When will Belarus rockers be allowed to perform at the Palace of the Republic?
Earlier this week, during a meeting at the Office of the President with the leaders of the Belarusian rock bands KRAMA, N.R.M., Palats and Neuro Dzubel, Aleg Pralyaskouski, the head of the ideology department at the presidential administration, admitted the existence of the so called “black lists” of the Belarusian musicians. KRAMA’s Igar Varashkevich told the European Radio for Belarus that the official promised to “invalidate” those black lists and stop interfering with the organization of concerts. Pralyaskouski said he just needed time to circulate a new resolution among bureaucrats.
Pasha Kashyryn has organized concerts for KRAMA, N.R.M. and Neuro Dzubel since long time ago. The European Radio for Belarus reported earlier about his attempts to obtain a one-off permit in order to organizer the launch of KRAMA’s new CD. We also reported about the recent ban of Neuro Dzubel concert in the Minsk-based Fortuna Club. Kashyryn now wants to believe that there will be no more obstacles so that he could work quietly. However, he treats the official promise with caution.
“You have to take everything with caution. We don’t know how the things are going to turn out at the end of the day. We will see. It is normal that the meeting took place. This dialogue had been ripening for a long time, so something needed to be done,” Kashyryn said.
Pasha is confident that the musicians have not betrayed themselves and are not to play a different music or start campaigning for the government. On the opposite, more people could learn what the Belarusian rock bands are doing. He says that Pralyaskouski’s statement about lifting the ban should automatically abolish the one-off licenses for concerts.
The organizer doesn’t think that after this “agreement with the authorities” there will be less people who would like to come to the concerts of KRAMA or N.R.M. In his view, if people like their songs, rather than a political engagement, they will be just happy that concerts would not be banned. As regards whether they are traitors or not, time and new albums will show.
Syargey Anishchanka, the founder of the Rock Wheel festival, learned about Pralyaskouski’s promises from the European Radio for Belarus. We remind that several days ago, the authorities in Navapolatsk banned the festival for the first time in 17 years. The rocker was excited with the hope that the words of the country’s main ideologist could come true and the festival could be resumed.
Vital Supranovich, the organizer of the Right to Be Free festival, describes this development as good news. But he doesn’t really understand that musicians are conditioned not to participate in politics.
“Most of these musicians made their videos for Belsat TV (the Poland-based independent satellite TV channel). If those videos are broadcast, the authorities could say that the musicians take part in the opposition-run projects. Besides, is Basovishcha (an alternative Belarusian rock festival in Poland) a musical or political event? At the same time, it feels good that the dialogue took place,” he said.
But before he moves his festival from Ukraine back to Belarus, Supranovich wants to wait out and see how local officials will respond to Pralyaskouski’s words. However, he admits that he dreams about doing the festival in Belarus. To those who are rushing to call the musicians traitors and throw their CDs away, he advises to put themselves in the musicians’ shoes.
“The musicians who were present at the meeting are the people of principle. But they create music so that people can listen to them and come to their concerts and buy their CDs. This situation that has lasted for three year now is difficult for the musicians from the moral point of view. So, it is too early to draw fast conclusions and say that I will not attend the concert or throw their CDs”, Supranovich said.
Yura Tsybin, the founder of the Rock Coronation and Rock on Vacations festival, says he wants to know exactly what the ideologist talked about with the musicians, before he draws any conclusions.
“I don’t know the conditions they agreed on. I want to talk personally with each of them. But, of course, it would be easier for me, if all of this is true”.
He even admitted that it would be possible to restore the Rock on Vacations festival banned by the Belarusian authorities several years ago.
