Some stays with you for a long time. On 14 September in Miami, the Belarusian community had a chance to meet in person someone whose fate has become a symbol of a whole people’s struggle — Siarhei Tsikhanouski.

Only a few months ago he walked out of a Belarusian prison after five years inside. He had been sentenced to eighteen years. He was held in complete isolation — more than two years without a single word to his family. Prison staff told him: “You will die here.” His weight fell from 135 to 79 kilograms. At the meeting, his own daughter did not recognise him.

And still — he came out. Alive. With an unbroken spirit. With a voice.

“I still count on the democratic forces to win. Belarus will be free!” — Siarhei Tsikhanouski, after his release.

In 2020 he travelled Belarus with a camera — letting people say out loud what they had kept silent about for years. His channel “A Country for Life” drew hundreds of thousands of views. He gave a voice to those who had had it taken away. For that he was arrested before the elections even began.

Now he is in Miami. He is learning English. He meets the diaspora. He tells the truth about what went on behind the walls of Belarusian prisons. And he is building again what he believes in.

For those of us who live here, far from Belarus, this meeting was not just an event. It was contact with living history.

In Belarus today thousands sit behind bars for the same thing Sergei did — they told the truth. Every gathering we hold here, every voice we raise is also a voice for them. We are here — they are there. But we are still one people.

Thank you, Siarhei. Thank you for your strength.
Long live Belarus!

On the first weekend of September 2022, Belarusians from the United States and Canada met in the historic heart of Belarusian America — the Belarusian Centre in South River, New Jersey. It was here, on the very soil where the memory of the zmagars has been kept for decades, that the 34th gathering of Belarusians in North America took place.

South River is not just an address. It is a place where, since the post-war years, the heart of the Belarusian diaspora has beat. Here stands the Church of Saint Euphrosyne; here is the Belarusian cemetery; here is a monument to those who fought for Belarus’s freedom. And it is here, time and again, that Belarusians from both sides of the Atlantic come together to speak of the homeland, of the future, and of what it means to be Belarusian far from home.

As long as we are together — Belarus lives in our hearts

2022 was a special year — the world was changing, and with it the role of the diaspora. After the historic protests of 2020, Belarusians abroad became a voice for their people on the world stage. Each such meeting is not merely a convention; it is an act of resistance to forgetting, a living bond between generations of emigrants and the new wave of Belarusians who left their country in search of freedom.

3–4 September 2022
South River, New Jersey
Venue: Belarusian Centre · 284 Whitehead Ave, South River, NJ 08882

284 Whitehead Ave, South River, NJ — every Belarusian in America knows this address. History is preserved here. The future is forged here. This gathering is part of a great tradition that has not broken for decades. And as long as we meet, as long as the Belarusian word is spoken, as long as this living thread between us burns — Long live Belarus!