Justyna Mielnikiewicz / Why story about the Marriage Agency ?

Since 2010 I started to  work on my long time project dedicated to the women from former Soviet Space and when with Sputnik  we decided to make a project in Belarus I was naturally looking for a women story to do there so I can  add to the series . I always wanted to do a story about one of those marriage agencies , could be in Russia, Ukrainie or Belarus. While working in Odessa few years ago  I have seen one of those big meetings organized by such agency for the clients coming from abroad . When  researching that topic I was expecting that all marriage agencies are those bizarre places where last thing people look for is love or a family life  .I was surprised and happy to find the agency in Grodno which was not like that at all . It operates transparently and is run by real people for a real people. It took me one unsuccessful trip to Minsk before I found them. During that trip I found Grodno contact while meeting with people working for La  Strada with which Agency in Grodno cooperates. (La Strada International is European network against trafficking in human beings with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe) . With that contact  I was ready to do my story. I was just waiting for the  wedding of Agency clients to happen  and have a permission to photograph it . When Natalia and Filip who married in July gave me green light (with fantastic help of Maya, the Agency Owner )  I bough the ticket and went there to start my story with a photos of their wedding. 

More later.....

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If you as a reader of that post might have some questions please ask them -I will try to answer in my next post.

Rafal Milach / The Winners





The beginning of my work in Belarus was a true experience. A celebrity experience. Before I took the first picture I turned to be in local news, papers and TV. The first town I went to was Slonim with its famous modeling school Vita -style run by local celebrity Vitaly Zhilinsky. Check the video out if you want to get to know more about what I was working on in Belarus :) The funny thing is that such side effect really suits my project. See you in next post.

Why Andrei Liankevich worked on the WAR project :)

Be honest, with this project i tried to answer the question "Whom I am?". I mean, where is my heart, blood nationality ... Blood is more Polish than Belarussian or Russian, but heart is in Grodno with my parents place, grandparents village, family cemetery ... Why throughout the war ? My family is the answer.  We did not loose relatives at war. It looks really strange when 25-30% Belarus people were killed during WWII.  But it make cleare why i war was only book history for me.

Blazej , grandfather, did not join USSR troops. My father told me "they did not trust us"( Polish people from West Belarus). From other side,   grand grand father Ivan was sent to Siberia, as "Public enamy"- he was orthodox church priest. So my mother's famiy lost everything before the war. So, war hand did not tough us a lot .

  PS: Presentation of "Good Bye, Motherland" project in Minsk in unique day - 29.02.12 :)

During 1 year research by Belarus art community i was selected together with 15 artists, who made "especially important projects in 2000-2011 years." That is why the project was shown in ex-TV factory building.

photos by Uliya Kochanova

"Good Bye, Motherland" by Andrei Liankevich

I was working on the project about  attitude to the WWII in Belarus. The reason why is that fact, that Belarus in 90th's politically choose to have USSR culture and history  as new country system of values. Belarus has one ideology- War ideology. More than that, Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko "changed the history" to start new country point from the moment USSR won WWII. Belarus Independence day is the day  when the capital was freed from Nazi invasion. Main streets in the  capital are named to the honor of War heroes, which is around 30% of all streets names. Last research shows, that people can hardly remember who was the person the street is named.
Every year Belarus has war parade. The main , and the only museums we have in every Belarus town are War museums. Everything in Belarus starts and ends in the point: "We won the war. We are Heroes." 
I have the feeling that now is the right moment to start public discussion about "real" war had happened in Belarus.  Veterans passes away and we already have got the distance to the war facts "produced by USSR historians" without "Brave Great Heroes" and "History based on books and movies".