We continue introducing you to the people for whom our shelter has become a temporary home and a safe place after being forced to leave Belarus.
Today's story is about a mother raising her children alone. In recent years, she says, she increasingly felt that she wasn't living in her home country but merely surviving in it. After being detained and having a criminal case opened against her, she had to leave Belarus urgently.
In Lithuania, the family faced new difficulties: problems renting housing, a lack of documents, and a dishonest employer. The day before she was due to be evicted, she learned about our shelter.
Today she says that what helps her recover most is a sense of calm — she no longer has to fear every knock on the door or live in constant tension.
We had a life in Belarus. Although the last few years already felt more like survival. The stagnation and decline were always visible to me. I didn't see a future for my children.
"Watchers" [an informal term for security officers who monitored and made home visits to activists] started coming to us back in August–September 2020. But at that point the laws hadn't yet been twisted to the point of absurdity, and there was no real basis to detain me.
In 2024 I was issued an administrative fine. Then in March 2026, about ten people came for me. At first it even seemed almost funny.
I was charged under Parts 1 and 2 of Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code [a provision of Belarusian law commonly applied in cases connected to protest-related activity]. There was no evidence. But they blackmailed me with my children: they said either I sign everything they gave me and remain under house arrest with my children until trial, or I'd be sent to a pre-trial detention center (SIZO) and the children to a social rehabilitation center.
I signed everything.
After the temporary detention facility, I went home. The next day I contacted people I knew in Poland and Vilnius. They all told me the same thing: leave.
Then I got in touch with an evacuation initiative. Three days on the road — and we were already in Lithuania. Why Lithuania? At that point it was the fastest and closest route. "Traveling" with a small child is its own kind of ordeal.
I suppose you could say I got "lucky" — although the situation was very difficult.
After we arrived in Lithuania, we had paid housing for a while. Then it started: apartments seemed to be available, but... children, a Russian-speaking family, no residence permit. I ran into this in various forms.
Time passed, the paid housing was running out, and we still hadn't found an apartment. On top of that, I ended up with a dishonest employer who stopped paying in full and just kept feeding me promises.
The day before we were due to be evicted, an acquaintance told me about the shelter. He didn't even know I had housing problems. He'd lived there himself once but didn't remember the contact details.
Through human rights defenders, I managed to find the right contact and got in touch with a staff member of the Foundation. That evening we moved some of our things, and the next morning we moved in ourselves.
Life is life. 😁 The conditions are really good — better than I expected.
The other residents are normal people; we talk, and there are a lot of shared topics — Belarus, Ukraine, life after leaving. Back home, people I know are openly afraid to even talk about this.
Calm.
You stop flinching at every knock on the door. No one goes through your phone.
For the last two years, I hadn't even used apps on my phone: I logged into everything through a browser with a username and password, saved nothing. I remembered it all.
Here, only after about a month did I install apps for the first time and save passwords.
It seems like a small thing. But for me it was the feeling that I was truly safe.
There aren't enough words for this. Endless gratitude.
We at least brought small backpacks with us, a little money. Some people ended up outside their homes wearing almost nothing.
So help and support — it's incredible.
I also often think back to 2013, when the war in Donbas began. Back then, people in Belarus came together and helped refugees. There were almost no foundations — everyone helped however they could.
I saw the horror in those people's eyes. Some left even the few things they had at the border — they arrived in Belarus with literally nothing. There were families with babies under a year old.
My child was two years old at the time. We had our own apartment, everything we needed. Those people had lived roughly the same way, and in an instant they had nothing.
I thought about it often, and I never wished for anyone to end up in a foreign country with children and nothing at all.
And thirteen years later, I found myself in a similar situation. Except there's no war on our own territory — yet there are refugees all the same.
I'm very angry at the authorities for depriving people of their homes, their safety, and their ability to live their own lives.
It's a simple thing, but — the future of my children. Right now, there isn't one for them in Belarus. I want them to be able to live in peace, to study, to have a future.
🤍 Our shelter is a temporary safe home for Belarusians who were forced to leave the country because of repression.
If you'd like to help people who are starting their lives over in exile, please support our shelter: https://www.stranafund.org/kampanii/shelter-campaign
Thank you!
Every donation helps support political prisoners and their families, giving them hope and the means to overcome challenges.
