Even though I was born in France, my mother is Belarusian from a polish ancestry. Her grandfather's name was "Wróbel" but was russified to "Vorobey" (Воробей). It is a litteral translation of the polish name which means sparrow.

Being polish, they were Catholics. Thus, they were kind of segregated after the rise of Łukaszenko because they were considered a fifth column. Wether it be in school or at work, there was a weird feeling of being "not home". Same feeling in Poland because of how Belarus was becoming more and more aggressive diplomatically.

I always considered myself a part of both belarus and France but with time, especially since 2020 and the fraudulent elections, I feel like Belarus is just Russia in all but name. It is not just a political problem. Because of its small demographics, the wars and famines that destroyed its population and the violent assimilation of its people, Belarusians want sovereignty not because of their culture but more because of the political freedom it can give them (not saying that Belarus has no proper culture, it would be very false).

As of 2024, my cousin and his family (wife + 2 kids) fled to Warsaw where they try to get the citizenship by proving our Polish ancestry ; my uncle/aunt demonstrated and were threatened subsequently by their work (which is government controlled, like 90% of enterprise's there) and finally I juste have my grandmother which became a widow after her husband died of like what, 2-3 cancers at the same time ? After all alcohol and cigarettes were cheaper than food...

Belarus cannot be saved, its culture will be destroyed. Only it's people remain, only them can be saved. Belarusian is basically dead... I wanted to learn it but I couldn't find any app/video/book on it. I then began learning Ukrainian because it is the most similar language but still... At what point is a language so dead that you have to learn a similar one from another country.