Yellow Badge. Jan Bluz's documentary on political prisoners in Belarus

There is no room for grand politics here. Instead, there is dirt, the stench of cells, and the systematic degradation of anyone who dared to think out loud. It all started with hope in 2020. Thousands of people took to the streets, believing that this time it would work. Instead of freedom, they got police batons and the floors of prison vans. The system takes no prisoners; it grinds people to a pulp, starting with brutal beatings on the way to the detention center.

Jan Bluz, in his film, gives a voice to those who survived, even though their colleagues were not so lucky. In the Belarusian "khimiya" or penal colonies, death is often strangely unexplained. Can one sit calmly on the sofa while such lawlessness happens nearby? This is the question the documentary`s protagonists asked themselves before their arrest. Today, their answers are the scars on their bodies and the traumas that keep them awake at night.

Volodarka, or a journey to the nineteenth century

The first stop is usually Minsk`s Pre-trial Detention Center No. 1, known as Volodarka. Forget about standards. It is a building from 1825 where the walls are black, dirty, and peeling. In a cell two meters wide, they can lock you up for three months. Then you end up in a larger room, where you share the space with eleven fellow inmates and an army of cockroaches. Insects are literally everywhere. You pick up a slice of bread, and swarms of them run out from under it.

Sunlight? Forget it. Only enough enters the cell for you to know you are still alive. Metal shutters are mounted on the windows, effectively cutting you off from the world. You are guilty before any verdict is reached. The lack of vegetables and fruit leads to scurvy. Teeth simply fall out, and wounds stop healing. This is a deliberate strategy of a system that wants you to be released as a wreck.

Backbreaking work and marches through the forest

After sentencing, prisoners are often sent to "khimiya", or open-type correctional facilities. In practice, this is forced labor for pennies. Political prisoners are given the worst tasks, for example, working with livestock. You work by hand, as in the 19th century, risking being trampled by cattle.


Viktar Parkhimchyk recalls an absurd situation with commuting to work in the film. When the bus changed its route, the guards told him to walk. He had to cover 25 kilometers each way through the Białowieża Forest. After eight hours of hard physical labor, he had to return the same way at night. Refusing to perform the march ends in a report and a harsher penalty.

In penal colonies, like the one in Novopolotsk, work is pure drudgery. Prisoners with yellow badges spend all day cutting cables and melting copper. Everything takes place in primitive conditions. They deduct the cost of water and electricity from your starvation wages. After a month of work, you might receive the equivalent of two dollars in hand.

The punishment cell and death in silence

The worst is the punishment cell (SHIZO), where you sleep on bare boards without bedding. After a few days, the body is so exhausted that every movement becomes a challenge. That is where activist Vitold Ashurak died. Other prisoners heard his screams, which could not be silenced. The colony administration does not hide its hatred; the guards explicitly say that political prisoners should be shot.

The yellow badge on the chest is a signal: this person can be degraded. Every step is tracked by cameras and informants. The system breaks people, forcing them to lie on camera about luxuries that political prisoners never see. For most illnesses, the only medicine is ibuprofen.

For many, these tortures end in suicide attempts. One woman recalls that after two weeks without food or sleep, she wanted to take her life with a razor. Even being released does not end the trauma, because all of Belarus resembles one big cell today.

More documentary films by Jan Bluz can be watched on the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@JanBluz