A 66-year-old retiree from Minsk, participant in the 2020 protests, after arrest, home confinement and extraction to Poland, is now in urgent need of support. He has been diagnosed with cancer and requires costly medical consultations, support, and treatment.
Konstantin Shyshko – a retiree, passionate landscape designer, and master of topiary art – in 2020 refused to accept that Belarusians had their vote stolen and joined the protest marches, including the pensioners’ marches.
In August 2022, on his way to work, he was detained by the anti-extremism unit. At first, the case ended with 10 days of administrative arrest for an “extremist repost.” After serving 10 days in the Minsk temporary detention facility on Akrestsina, he was not released: law enforcers opened a criminal case under Article 342 of the Criminal Code of Belarus (“organizing, preparing or participating in actions that constitute a severe breach of public order”) and transferred him to a remand centre together with other political prisoners.
The former political prisoner still painfully recalls his time there: “The punishment cell – a concrete box just a few square meters wide, a toilet hole in the corner. Ten of us inside. Sleeping on bare concrete under constant light.” In the remand centre, he contracted COVID-19 without receiving medical care. Later, Konstantin was transferred to the Minsk remand centre known as “Volodarka,” where he spent about three months in the basement, infamous as “Shanghai.”
In December 2022, the court sentenced the retiree to three years of restriction of freedom without being sent to a correctional facility – home confinement. This was followed by endless inspections and “friendly chats,” and after nine months – searches. Eventually, Konstantin decided to leave, since after his first arrest “I would not have been able to survive going through all that again.” In September 2023, the retiree was urgently evacuated to Poland.
“Medical examinations in Poland, unfortunately, revealed cancer. And to fight it, I need financial help,” says the former political prisoner.
Although he has reached retirement age, he does not receive retirement benefits in Poland, and, as he notes, “they don’t really want to hire pensioners.” Thanks to his diligence and persistence, he has small part-time jobs to cover his room rent and food, “but for fighting the disease, I have absolutely no funds,” Konstantin stresses.
Returning to Belarus is also out of the question: in May 2025, an absentee criminal case was opened against him “to replace the punishment with a harsher one.”
“I am asking you for support, because on my own I cannot cope. Thank you with all my heart! I believe in a better future and promise not to give up. Žyvie Belarus!”
Fundraising goal
€3000
€2400 – doctor visits, tests, medications
€600 – room rent