Belarusian Stand-up Comedian Wins Polish 'Battle of Comedians'

Belarusian stand-up comedian Pavel Radzevich boasted on Threads that he participated in and won the Polish "Battle of Comedians": "A show where the audience chooses the funniest comedian of the evening and he takes home the money. And I won! In a foreign country and in a foreign language. If you realize the scale of this event, you can rejoice with me."

The project is currently in its third season in Poland. It takes place in various cities across the country. Pavel participated in the "Battle of Comedians" which took place in Siedlce. The best stand-up comedian is chosen by the audience — their votes decide the fate of the cash prize.

In the comments, Belarusians admire the comedian — especially because Pavel was able to overcome the language barrier, which is a problem for many Belarusians abroad.

He admits that he still uses neural networks for translating jokes into Polish. But he tries to translate independently, and then uses AI to find and correct mistakes.

He says he speaks with a strong accent but isn't worried about it. And he's not afraid to be self-deprecating: "Sometimes I'm in shock myself when I tell jokes in another language and people laugh. I stand there thinking: 'Do you really understand me?'"

Pavel was asked in the comments which joke, in his opinion, was most liked by the audience on that winning evening. He replied: "It's hard to choose, for me it's like a blur now. They love all sorts of dirty jokes, but they also laugh at jokes about migrant life."

Pavel Radzevich started doing stand-up in 2016. In 2019, he was among the creators of Stand Up Comedy Hall in Minsk. In an interview with the website "Most" Pavel recalled that at the time, Belarusians had a dismissive attitude towards their own comedians: "People would leave our parties and say: 'Very cool, we thought it would be worse.' That is, they went to stand-up already thinking it wouldn't be great: 'These are Belarusians performing, what can you expect from them.' We always had to first overcome people's skepticism, and then start working with them as an audience."

However, he noted that after 2022, the situation changed significantly. Belarusians became more interested in their own comedians. This was partly due to many Russian artists "discrediting themselves" with their silence about the war or openly pro-Putin stance.

In the same interview, Pavel recalls that in 2020, it was possible to joke freely about Lukashenka in Belarus: "I remember in July 2020, we were invited to perform on the street, near the Galleria Minsk shopping center — there was some event there. And we told jokes about Lukashenka, about the upcoming elections, about everything. An OMON patrol passed by and didn't even look our way. Now you remember all this, and it feels like it happened in a different universe."

But after the protests, the screws began to tighten. Officials started demanding that comedians obtain "touring permits," and wanted to read all the jokes in advance. And since 2022, one could perhaps only joke about pets.

In the same year, 2022, Pavel moved to Poland. He now performs in various European cities, and has also done stand-up in Belarusian.

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