Six years ago, on 30 August 2020, Minsk saw a massive March of Peace and Independence. The action coincided with dictator Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s 66th birthday, which he marked while hiding in the Palace of Independence behind riot police. On the capital’s streets, by various estimates, stood from 100,000 to more than 200,000 people. Columns walked to the “Minsk — Hero City” stele and on to his residence.

The third Sunday of protest

It was already the third mass Sunday march after the falsified election of 9 August. Many never reached Independence Square: from the morning it was cordoned off; the centre filled with police vans, barbed wire and special equipment. Detentions began on the way — the Interior Ministry later reported more than a hundred arrests that day alone.

People gathered in columns from different districts, walked along Independence Avenue to the “Minsk — Hero City” stele, then along Pieramozhcau Avenue to the Palace of Independence. In their hands — white-red-white flags, placards, flowers. They chanted “Zhyve Belarus,” “Go away,” “Sania, treat us,” “We’re here for your birthday.”

“Gifts” for the birthday boy behind armour

At the residence the road was blocked by shields and armoured vehicles. There were almost no clashes: the crowd stood peacefully, joked, left symbolic “gifts” at the fence — toy police vans, balloons, shoes, a cardboard cockroach, a “coffin for the dictatorship.” Some lit candles and shouted: “Sasha, blow them out!”

The dictator did not come out of the palace. The regime showed its usual picture: the people on the street — and soldiers between the people and the man who calls himself president. In the evening heavy rain hit Minsk; many began to leave. Actions also took place in other cities — Hrodna, Brest, Homiel, Viciebsk.

Why it still matters six years on

On 30 August 2020 Belarusians showed that even on Lukashenka’s “personal holiday” the street was stronger than the palace — if you count people, not police vans. Since then the regime answered with thousands of sentences, the shutdown of independent media, torture and exile. But the march to the residence remains one of the symbols of that August: a peaceful people at the gates of power — and power hidden behind shields.