BYSOL opened a fundraiser for a Belarusian journalist

A Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist left for Lithua­nia because of the risk of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. He is cur­rent­ly unable to find work in his pro­fes­sion and is ask­ing for sup­port to cov­er hous­ing, dai­ly expens­es, and food.

The image is gen­er­at­ed using AI

Andrus* is 52 years old. For more than 30 years, he worked in inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian media as an edi­tor, jour­nal­ist, and con­trib­u­tor to var­i­ous pub­li­ca­tions. He report­ed on events in Belarus and worked in jour­nal­ism back when inde­pen­dent media could still oper­ate open­ly inside the coun­try.

After 2020, pres­sure on inde­pen­dent media out­lets and jour­nal­ists inten­si­fied dra­mat­i­cal­ly. In 2022, Andrus him­self became a tar­get of repres­sion. He was detained, inter­ro­gat­ed in con­nec­tion with a crim­i­nal case, had his equip­ment con­fis­cat­ed, and his doc­u­ments seized.

“For­mal­ly, I was a wit­ness in the case, but it was made clear from the very begin­ning that my sta­tus could be changed to ‘defen­dant’ at any moment,” the Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist recalls. “As soon as I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty, I obtained a new pass­port, secured a visa, and left for Lithua­nia to stay free.”

In exile, he con­tin­ued work­ing in jour­nal­ism. At first, he man­aged to remain in the pro­fes­sion, col­lab­o­rat­ing with var­i­ous edi­to­r­i­al teams on a free­lance basis. But over the past few years, the finan­cial sit­u­a­tion of the Belaru­sian media sec­tor in exile has dete­ri­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Some projects have shut down, while oth­ers have cut bud­gets and reduced fees. Find­ing sta­ble work in jour­nal­ism became increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult.

“Until last year, I some­how man­aged to sur­vive on the bare min­i­mum,” he says. “Then the rejec­tions became more fre­quent. News­rooms increas­ing­ly pre­ferred younger can­di­dates or were unwill­ing to hire some­one on a per­ma­nent con­tract.”

The result was unem­ploy­ment and a lack of income, at a point when even decades of pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence were no longer enough to cov­er basic liv­ing expens­es.

To sur­vive, Andrus began look­ing for any kind of work. The first job turned out to be a dis­ap­point­ment: he was promised €50 a day but end­ed up receiv­ing only about €20.

“After chang­ing jobs sev­er­al times, I found work with a com­pa­ny respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing the city of Vil­nius. Essen­tial­ly, I clean city streets. But the work is still unsta­ble: there are few work­ing days, and the income is irreg­u­lar. I’m not giv­ing up, but because of the forced peri­od of unem­ploy­ment, I’ve exhaust­ed all my sav­ings and sim­ply have no way to cov­er my cur­rent expens­es.”

He is pre­pared to con­tin­ue work­ing out­side his pro­fes­sion, but he needs time to stay afloat in Lithua­nia, keep his hous­ing, and recov­er from finan­cial hard­ship.

“For the first time in many years, I am ask­ing for sup­port because I’m unable to pay for the essentials—rent and food—until my cur­rent job starts pro­vid­ing a sta­ble income.”

Help a colleague

Fundrais­ing goal: €1950

€1500 – hous­ing costs for 3 months
€450 – food expens­es

*This is an anony­mous sto­ry. For secu­ri­ty pur­pos­es, we have changed the hero’s name. The image is gen­er­at­ed using AI.