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reminder that the European Union has exonerated Chyzh of financing a dictator, and that Chyzh is not guilty of any crime before law.
However, I’d posit that Chyzh, his football team, and Belarus’ football league, are now helping Lukashenko
to polish his horrible image, in a very horrible way – even though his horrible image is well-earned. The coronavirus has put a freeze on just about all
global sporting events, for very well- founded public health reasons. Thus the many remarks on how Belarus now has the only soccer league left to bet on. By betting on Belarus’ top league, you’re prettifying a president whose understanding of public health is killing people.
‘Best cured by drinking vodka’
I can find no better way to illustrate
this point than to point at Lukashenko’s recent remarks to news outlet Belsat. He considers the virus to be silly Western hogwash – best cured by drinking vodka.
Here are Lukashenko’s remarks: “We have survived viruses before. There were more complicated viruses: swine flu, bird flu, and atypical pneumonia”. Lukashenko also mused, urging calm while advocating absolute insanity: “There should be no panic, all you need to do is to work. I am happy when I watch TV and see people labouring in the fields, driving tractors, and no one is talking about the virus. There the tractor will cure everyone. The field will heal us all”.
likely lead to the loss of human life.
“I am a non-drinker, but at this time I jokingly say that you should not just wash your hands with vodka, but probably also poison this virus with it [from within],” Lukashenko chuckled. “In terms of pure alcohol, 40-50 grams per day should be consumed. But not at work!”
Belarus’ Ministry for Foreign Affairs, as is customary, declined all comment. Their website does, however, note
a record attendance at the game. It's
a great shame for Lukashenko that Westerwelle is no longer with us
– for if he were, he'd wryly point to Lukashenko's own musings on disease, in March 2003, when the president fuelling Europe's pandemic made the following observation.
“The ideology of the state is like an immune system for an organism. If the immune system weakens, then even the smallest infection becomes simply fatal.”
Lukashenko then reiterated that the “state” and introducing “a pro-state ideology into the minds of ordinary citizens” was a necessary step to protect the country “from any possible infection”.
This is sadly the Lukashenko doctrine – which endures, despite the easing
of EU sanctions. Silencing dissent
is so important to this autocrat that even a global pandemic can be used to consolidate the “state”. But we must
“I am happy when I watch TV and see people labouring in the fields driving tractors, and no one is talking about the virus. There the tractor will cure everyone”
Pontificating further on the pandemic – with a monologue that deserves condemnation from the World Health Organisation (WHO) – Belarus’ only president since the collapse of the Soviet Union cracked a joke which will
find other ways besides sports betting to while away our time in isolation – for when laid bare, betting on football in Europe’s last dictatorship gives us little leverage in condemning this public health disgrace.
Price of ginger and lemons soar as Russians turn to folk medicine virus cures
The price of ginger in Russia soared five-fold and lemons are getting hard to come by as Russians turn to their grandmother’s tried and tested home-made cures for the
flu in the face of the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic sweeping the country.
Everyone in eastern Europe remains very superstitious by Western European standards,
a legacy of Russia's age-old peasant culture from Tsarist times that was swept away by the Revolution but never destroyed.
The ginger shortage has been caused by a ban on imports from China, which is Russia’s main source of the root. The price of ginger had already doubled on the back of strong demand, but the Chinese import ban sent the cost of ginger through the rood. Turkey has stepped into the breach left by China.
The lemon and ginger remedy
is a particularly enduring myth. Ukraine’s Yulia Tymoshenko caused a run on lemons in markets across Ukraine when the H1N1 virus hit in 2009 when she was prime minister, by recommending citizens drink hot lemon juice in televised remarks as a way to ward off the sickness.
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