The wife of a political emigrant, Elena, saved money on manicures and rode public transport without paying to buy an apartment — and sold it after her husband’s persuasion. The family of Ales and Mikhalina lost $ 40,000 on the sale of their apartment and could have lost their husband and father if he were detained. A journalist from Hrodna.life recorded stories of how Hrodna residents who left abroad returned to Belarus at their own peril to sell their property — and do not plan to return to their homeland yet.
All names in the text have been changed for the safety of the individuals involved.
Still paying off the loan for the sold apartment
Elena, her husband, and two children left their three-room apartment of 76 sq.m. for $ 25,000 in one of the new residential areas after the elections in the summer of 2020. It was dangerous for her to stay due to possible political persecution.
As a result, the apartment stood empty for more than three years. Elena speaks hesitantly about the reasons: «An apartment is such a base, a support. For the first year and a half, it seemed that we would return. And when I got pregnant… The relationship between men and women changes. My husband is not perfect, I am not perfect. We could have a serious quarrel over something. My husband also asked why I wasn’t selling it. I kept silent, kept silent, and then said: ‘One day will come, and I will have nowhere to go from you. We will quarrel, I will need to leave. Where to? Rent an apartment in Bialystok? What if I don’t earn anything? If we break up, it’s easier for me to go to Belarus. And I have my own apartment there. It was my backup option.'»
She had to part with the option. It became clear that «political» figures were increasingly having their property seized. There was increasing talk of new taxes on the sale of real estate. The family had not visited Belarus for two years but continued to pay utility bills. They did not plan to rent it out — they needed to invest in renovations first. «Invest, say, $ 5,000 in renovations. For it to pay off, you need to rent it out for, say, three years. And then what? Renovate again?» The apartment began to be perceived as a loss. Meanwhile, the children were growing up, and life in the new city was getting better.
So the family came to the decision to sell. A familiar realtor helped, and the three-room apartment was sold within two weeks. The apartment was sold as a new building with partial renovation. At the buyer’s request, they left the bathtub and cabinets in the bathroom. Belongings had been taken to Bialystok over the three years prior.
«Psychologically, I couldn’t let go. I wanted to return, there were many memories. What’s yours is yours. I live here, in a rented apartment, and I feel that it’s not mine. Psychologists say that you need to thank the apartment. Say goodbye to it. I did just that. I remembered children’s smiles, how I walked around pregnant, how I gave birth to my second daughter. A large table, we gathered with large families, guests often came,» Elena recalls.
When buying the apartment, Elena paid $ 15,000 from her savings. They took out a loan for another $ 10,000. They are still paying it off — $ 100 a month. To save up for the apartment, Elena saved money on manicures and rode public transport without paying. They sold the apartment for $ 20,000 more — for $ 45,000. They sold it by proxy. To issue the power of attorney, get a passport for the child, register and deregister them from the apartment, it was necessary to come at least twice.
Before traveling to Hrodna for the first time after a long break of two years, Elena was worried and slept poorly. «There were thoughts that they might detain me, and I didn’t want to leave our daughter, who was about a year old, without me for a long time,» she said. The first time, her phone was completely «clean.» Elena said it was her friend’s phone.
«We had a plan that my husband and children would bring me to the Druskininkai border, I would get on a bicycle and cross the border on it. And a car with one of my relatives would be waiting for me across the border to take me to Hrodna. Crossing the border towards Hrodna took 40 minutes. I resolved all the paperwork issues in Hrodna in another two hours. And, without going home, I immediately went to the border to return to the children faster.»
As a rule, people who have lived outside the country for a long time are interviewed by a border guard or a plainclothes officer. The questioning and inspection of personal belongings took about 15 minutes. «The first time is scary. When you go, you already think that they will torture you there. And the second time you already know how they question. ‘Where do you work? Where does your husband work? How long have you been outside Belarus?'» Elena lists. She has an alibi — maternity leave, «nothing to find fault with.» «Well, I see,» Elena conveys the officer’s reaction.
The second time, Elena simply didn’t take her phone with her. The «polite and friendly» border guards looked for it, but she only had a backpack with a thermos, chocolate, and nuts. She had to open and show everything, that there was nothing there and it wasn’t a disguised phone. «He couldn’t believe I was traveling without it.»
The return trip across the border took about an hour and a half due to the slow work of the Lithuanian side. There was no questioning on the way back.
Elena believes the apartment was sold on time. The person to whom the power of attorney was issued was imprisoned.
They did not take the money out of Belarus — they invested it in a business. Elena’s husband said that it was not the time to acquire real estate. He promised to buy it when they had money. «But he promised me: ‘If anything, I can return it to you,'» Elena laughs. She wants property in the new country, but she also has doubts.
— I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Will a war start here, will we move further? Although I don’t want to move anymore. The longer you live here, the more you understand that you already have a social circle here that you don’t want to trade for another one. Even our club, where we run, — it’s becoming so close to me. There’s another club there, and all sorts of… We’ve been here for three and a half years. You already have more of this social circle here, relationships are becoming more valuable here than there.
And in general, this city seems to be very close to Hrodna, but here for life there are bike paths, a park, it’s so convenient for me here. You come to the urząd (local administration — Hrodna.life) — they treat you normally, you come to the kindergarten — they treat you humanely there. And in all these urząds, they smile at you, help you, and not vice versa.
It was difficult for Elena to realize that the apartment had been sold, $ 40,000 received, but to buy one in a new place, she needed three times as much. Working with a psychologist, she understood that the apartment was now more necessary for another person. She no longer plans to save as much as she did for the previous one. She wants to invest more in herself, in her development. Learn English, work with a psychologist, take yoga courses, go to a cosmetologist. But she also wants a house.
«You know, life is so unpredictable, it turns out. It seemed like, here’s the apartment, so that’s it, and so life will become stable. We’ll go to the school nearby, to the kindergarten nearby. And the children will go straight to this university. But then life — chick-chick-chick — changed. My husband wants to move to another country. He doesn’t like the climate here. And you no longer plan so far ahead. Here’s the kindergarten, the school might be there for the first year, and what’s next, you don’t know.»
Lost a third of their investment on the apartment
Ales and Mikhalina’s family lived in a three-room apartment of 90 sq. m. in the city center. They bought the bare bones of it at the end of 2014 for $ 87,500. Over nine years, they invested about another $ 40,000 — they renovated it according to a design project and equipped an office on the balcony. And — they left.
The family had been considering such an option since the beginning of the repressions in 2020. The decision came when the war started. Three months of uncertainty later, Poland became their place of residence.
They parted with their real estate in Belarus gradually. First, in December 2022, the family sold the apartment they had been preparing for their children. They didn’t plan to rent out apartments in Grodno. They paid 150 rubles for utilities per month and a property tax of 120 rubles per year. The rates could have increased due to the couple not being employed in the Belarusian economy.
Later, they started thinking about buying a home in Poland — they didn’t want to spend so much on rent and wanted to have their «own nest.» The couple looked at real estate prices, estimated their available funds, estimated the space needed for the children — and realized that to buy comfortable housing, they would have to abandon the idea of keeping the three-room apartment in Grodno.
They put the apartment up for sale in April 2023. «The realtor says: 'Well? It’s worth, say, $ 130,000. But for that money now you can buy a house with furniture.'» They listed it for $ 110,000. For six months, they didn’t receive a single call. «You see, everyone started leaving, and everyone is selling apartments. Besides, who would buy them here? There are no prospects in this country,» Ales believes.
They gradually lowered the price, lowered it, and reached $ 80,000. That’s how the first buyer appeared. He decided to buy by December — to celebrate the New Year in the new apartment.
Ales went to Belarus for the first time in a year «at his own peril and risk.» It was «scary» for him to go — it threatened him with prosecution. In August 2020, he made donations to organizations that were later recognized as extremist groups. At the beginning of 2023, some of his acquaintances had to pay compensation to the state. A «serious» sum threatened Ales as well. But he hadn’t made a power of attorney in Belarus, so he had to sell the apartment personally. The client was ready to wait. Especially since Ales got sick. «But in the end, because I was so worried, I thought that I simply wouldn’t live to see those 20th [of December].» Moreover, closer to the holidays, they promised long queues.
At first, he thought about going to Belarus via Istanbul and Moscow — they don’t check at the Russian-Belarusian border. But he was inspired by the example of an IT friend who was a «donor» and «walked on Sundays» and returned to Belarus to get a passport for his child. He passed «without problems» and stayed for two weeks. This gave Ales confidence, and he went through closed checkpoints to Belarus via Lithuania.
Crossing the border at the «Benyakoni» checkpoint went «as smoothly as possible.» The family traveled light. They weren’t interrogated, their equipment wasn’t checked. Ales noticed that both the customs officers and border guards were young and quite friendly. The journey took 10 hours. Of these, the family spent three and a half hours at the border. They didn’t discuss what to do if things didn’t go according to plan.
«I can’t even really imagine what the plan could be if you’ve already been detained. I don’t know, you would have to act according to the situation. There are no lawyers anymore. Well, and to be honest, I was more afraid not of being detained, but of being charged with donations for which I would have to pay off,» Ales said.
Before the trip, the family cleaned their devices. First of all, they removed links to «extremist sites» like «Zerkalo.» They cleared their chat history with each other and with some friends. They left some communities. Ales didn’t delete his Telegram account. Social networks had already been cleaned up in Belarus in 2021.
The family spent three days in Belarus, during which they sorted out all their belongings that they hadn’t managed to take away and prepared documents. Ales spent them «in a coma» from stress, a cold, and a hangover after meeting with friends. «I had the feeling — I don’t care about anything at all. Firstly, I was very afraid that something would happen at the border. They told me scary stories that 'Oh, the fact that you crossed the border is okay. We know cases when people cross the border, and the next day they come to your house 'Ding-Dong!'» Secondly, I was very sick. I just had a runny nose, Mikhalina couldn’t keep up with wiping my nose."
Among other authorities, Ales had to visit the «lair» — the District Department of Internal Affairs and the military registration and enlistment office. «Whatever, I’m going in on charisma: 'Yes, there? Which office? Let’s go.'»
The family visited their closest friends, resolved issues with the State Technical Inventory Bureau at 10 am on the third day, and by 12 pm were already on their way back. The return trip went «even more smoothly.»
They left practically everything in the apartment, except for the wardrobe they had accumulated over two years and valuable children’s belongings left with their parents. However, they took their family collection of zebras: their youngest daughter once called Mikhalina a «zebra» — and that’s how they started collecting them.
«A couple of days ago, I had almost a panic attack. Just a feeling of pity that this is no longer my apartment, and strangers live there. We are like homeless people, we don’t have our own housing. F*ck, we are 40 years old, and we have come to the point where we don’t have our own housing,» Ales worries.
Mikhalina, however, says that even with her own housing, she doesn’t feel at home in Bialystok yet. She misses her parents, relatives — especially in winter and during holidays. «I feel very lonely here. I have new friends here, but I don’t have old ones, whom I’ve been friends with for 20 years. And they won’t come to visit me. And I feel that a part of me… is frozen or lost. I am a tree without roots.» The family «deep down» hopes to return in 10 years. But then they will have to give up the opportunity to see their children whenever possible — Ales and Mikhalina assume that Poland will become home for them. «It turns out that by returning, I will break family ties with my children,» Mikhalina reflects.
They took the money out in parts and declared it. The money from the sale of both apartments was converted into zlotys and deposited in a bank at 5%. They plan to invest it in buying a house and renovating it. It will be 140 square meters with a plot of 250 square meters. The family is already considering what flowers to plant and where the barbecue will stand. Mikhalina hopes for Belarusian neighbors.