2020 Election Ballots, Not Fully Burned in a Boiler Room, Transferred to the Museum of Free Belarus
These and other testimonies of resistance can be seen from June 9 to 26 at the Museum of Free Belarus in Warsaw, at the exhibition "Depatriation".
Let's tell you more about several exhibits.
For several months, the museum team worked to safely remove and preserve in its collection items that witnessed the 2020 elections, the protests of the 90s and 2000s, detentions, imprisonment, violence, yard meetings, solidarity, and resistance.
In total, the museum has so far collected about 170 artifacts and several thousand photographs and video recordings.
For security reasons, many items are not yet displayed in the permanent exhibition. Some of them are anonymized.
The surviving ballots, on which people's votes can be seen, were handed over to the museum by former political prisoner, "European Belarus" activist Palina Sharenda-Panasyuk.
A set of 20 ballots was given to her by residents of Brest, who saved them from complete burning in the furnace of the city's boiler room.
The votes cast for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya were preceded by her registration as a presidential candidate. The exhibition features that very registration certificate.
And this black hoodie belongs to journalist and blogger Aliaksandr Ivulin. He wore it during court hearings in 2021-2022.
Among the items evacuated as part of the project are many testimonies from the 1990s as well. For example, an invitation to the "Chernobyl Way - 1996" rally; the brochure "Road to Nowhere, or Two Years of A. Lukashenka's Presidency", published in 1996; a pre-election leaflet of Stanislau Shushkevich from the 1994 presidential campaign.
Museum staff will continue to collect items that serve as evidence of crimes and solidarity, sacrifice and resilience of Belarusians. The team believes that one day all these items will take an honorable place in a museum on a Belarusian street.
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