this, who have ideas, so that we might find some new scheme that won't turn humanity into a concentration camp," Mikhail Sender shares his plans.

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