{"id":3650,"date":"2025-12-26T10:49:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:49:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/?p=3650"},"modified":"2025-12-26T10:57:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T07:57:47","slug":"so-an-hour-passes-with-this-rig-hanging-around-your-neck-it-weighs-roughly-a-clean-eight-kilograms-so-yes-its-pretty-heavy-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nottoday.media\/en\/activism\/so-an-hour-passes-with-this-rig-hanging-around-your-neck-it-weighs-roughly-a-clean-eight-kilograms-so-yes-its-pretty-heavy-part-i","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSo an hour passes with this rig hanging around your neck \u2014 it weighs roughly a clean eight kilograms \u2014 so yes, it\u2019s pretty heavy.\u201d Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Music, arrest, emigration, and music once again \u2014 we continue our series on prisons and everything connected to them. Our next stop is Belarus. In this new long-read, released in two parts, Nottoday and Papa Bo (<\/strong>Belarus Outside Sound System<\/a><\/strong>) talk about imprisonment in Belarus, what helps while behind bars, and how to escape and outsmart the Belarusian and Russian police \u2014 read about all this in the first part. The second part covers music \u2014 specifically Belarus Outside Sound System, their history and social stance, as well as the contemporary Belarusian music scene in exile and the part of it that remains in Belarus.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Papa Bo, Belarus Outside Sound System<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Hi! Tell your story for those who aren’t familiar with it yet. How were you detained? Did the law enforcement representatives say anything “interesting” or “new,” besides the usual police verbal abuse?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 I was detained for 2020, for participating in the marches \u2014 the first ones after the 2020 presidential elections, where I performed with a mobile sound system. We recorded it all on video and posted it. The video became quite popular, a local meme. And exactly a year later, they came for us and charged us with organizing mass riots, blocking roads, and participating in mass protests. Standard procedure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Culture Center “Korpus”<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A lot of time has passed since then, 4 years already. So, specific memories haven’t stayed sharp. And the cops didn’t say anything new, or anything they hadn’t said to others. The standard cop behavior: intimidation, threats, insults. The basics, the “cop basics.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 What were your first thoughts when you were detained? What did you remember instantly, and what did you forget?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 I remembered where all the devices were and where the hiding spots were. They initially wanted to prosecute us under a drug-related article so there wouldn’t be any human rights support. Since we were detained at “Korpus”<\/a> (a cultural center in Minsk where Papa Bo worked as art director), and “Korpus” was seen by the cops as a stronghold of the underground and drug addiction, they searched for drugs at “Korpus,” at home, and in personal belongings. They tried to pin that theme on us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my only thoughts were: I hope nothing was left behind, I hope they didn’t plant anything, I hope they didn’t find a gram of weed scraps on the rug. Those were my only thoughts. They were aggressively pushing this narrative, even bringing in a dog \u2014 a winner of a national canine competition. We waited two hours for this old German Shepherd, but it still didn’t find anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 A technical question. Was it hard to carry the mobile sound system on yourself? Can it be bought? Or did you build it yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Look, there were only two actions. And those things, the mobile sound systems, there were also two of them, and they were different. The first was made in one day; it was built from improvised materials by one of the technicians at “Korpus,” who later became my co-defendant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He put it together using several belts and a box from a Bosch cordless drill. It was quite hard to carry because there were no tests. It was done spontaneously, very fast. We tried it on \u2014 everything held together, everything hung right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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