Evgeny Chichvarkin: Belarusians Performed Heroic Deed
- 10.01.2022, 9:18
The people have chosen to become part of Europe, chosen European values.
Why the Belarusians should be consecrated saints? How Russia is trying to turn our country into its protectorate, and what was Navalny's mistake? Malanka talked about all this to Evgeny Chichvarkin, an outrageous businessman, co-founder and former owner of the Euroset network of mobile communications salons.
About Belarusians who haven't managed to win yet.
It was an absolute feat. No one, living in Russia, has the right to condemn the Belarusians for having or not having managed to defeat. I support the aspiration of any part of the former Soviet Union and former Czarist Russia to the Western values. That is why I support Maidan, I supported it when Saakashvili came and reforms were initiated.
It is clear that Belarusians are against Lukashenka, but he is not that important compared to the values on which the Belarusian society will be based. Belarusians have chosen to become a part of Europe, they have chosen European values.
And for me, the aspiration for personal freedom, for the political process is precious and very important. I would like Russia, where the protest movement has been practically sterilized, to have a normal political process and the country to live by the laws.
Why are the Belarusians saints? (This is how Evgeny called the Belarusians in an interview with Gordon).
For it is the Christian way, when you are slapped on the left cheek, turn the right cheek. To keep coming out, to die for the faith, this is the reason to be consecrated a saint. When people defend what they believe in by not resisting, but only by their spirit. One can only envy such steadfastness and integrity.
Was it worth taking pitchforks in hands?
It is not for me to say whether you should or should not take pitchforks in your hands. A rose or tulip revolution like the one in Kyrgyzstan without a single victim is a fortunate exception. But perhaps, just as the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight, it is likely that this regime will also collapse.
Just as Putin's regime will collapse. For it is concentrated entirely on one man. This is Putin's country. Everything is concentrated on one person, we are all not eternal, at some point he will die of old age. I don't wish a violent death to anyone, but I don't want him to have anything to do with the leadership of my country.
Russia wants to turn Belarus into its full protectorate, unfortunately, as we can see, everything is moving towards it. And unfortunately, the decision will be made in the Kremlin, to all appearances. At the moment there is no chance, but it may change any minute, no one knows when the black swan will fly in.
The Russian history is a rather bloody illogical chain of events, interrupted in different ways. Few people can guess how it will turn out.
How did the guy from the market become a millionaire?
When I was a kid, I was engaged in the illegal piecemeal trading; in '91, when the spontaneous markets opened, I was sixteen years old. I worked in the market from then until '96. In 1996 I moved into the mobile phone business, and in 1997 we started our own company. For five years I worked in the market to get food and clothes. And in 2000 I was already doing well. Those were the best times. Early Putin, this is when Yeltsin's laws and petrodollars were in place. The best time to start doing business in Russia was the autumn of '98, when everything collapsed from a low point. There has never been a better opportunity than that. And even in 2009, after the crisis, there was a big opportunity too, and lots of companies started up. "Dodo Pizza", for example. Before the Crimea everything was more or less possible.
Navalny's mistakes
I always criticize the overture with the trade unions and the leftist rhetoric when it appears. If any politician has it, I criticize it. I had a debate with Milov on Dozhd. He was in favor of a social state, and it seems to me that in order to get to the social state, you need to give people back their sense of property. So that four generations may live with a full-fledged sense of property. So it doesn't happen that property can be taken away from you without trial. The concept of property is very problematic in the post-Soviet space.
I would really like to see low taxes and a minimal presence of the state in people's lives, it should be a night watchman, a helper and guarantor of a fair and speedy trial based on humanistic European core values.
Why did Navalny return to Russia after the poisoning?
"I will stop being a Russian politician if I am abroad", "I want to be with my people", "who are they to stop me from living in my country where I want to live". That's the way he is, people love him for his integrity and consistency.
Returning home
I don't think I'll ever go back. I saw that queue at the embassy in 2018, I saw those faces, it's hard to love them. I saw those eyes, it's hard to love them, as Borzykin once sang. It's hard to love those who live in London and go to vote for Putin.