How I Spent My Summer Vacation

The author never intended to write prison prose. Life had other plans. He went through an experience that usually remains behind closed doors and decided to tell this story honestly: without tragedies and without attempting to embrace heroism.
This book became a way for the author to make sense of what he had experienced and, at the same time, a gift to the reader who wants to understand Belarus not through news headlines, but through an honest human experience.

BELARUS UNFILTERED
This book is for “tourists,” both foreign and local.
Not for those who come to see clean avenues and smooth roads, but for those who want to truly get to know the country.
It is a travel guide. Based on personal experience.
Life in prison after the 2020 protests.
Year after year, the soulless machine of repression breaks, crushes, kills.

A MIRROR FOR THE HERO
Belarus is shown without slogans and without makeup: the absurd, the ridiculous, the cruel, the unexpectedly good, and the deeply human intertwine in a way that only life itself can achieve.
The story of one person becomes a mirror of the times and a silent invitation to look at one’s own reflection in it.
People and destinies caught in an endless spiral.

HUMOR AS A WEAPON
They say that sometimes laughter is the last weapon we have left.
Well… It's time to arm ourselves.
The author writes about Belarus not as a political scientist or a publicist, but as a person who has gone through all of it and retained the ability to look at what is happening clearly, honestly, and with a touch of irony. Only a strong character and a sense of humor allow a person to survive in inhumane conditions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anton Belyaev was born in 1986 in Minsk. He studied, worked, and lived in Minsk, and would have continued to do so if not for the events described in this book.

The author was an average citizen who went to work, met with friends, had hobbies, and built relationships. Sometimes he wrote poems, played the guitar, took photos, and loved tinkering with old cars. He went from being a talk show host on BT to a radio program director, and then “ascended” first to sound engineer, then to self-employed.

In 2020, he supported the post-election protests and ended up in prison. He received a sentence of "house chemistry." In 2025, he decided to flee the country.
He now lives and works in Poland.

Ironically, it was a series of tragic events that forced the author to become an author: reflecting, he wrote his "travel guide" to prisons in the form of a school essay.