In Belarus, there are quite a lot of high-tech companies, many of them very successful. At the same time, there aren't a lot of big private enterprises (non-government-owned nor -affiliated) in other areas.
The reason is simple: the regime cannot appropriate intellectual property. If the thugs come and put a hi-tech company under arrest, all they can "collect" is .. desktops and monitors. The real value — be that in code or in employees' heads — cannot be arrested, and the company can continue what they did under a different cover (or from a neighboring country).
The regime understands that too, so they took a somewhat laissez-faire attitude to hi-tech.
I've been following the situation in Belarus since last August and it's really terrible. I admire how so many brave people look death in the eye and still fight for freedom. I have friends there and this allowed me to understand that there's so much potential in Belarus -- there are so many talented, intelligent people getting by in this adversarial environment. So sad to see how Lukashenko's kleptocracy regime wasted so many years and chances for a better future for millions of people.
Anyway -- you can help! Most of the communication, coordination and crime-documenting happens on Telegram and the regime tries to block access to this information. You can run Telegram Proxy [0][1]. The installation is fairly straightforward, mostly setup and forget. After setup you can register your proxy with MTProxybot [2], so that people can learn about/use your proxy. If you know people there, I also recommend setting up a private proxy just for them (i.e. not registering with [2]) and sharing over private communication channel (e.g. Signal), as the thugs try to block proxies, so it's a cat-and-mouse game.
Edit: Added info about MTProxybot.
[0] https://core.telegram.org/mtproto/mtproto-transports
I guess a lot of software engineers will continue to move aboard. Next door Poland got generous visa schema and hungry for tech talent with low cost of living. Salaries are getting close to Western countries.
1. If you are from Belarus you can get "humanitarian visa" for 10 euro, that gives you one year of work permit with no strings attached and no job offer priori.
2. Still getting regular work visa is very easy for software.
3. Having any grandparent with Polish origin grants you equivalent of green card. Given history this is quite common and not so expensive to proof with right lawyer.
I wonder if Belarussians have become prisoners of their geography, or more precisely their neighbour? If they removed their dictator from office, then it may be very likely that Russia will use the situation to do a land grab or finance instability. If current dictator knows that, then perhaps in a twisted way they want to keep status quo, so at least people can live without fear of the civil war. This is of course unsustainable. So what are their options? Could Belarus withstand an attack from the East? I am sorry if that sounds ignorant - I don't have much knowledge about that country.
> whose husband died in jail after standing at elections in opposition to the Lukashenko regime.
What?
He was in prison in 2004-2006, but died in 2014.
Imaguru was started by United States Agency for International Development.
The Minsk site has some corporate tenants.
Opposition groups held some meetings in the space.
I'm sure this is why Belarus gov shut it down.
Now I know what was our key startup hub.
So far no-one is arrested, they simply denied to lease the office space. Hopefully it will stop at that.
Probably other IT people who joined the "Coordination Council" will face consequences too.
See it this way. Those corrupt "regimes" are simply making the money. Similarly, toppling those regimes is a highly profitable activity. There is an often cited claim: when Yanukovich was toppled in Ukraine, >$30bn disappeared overnight. The new "Western aligned" government did not even produce a coherent version of those events in 7 years. The most credible thing they say: he moved it out to Russia, in cash, on trucks. Probably, they are satisfied with the outcome? And that is just one episode of the ongoing saga. Always keep this perspective in mind. (To me personally, it really helps to ignore clownish geopolitical speculations.)
Shake that boat, provoke Kremlin, arm the populace, make Kremlin bleed, and go broke.
The longer the Russia will be dragged into this war, the deeper Putinisms' grave will be, and the less is the chance of Russia ever growing big enough to threaten Europe.
I am totally for dragging Russia into a bloody war.
There are rumours that Belarus will become part of Russia shortly. Putin just said that the West/United States crossed the line and tried to murder Lukanseko. Upheaval is coming https://twitter.com/ivan8848/status/1384815408495140865 So much about the techcrunch article
Warmonger say jump, HNs been in the air.
Let's condemn Russia always always always but let's look away from the US trying to create vassal states in Europe to antagonize Russia. It's like hearing the brain-dead old George Bush: United States/West good, Russia bad, very bad.
Let's see how many NGOs and US spies have been working to undermine Belarus sovereignty. Even in Syria American politicians accepted the fact that US supported directy terrorists who wanted to subvert Assad. IF Assad was a criminal but a good friend of the US interests, that would no problem. The US would not even bother. Not to mention of course, Ukraine, where right wing Nazi fascists are supported militarily by United states and Europe (all the US's vassal states speak the same language)
By the way, techcrunch is a mouthpiece of the US based interests. They did not notice that Lukashenko did not accept any "help" from IMF or the WHO besides having been pressured heavily. Opening up your country to IMF is like giving them your keys.
I really don't understand what are these protesters trying to achieve. I like Belarus and spent years there. Hard to guess why would anyone want to shake the boat and risk the country getting annexed by Russia.
All: when you take a thread like this further into political flamewar, here is what we end up with: "all $country1 society is living in a hateful state", "I am totally for dragging $country2 into a bloody war", and "I'd sign up in heartbeat to take a gun to $country3".
Is that the kind of community you want to be part of? If so, please find a different one. If no, then please don't take HN threads further into political or nationalistic flamewar. It's shameful. It would count as violence too, if internet forums weren't such teapots.
No more of this, please—where by "this" I mean any vector pointing to that hellish reductio, not just the ones that actually get there. What to do instead: have thoughtful, curious conversation. If you can't have thoughtful, curious conversation, please don't post until you can.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html