All We Have Is Music

Such unexpected things happen: I came to Britain from Belarus, to which I can return only as a dissident, only to find myself in touch with my ex-compatriots. After staying in London for two month, I have settled in Liverpool, a town of football fans and mass unemployment, and huge billboards and offensive sexist and racist advertisements, and joined a kind of Belarusian diaspora here. There are only a few Belarusians in this small city, they arrived about 7 years ago and represent the first wave of emigrants from Lukashenko’s regime: the intelligentsia escaped at the beginning of the authoritarian regime. Back then there was at least an opportunity to travel abroad as a volunteer – now Lukashenko controls all the possibilities to emigration and foreign relations, including dating agencies and international volunteer exchange programmes. After artists, musicians and intellectuals, who were looking for freedom in their creative and political activities and escaping from persecution, another wave of migrants came, those, whose aim was to realise their parents’ unsatisfied dreams – to succeed in life and achieve economic independence.

The core of the Belarusian diaspora in Liverpool is constituted by progressive musicians, who played a significant role in the creation of an alternative subculture in Belarus. It was a challenge to play cutting edge music in the country, where Western lifestyles and music were not welcome. Minsk was recovering from the dogmatism and stupidity of the Soviet Era, when bands such as Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd or Ozzy Osborne were forbidden and accused of being Satanist, Pro-American or Nazi.

We drank wine, smoked counterfeit Latvian cigarettes, recalled our common friends, scolded Lukashenko and argued over, who owns the plants and oil refineries in our country – Russia or Saudi Arabia. Young and ambitious musicians came to Liverpool to play music – now they recall, how they had to work hard, earning minimum wage, starting out spreading flyers and having nothing to eat and no place to stay. Years passed, and each member of the small group has found his or her own way in Britain. They still have to work hard, their band unfortunately split after playing for several years in Liverpool clubs, but music lives in their house: now their flat serves not as a rehearsal room, but as a recording studio. Nikolay comes to London quite often to work at the building sites. On return to Liverpool he usually spends several weeks drinking and reproaching himself, trying to think of the ways of promoting their music. They are talented and the music is well-done – several projects even appeared on BBC radio. But it is impossible to live from playing music, and devote to it the proper amount of time, whilst an immigrant or illegal worker. In the new global division of labour, created by neo-liberalism, immigrants from Eastern Europe are mostly regarded as labor force, rather than artists.

Nevertheless, Nikolay hasn’t give up, and suggests, that Liverpool is a better place for being creative than London, which is obsessed with money-making and trendspotting. His girl-friend, Russian-speaking Katya from a small Latvian town, came to Britain to work as a waitress. The theatre, where she worked as actress, is closed.

Natalia, who was the leader of the first female band in Minsk, works as chef at a vegetarian restaurant. She usually does a lot of work overtime, plays in several punk-bands and plans to organize a recording label. Following her dream to play music, but facing machist domination, Natalia started a female punk band in Liverpool.

The Belarusian community is quite closed: people stick with each other, this eases survival, but creates an ethnocentric way of thinking. Immigrants mostly deal with Czecks, Russians and Latvians from the neighbourhood. They know some British neighbours as well, they are usually invited to their parties and even go along sometimes.

Being citizens of a country, which is unlikely to enter the European Union, they used different methods to stay in the UK. Nikolay applied for political asylum, and passed through the long process of detail clarification, while Natalia married a British citizen, staying for a year without the right to work. They made their choice: in Minsk a musician could never afford to have a studio at home or run a recording label. But the foreground music which they were used to play in their country - at the periphery, could never be demanded as such in the centre of the world Empire.