"MASTERSKAYA" " Workshop /the film" "Foreword" "The very first action of squatting in Minsk, as I remember, was the action "occupation" in 2001." "I didn't participate in it." "It was the squatting of a building in the city center." "It was a demonstrative action, because some people from the new TV-channel "CTB" were invited, also some musicians were invited, but of course also the cops came on the same day." "They arrested a few people and dispersed everyone else." "Yeah and this action was a solidarity one with some Czech squat, but it was a simple demonstrative action, and not the attempt to create something more." "The next such thing that I remember was in 2006." "It wasn't a squat, it was a house we rented." "We payed money for it, very little money, but .." "It was a five stored building   well, it was a two stored building with five rooms." "It wasn't build to the end." "There were big rooms, which we cleaned." "We took away all the garbage." "There was a big movie room, the place for repetitions, where musicians were able to practice, there was a library, there were a few people constantly living in the house." "But unfortunately it didn't last long." "There were a lot of problems, and in the end, entering the house you could see garbage everywhere, no one cleaned up after themselves, in some places there was vomit and as a result the squat died out," "and it was named "the flat"." "Chapter I /The Beginning" "We found this building on 30th of May." "This idea hadn't left us for a long time   to find and to squat some building, but it seemed totally unreal at that moment." "We came here at night..." "close to midnight and this house, it was so sinister at night with a lot of broken glass, construction waste, we even were afraid to enter it without light." "But the inspiration ... it stayed." "We came here the next day, when it was light and we decided "yes" - we will do something, without knowing what we will do exactly, but there was a desire to do something." "Without knowing if it will last long or not we've just started doing cleaning, taking out the shit." "There was a lot of garbage, mud." "Here and there was a smell of I don't know shit, ...I don't know.. corpses, something else." "We've cleaned it out." "In the first weeks we´ve started restoration, beautification, painting, drawing." "And after a month, or even less, somewhere on 20th of June, we made a party, a party with soya shahsli shash shashliks." "We invited people, for them to look that there is a house, that everyone can do something here." "Then after some time, when the possibility to make electricity came, at first temporary, we made a screening, invited people and since then we've started making some actions constantly." "Chapter II /Everyday life" "This is a squat, absolutely illegaly occupied." "You have to understand it when you are speaking about it with someone, when you're bringing someone here." "In this place we have not only gigs, this gig is the first one, we also have here different events, workshops, screenings." "If you're interested in events, that are happening here besides entertainment, you should subscribe to our mailing list to find out what is happening here, and come here also on other occasions." "One more song called "The last dictator"" "Wau aaa rarara uuu!" "Thank you" "Since we occupied this building, first we did was renovation, decorating and it was such a primary aim." "And then - when someone started to break in the squat and steal some stuff, we started to secure the house, and each time those robbers found a hole in the security, we were forced to invent new mechanisms to stop them from entering." "Right now the main focus is on holding different events." "At first we made screenings, 2 movies each week." "And we selected movies that could provoke discussions, that were on some important topics." "But it happened not all the time." "Sometimes movies were senseless." "And besides screenings we also tried to do different events, discuss things we are worried about, to learn something." "Everyone who knows how to do something can come and teach others." "And also we want to make some theme events here, for example soon we will host a ZINE-fest." "And we can make discos here." "Right now we are cleaning the basement to have a place for concerts." "And generally if people have initiative they can do something here and it's very cool, that there is a place, where people can express themselves in some way" " to draw a picture or create a group." "The most valuable thing we can get from this house is the experience, experience of cooperation, self-organization." "And everything we do here ..." "we put all our efforts in it and it doesn't matter that we can be evicted, because if we don't put all our efforts in it than what's the point of doing everything?" "Generally maybe the coolest thing in the squat is that we have our building or maybe our actions   we do things here together, and as we are doing things together, we are getting closer, we're getting to know each other, and it's not DIY, it's Do It Together," "and it's really cool." "Generally all the experience of the house..." "of the squatting in a small collective of 10-15 people, who were working and are working now, this experience united us." "Sometimes people blame us of some kind of wild sectarianism, that we're not going out away from this house and things like that, but actually it's nonsense." "We are constantly changing, we are changing each other, we are learning something new, changing something in our attitudes to different things, there are constant talks on different political topics, actually it's really important." "And as some girl is talking constantly, that even if we will get evicted" "I think in history of every person here it will be an important step towards growing in anarchism and at all in interaction with people, and it's really nice." "Gotcha!" "Do you know that i'm filming for KGB?" "!" "Chapter III /ZINE Fest" "Well, what can I say - nice, cozy, obvious that there are still a lot of things that need to be done, and of course it would be sad if this will end by someone else's will," "but it's cool that you have already put a lot of efforts in it and there are already the results of it that can be seen in a good psychological atmosphere." "Well, we also had a squat in the Moscow in '90s and it lasted pretty long" " a year and a half, but we didn´t put so many efforts in it, as you've already put here." "Maybe that's why, when the time of eviction came, we weren't really struggling for it." "Anyway I wish you that the spirit that unites all of you here will find realization even if the house will be evicted, but still I believe that it will last more." "" I live by asphalt, only in metro I walk on marble, "" "" I prefer old sweater, even the fat guy can get in my pants, "" "" the cap is obliquely, microphone is hold by fist "" "" the boy from the street, "" "" my heart will never cool in this gray walls, "" "" wingspread of the crow "" "" asphalt, glass and marble dictates a rough law to everyone,"" "" and everyone takes the game of two millions "" "" and it doesn't matter who you are "" "" - rich, poor, fat, thin, everyone is busy with profit, trustful, lying. "" "" Obsessed with it, "" "" but I don't care about your system of knowledge, "" "" your ideas, you life aims, "" "" I don't care about your plans of arranging the world, "" "" until I leave there will be troubles in your life. "" "" Can I hear your voices? "" "" AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaa "" "Of course it's very good that we can do a lot of things by ourself, without anyone's help, without anyone's money, without investments, sponsorship and other bullshit connected to capitalism and also without some entertaining culture centers," "owned by the government, even some clubs that are rented." "Well not really self sufficiently, but still we have liberated ourselves, at least from some aspects of our life." "And we are doing the things that are important for us." "There is a problem of content," "I mean there is a problem of filling this house with sense, 'cause apart from screenings and some different workshops on random people's ideas, there is no constant initiatives here." "But I think this is a matter of time, also because our house is only few months old and it's really not a long time for a squatted building and for a social center." "I think we have a lot of possibilities and also we get a lot of experience, and damn this is really cool." "Over here we have an exhibition of Samizdat, it's the first day of the fest." "We made a great hip-hop concert, well we have here different pamphlets, zines, punk zines, personal zines." "You know, of course, it´s very different, and very difficult to keep this place, as I´ve heard and seen." "But still, it´s also difficult in Hungary, for example." "Like you don´t have any squatts." "All of the squatts we had were almost instantly evicted." "It´s really interesting how in Hungary," "I think, most social groups or activists altogether, we lack really cohesion." "Like here, I really feel that people just know each other, just by some facial expressions or the shake of hands." "You could really see that people belong together." "In Hungary that doesn´t really exist." "I think, that there is an activist scene, people do stuff together, there are also people, that are very good friends, and maybe there´s some kind of community things happening also in Hungary," "but I think it´s totally different." "Also in Lithuania I found the same way isn´t better than us." "Here it´s different." "It´s more together." "There is community, there is "gemeinwesen"." "Amazing place!" "As I get inside, I've got a lot of new impressions, so unusual." "In Kharkov we never had such things, and I have never been to such a place, and well I dunno..." "Very memorizing." "And people are so good, everything is cool, unusual, a real squat." "I feel very comfortable and I like everything." "If one day someone will try to evict this place" "I will come and together with you I will protect it, for it to stay, I really would like places like this to stay, these cool squats." "Chapter IV /Eviction" "Yesterday we've figured out that the threat of eviction closed to our house, which still existed, but now... today we know, that the construction workers will come to clean it, to demolish the house or just to repair it." "We haven't figured out it yet." "We are now sitting in an ambush and are waiting for some resolution of this situation, and we are all very worried, we all want to keep the house, because soon it will be half a year since we've squatted it," "but everything depends on luck." "And today we organized a duty to meet the workers and to speak to them, to speak to the owner, well it's our main goal for now." "And also we will have a "redneck" party and if something happens the knifes will speak." "We are filming the sad scene of our movie, because we are being evicted." "Yeah, look." "All the stuff we had, all we've moved from the ground floor and basement to the first floor." "Today they will get to our rooms, and our hearts are aching, but we are not desperate, because this is not the last squat in our life, and we have our stuff." "We will move it to our new squat." "This is only the beginning." "Yeah everything only starts." "We didn't have any experience of resisting, no experience to "rise up people", to protect this place." "We didn't have a possibility, well it was the first real squat in Minsk, but I think next time..." "Actually we had no chance to protect it." "To be continued..." "Afterword" "My personal opinion about this place was formed from the understanding of borders." "Yeah, when we just started to speak about the squatting in Belarus, everyone was talking "hey guys c'mon, it's impossible, what are you talking about?" "!" "Damn this is Belarus, repressions and bla bla bla."" "We didn't give a shit about these borders, which in practice are made artificially by people, and each person who did something out here, well we were smashing the borders doing our best, but sometimes these borders were returning" "in our actions and stuff like this." "But the main idea of this squat was smashing the borders inside us and everywhere." "Why do we need a squat?" "Why do we need autonomous spaces?" "I like to think that we need it to make our own things as we want it to do." "I consider a squat, the revolutionary squat, squat as a counterculture place or as an independent place is only when we do something in it." "And we did nothing here." "Of course it is not our fault for 100%, also there is the belarusian reality, but this is my opinion." "For Minsk, or generally for Belarus it's very cool, that there was a squat for 5 months and that people appeared, who started thinking about it that there is a need for an autonomous space, to build and fight somehow, for it to stay also." "First I liked that there was something like ten people, meeting with each other and making decisions together and cleaning together." "My main critique about the collective is that before it came together it was already messed up." "One day for example the collective decided to make a very political theme, for example we show a movie about this political theme, and than there was supposed to be a discussion, but everyone forgot about it and decided to watch the fiction movie," "and it was a decision of only one person of the collective." "And it all was happening like this, conflicts appeared because of that, because one or two people made the decisions, and hadn't asked others..." "Well for me the collective is when you are making decisions together, and not like this in the end." "We made a decision so let's do it." "Of course not always everything works, but when it's only two or three persons that make decisions, and they haven't consulted others, and have done something ... well this is not a collective, and there is no normal organization in it." "There was a lot of words of some kind, analyzing things, that had happened here, well, mostly I have a good impression, because..." "Someone called us a sect, which created their own rules, and maybe because we are a collective we had this good feeling of staying here;" "but I think that a lot of people joined the movement because of this place, and I think it was 5 months of the independent existence from capitalist society, where money, goods, consumers didn't make sense." "People were coming here because they had the potential in art and in communicating, and here they were able to express it." "And despite some negative moments," "I still feel that we left the place too easy." "I mean the way we left the house, without any struggle;" "I don't know ... maybe it happened because we didn't have any experience." "Next time I think we should be more persistent than just to leave the place at a first threat."