In April 2020, as a volunteer, I was engaged in sewing protective coveralls for medical workers of Rogachev Central Regional Hospital, in connection with which I was sent a letter of gratitude. After the election on 09.08.20 I took part in most of the actions, rallies and marches in my town. In October I was invited for a talk to the head of criminal investigation department of Rogachevsky district police department, where it was explained to me that I could not protest and could not communicate with other “dissenters” neither personally, nor in chat rooms.
Since November 2020 I was an ICGI “Our House” volunteer, collecting victims' cases. I helped victims of repression to prepare documents for compensation of lawyers and fines, and ordered food packages for them and their families from my e-delivery account. In July 2021 activist of ICGI “Our House” Yulia Goryachko was detained in Minsk, which was followed by a new wave of detentions.
Bodies are working on all chains of her contacts. I communicated with her not directly, but through the coordinator, but they found me too. On 20.07.2021 at 7.20 a.m. three officers of Gomel regional KGB came to my house. They searched my house in the presence of witnesses, looking for weapons, money and drugs. They verbally told me that I was a witness in a criminal case under article 289 of the Criminal Code (terrorism). They seized my phone.
They drew up a search and seizure report (in my hands). They took screenshots of correspondence from telegrams, drew up another report, and then they let me go. The three of them took care of me from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and threatened to send me to a detention center. On 23.07.21 at 7.15 a.m. the district police officer came to my house and demanded that I go with him to the ROVD.
I explained to the policeman that I wouldn't be able to go there today, as I was just leaving for the rehabilitation hospital in Aksakovschina, Minsk region, to pick up my mother (she had just been discharged). The district police officer invited me to the court on Monday, 26.07.21 in the police station, has not sent a summons, said that I must necessarily come to the police myself. In the next few days there were more strange phone calls from unknown numbers, which I did not answer.
And on 26.07.21, instead of going to the police station, I left for Odessa on the first bus I found, taking my 9-year-old son with me. The father of the child, my husband, works in Russia on a month-to-month rotational basis. I suppose my son could have been confiscated and placed in an orphanage during his shift, because that's what the KGB threatened me with during the interrogation on 20.07.21. On 03.08.21 another episode of the TV show “This is different” was broadcast on BT, which included an interview with Yulia Goryachko.
In this interview she drew the scheme of the OCG, and at the eighth minute my name was mentioned. I was listed as the “financier”. I don't feel safe in Ukraine after this video was released, and I'm planning to leave for Poland with a humanitarian visa in early September.
My son and I do not have the funds to move and live there, so I am asking you to help us.
How much does Kalina Khromchenkova need?
660€ — 200€ for the tickets to Warsaw, 400€ for the first time (while I find a job) for the running costs: food, hygiene, collecting the child for school.