In with the East Wind: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life - Belarus: Pyotr Volkovich and the Belarus Peace Committee
The Belarus Peace Committee
In the waning days of Soviet power in the late mid-1980s, I
led a group of US Senators’ wives, who called themselves the Peace Links, to
Moscow. They had been invited by the Soviet government’s Women’s Committee, and
they had a number of meetings with various women’s groups and government groups
as well as a side trip to Uzbekistan (which will be covered in this series when
I get to the countries that being with the letter, U).
My job was to serve as translator, interpreter, explainer of
culture, and to make sure the Soviet government kept its promises to this
group, the latter task being much more complicated than the others, especially
when the wives decided they wanted to go off-script and needed me to negotiate
changes that might not have been the most comfortable for the government
representatives. Somehow, I managed, and that story will be in the book of
countries that begin with the letter, R. Right now, I am honoring the Belarusian
connection. That connection started with the Belarus Peace Committee.
Among other events, the Soviet government set up a meeting
between the Belarus Peace Committee and the Peace Links. In Soviet days, “peace
committees” were part of a vast ideological infrastructure designed to promote
the USSR’s vision of peace — one that aligned closely with its geopolitical
interests. The central body was the Soviet Peace Committee (SPC), founded in
1949, which coordinated a network of national peace organizations across the
republics, including Belarus. These committees were officially presented as
grassroots NGOs, but in reality, they were state-sponsored and tightly
controlled. Their mission was to rally support for Soviet disarmament
initiatives, oppose Western militarization, and project the USSR as a global
champion of peace — while carefully avoiding criticism of Soviet military actions
or repression.
The Belarus Peace Committee operated as a regional branch of
the SPC. Because Belarus was so close to Chernobyl, their work in the late
1980s and early 1990s often had a humanitarian undertone: children’s health
programs, medical exchanges, environmental discussions that were technically
“peace” work but really about survival and recovery. People inside the
committee often had a sincere desire to build bridges, even while navigating
the constraints of the Soviet system. At the time that the Peace Links and I
were in Belarus, the Chernobyl radioactive cloud had passed through Gomel
(Belarus) and then had continued on to Finland, where winds pushed it back
south through Gomel was once. Of all the cities in Belarusk, Gomel needed the
most help, and Pyotr Volkovich, the vice president of the Belarus Peace
Committee, intended to do all that he could to remedy the situation where 25%
of the children were being born with birth defects as a result of exposure to
the radiation cloud, eating vegetables grown in irradiated soil, and living in
a radiologically contaminated area.
Pyotr, a small man with a great heart and grand plans, and I
instantly connected, perhaps because I also was a small person who sometimes
also harbored grand plans (and, I hope, a good heart). Neither of us realized
at the time that we would meet again and again—in Minsk twice and then in
Portland, Oregon, forging a meaningful bond that cut across countries,
ideologies,, oceans, and years.
Pyotr shared with me one of the most concerning medical
dilemmas in Gomel: lack of equipment to treat radiation sickness. When I got
back to the US, I published information about the need in an international
newsletter I edited, one which was distributed in the US and across Europe. Pyotr
had given me a list of the equipment needed and information about how to
contact the peace committee and the medical professionals in Gomel. There being
nothing more, I did nothing, assuming I had done “my part” and not really
expecting much in the way of results since the newsletter went to linguistics,
not to medical institutions, but, I told myself, at least I had done something.
A year or so later, Pyotr and I crossed paths again. That
time I was accompanying school children from North Carolina to Minsk, to visit schools
there. Pyotr somehow learned I would be there and arranged to meet. He
excitedly told me that there had been a flood od medical equipment and other
support from my little linguist newsletter. I was flabbergasted. The hospitals had
become pretty well resourced from the West. Once again, we parted, now more than
just transatlantic acquaintances. We had become colleagues, dedicated to the
same goal of helping these Belarusian children.
Time passed. Not much. Another 2-3 years. Back I went to
Belarus, to Minsk. This time my “gig” involved training professors from the
Belarus Academy of Sciences in western teaching methodology to inform their
preparation of new textbooks for K-12 programs. The Belarussian government was
replacing the Soviet textbooks that reflected Soviet ideology, traditional (now
out-of-date) teaching methods, and use of the Russian language with textbooks
in the Belarusian language, using contemporary methodology.
Again, Pyotr learned about my arrival and, once again, arranged
to meet me. That time, I was able to bring a surprise sizable donation from the
American Global Studies Institute, of which I was president at the time. That
donation went much farther than it would have in the US. Combined with an even
larger donation from an institution in Germany, which had been funding summer
visits of children from Gomel to summer camps in Germany, allowing them fresh
air and a chance for the radiation to dissipate for a while, that donation helped
facilitate the move of 52 families from Gomel to a new housing development outside
of Minsk, a much safer area. Once again, we parted, now more than just colleagues.
We had become friends, sharing the same sense of reward in helping these
families.
On my return trip across the Atlantic, I carried with me a
handwritten letter, written by the president of the Belarus Peace Committee,
and signed by its members, thanking me for my
(small in my interpretation, not small in their interpretation) part in
these improvements in the lives of the children and families of Gomel. (That
letter, far more meaningful than any souvenir, is one of the few “mementos” that
I have retained from all my travels.) At that moment, the Belarus Peace
Committee served not as a propaganda machine, but as a human network that
quietly bent the system toward compassion. The state was slow to acknowledge
the scale of the disaster. So, the only real help for immediate survival,
long-term health and psychological relief, and hope for a positive future free
of radiation came from people who refused to look away.
Another year passed, and once again Pyotr and I cross paths,
this time in the USA. A group of school children from Minsk was participating
in an exchange in Portland, Oregon. Since I had helped write the exchange agreement
when I was in Minsk, I was asked to come to Portland when the superintendent of
schools, who had come with the children, needed an interpreter.
Concurrent with that exchange, Pyotr had been asked by the
International Rotary Foundation to speak at its annual conference as the
keynote speaker. He had entered the US through Kennedy Airport in New York City,
accompanied by Anna, an interpreter from Minsk, since he did not speak English.
Shortly after he arrived in Portland, we met again, thanks to the
superintendent from Minsk. He delightedly told me that he had been disappointed
that I had not met him in New York City but that he just knew that our
paths would cross because they always did, not prearranged but predestined.
Pyotr invited me to his keynote speech at the Rotary Foundation.
Before the meeting started, Anna and I took a walk around the premises—a
morning constitutional. Anna had proposed the walk-and-talk. I assumed that she
needed some endorphins prior to interpreting for such a high-level, high-pressure
speech. I asked her how she felt about that and what Pytor would be talking
about.
“Oh, I don’t know what he plans to talk about,” she said,
surprising me because speakers usually provide their interpreters with their
speech in advance to ensure competent interpretation. “He said you would be
interpreting.”
“I am sure you are mistaken,” I told her. “He has said nothing
to me about interpreting for him. I am just planning to listen.”
Thus ended the conversation and the stroll. We walked in the
meeting hall that seated over 500 people, and took our place at the head table
with Pytor and the leadership of the conference.
After some preliminary discussions and information, the
emcee introduced Pytor as the keynote speaker. When Pytor stood up and began
walking to the podium, he turned back, looked at me, and said, “Betti, so mnoj [Betty,
you’re with me].”
Ulp! I followed him to the front of the room.
Perhaps it was the stress of interpreting with no idea of
what was coming. Perhaps it was the content of Pyotr’s speech. Whatever it was,
I have never forgotten Pyotr’s extraordinary and well-received keynote.
Pyotr began with a description of the history of Belarus in
WWII: the devastation of the land, the loss of 250,000 people, the suffering,
and the efforts to recover after the war. He continued, describing the next
major suffering of the Belarusian nation: the aftermath of Chernobyl. He related
what the Belarus Peace Committee had done to ameliorate the suffering, mentioning
the help from the West in which I had played a role (very small, in my honest
assessment).After that, he presented the president of the Rotary Foundation
International with a piece of metal encased in a plastic display case: the serial
plate of the last surface-to-surface missile disassembled under the SALT Treaty.
Whew! I had made it all the way through without any issues.
It helped that Pyotr knew how to work with an interpreter. He never overloaded
my memory.
Thunderous applause reverberated through the room. Pyotr,
however, did not leave the platform. He waited for the applause to die down,
then yield to complete silence.
“Vokrug mira,” he continued, “est’ kolokola.” Around the
world are bells?? With no additional context, that made no sense, but I did not
know any other meaning for kolokola than bells. I looked at Anna. She shrugged her
shoulders. She had no idea where he was going with this, either. So, I gamely interpreted,
perhaps a tad tentatively, “All around the world are bells,” hoping that I
would not have to make an embarrassing correction.
As Pyotr continued, relief relaxed me back to my normal just-repeat-after-Pyotr
rhythm. “They are big bells,” he said, “warning of impending nuclear disaster.”
At that point, he reached under the podium, pulled out a
small bell, and rang it. A quiet tinkle-tinkle could be heard even at the far end
of the room as conference participants had quieted deeply in anticipation of
every next word from Pyotr.
“To hear this bell,” Pyotr announced, “you need the silence
of peace.” And then he sat down.
The conference ended, Pyotr and I once again parted, this time for the last time. Now more than just friends, we had become kindred spirits. And so Pyotr will be with me always, as I hope and believe I will be with him.
Volume 1: ABC Lands
by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver
For more posts about and from this book, click HERE.
For more posts by and about Betty Lou Leaver, click HERE.
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