Study finds evidence of neurobiological mechanism for hallucinations and delusions

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IRVING MEDICAL CENTER

Research News

 

A new study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons has found evidence of a potential neurobiological mechanism for hallucinations and delusions that fits within the hierarchical model of psychosis and can explain their clinical presentation.

The study was published in eLife.

Columbia researchers Kenneth Wengler, PhD, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Guillermo Horga, MD, PhD, Florence Irving Associate Professor of Psychiatry, investigated the neurobiological mechanisms of two symptoms of schizophrenia: hallucinations and delusions. These two symptoms form the syndrome of psychosis, an immensely disabling psychiatric condition where patients lose their ability for reality testing.

"Typically, patients with more severe hallucinations also have more severe delusions, and these two symptoms respond similarly to antipsychotic medications. But this is not always the case; some patients have very prominent hallucinations but less severe delusions and vice versa," says Wengler. "This suggests that these symptoms may share a common neurobiological mechanism while simultaneously depending on symptom-specific pathways."

Some experts in the field believe that a hierarchical perceptual-inference model can explain the mechanisms behind psychosis. Wengler explains, "In its simplest form, the hierarchical model has two levels to the hierarchy: low and high. The low level makes inferences about basic features of stimuli and the high level makes inferences about their causes. An intuitive example of this is inferring the weather. In this scenario, you must decide if you are going to take an umbrella with you when you leave the house. The stimulus in this scenario is what you see when you look out the window; let's say it's cloudy. The context in this scenario is what you expect the weather to be like on a given day in the city you are in; let's say you are in Seattle. Although it is not currently raining, because it's cloudy and you are in a city where it often rains, you may decide to take an umbrella with you. The hierarchical model of psychosis frames hallucinations as resulting from dysfunction at the lower levels of the hierarchy and delusions as resulting from dysfunction at the higher levels of the hierarchy. Critically, these levels of inference are distinct but interconnected, so a dysfunction at one level would likely propagate upwards or downwards to other levels, therefore explaining why these symptoms tend to co-occur."

To investigate the neurobiological mechanisms of hallucinations and delusions within the framework of the hierarchical model, the researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure intrinsic neural timescales throughout the brain. These neural timescales reflect how long information is integrated in a given brain region. Most importantly, these neural timescales are organized hierarchically, making it a fitting measure to test the hierarchical model of psychosis.

The researchers collected data from 127 patients with schizophrenia from various online databases and determined how an individual's neural timescales related to their hallucination and delusion severities together. They found that neural timescales in the lower levels of the hierarchy tended to be longer in patients with more severe hallucinations, while neural timescales in the higher levels tended to be longer in patients with more severe delusions. These results provide the first direct evidence of a potential neurobiological mechanism for hallucinations and delusions that fits within the hierarchical model of psychosis and can explain their clinical presentation. The common neurobiological mechanism for both symptoms could result in increased neural timescales, but the symptom-specific pathways are the level of the hierarchy at which the neural timescales are increased. "Our findings open the door for the development of treatments to target specific symptoms of psychosis depending on an individual subject's symptom profile, in line with the current push for individualized medicine," says Horga.

The paper is titled "Distinct Hierarchical Alterations of Intrinsic Neural Timescales Account for Different Manifestations of Psychosis."

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Additional authors are Andrew Goldberg (New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY) and George Chahine, MD (Yale University, New Haven, CT).

The study was supported by grants from the

National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH117323 and R01MH114965).

The authors report no financial or other conflicts of interest.

The Columbia University Department of Psychiatry is among the top ranked psychiatry departments in the nation and has contributed greatly to the understanding and treatment of brain disorders. Co-located at the New York State Psychiatric Institute on the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center campus in Washington Heights, the department enjoys a rich and productive collaborative relationship with physicians in various disciplines at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Columbia Psychiatry is home to distinguished clinicians and researchers noted for their clinical and research advances in the diagnosis and treatment of depression, suicide, schizophrenia, bipolar and anxiety disorders, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and childhood psychiatric disorders.

Columbia University Irving Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, preclinical, and clinical research; medical and health sciences education; and patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Columbia University Irving Medical Center is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and State and one of the largest faculty medical practices in the Northeast. For more information, visit cuimc.columbia.edu or columbiadoctors.org.

 ARACHNOPHOBIA TRIGGER

Environmental factors affect the distribution of Iberian spiders

Climate, geography and endemism of Iberian spiders

UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE STUDY LED BY THE UB AND IBRIO REVEALS HOW ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AFFECT THE DISTRIBUTION OF BIODIVERSITY OF SPIDERS IN THE PENINSULAR TERRITORY. view more 

CREDIT: JAGOBA MALUMBRES-OLARTE, UNIVERSITY OF THE AZORES (PORTUGAL)

Southern small-leaved oak forests are the habitats with a higher level of spider endemism in the Iberian Peninsula, according to an article published in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation. The study analyses the factors that affect biodiversity patterns of spider communities in the national park network of Spain, and explains the role of the environmental factors in the distribution of the biodiversity of this faunistic group in the peninsular territory.

The study is led by Professor Miquel Arnedo, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, and it counts on the participation of the experts Luis Carlos Crespo, Marc Domènec and Carles Ribera (UB-IRBio), Jagoba Malumbres-Olarte and Pedro Cardoso, from the University of the Azores (Portugal), and Jordi Moya-Laraño, from the Experimental Station of Arid Zones in Almeria (EEZA-CSIC).

Iberian spiders: how are they distributed throughout the peninsular territory?

There are many doubts on the biology and ecology of Iberian spider communities, a group with a fundamental role in natural ecosystems. There might be more than 1,400 species in the peninsular territory, which has a great climate diversity and natural habitat. In some cases, there are species with a limited distribution -regional or local endemism- and this would explain the observed changes among the communities of different areas.

The new study focuses on the study of spider communities in the national parks of Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici, Ordesa y Monte Perdido, Picos de Europa, Monfragüe, Cabañeros and Sierra Nevada. In particular, they studied the spider communities -a total of 20,552 specimens from 375 species- in different types of oak trees (Quercus spp), widely distributed around the peninsula, such as those that include the sessile oak (Quercus petraea), the Valencian oak (Quercus faginea) and the Pyrinean oak (Quercus pyrenaica).

"The results reveal that Valencian oak forests (Q. faginea) are those with a higher number of spider species, probably due to the combined effects of the physical structure of the habitat and climate conditions", notes Professor Miquel Arnedo, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences.

The study also confirms the previous studies that point to a decrease of species in southern forest ecosystems, which is caused by the reduction of connectivity of ecosystems with the rest of the continent.

"However, we suggest that these changes in the number of species could be the result of complex interactions between the geographical position, habitat and local climate. This would make it possible, for instance, for us to find spider communities in the Cabañeros National Park (Castilla - La Mancha) with a higher number of species than in Picos de Europa (Asturias)", notes Arnedo.

Climate, geography and endemism of Iberian spiders

Another relevant contribution of the study is the identification of a pattern that relates the increase of the level of endemism in the spider communities with the rise of temperatures and decrease of annual precipitation, which are typical from the Mediterranean climate.

"Spider communities in Mediterranean areas seem to be more endemic -when we consider distributions of all species in each community- and have a higher number of exclusively Iberian species", notes the expert Jagoba Malumbres-Olarte, first signatory of the article. Other groups of spiders show a higher level of endemism depending on certain ecological features, according to the authors.

"In this case, we saw that those spiders that spread more frequently through the air using silk, known as ballooning, show a more extensive geographical distribution and therefore, are less endemic. For instance, this would be the case of some species from the Lindyphiidae family".

Spiders, indicators of environmental quality

Despite the ecological value of spiders, these arthropods have been rarely used as bioindicators. This study sheds light in this field of ecology studies, and suggests that the presence and abundance of spider families with high levels of endemism -for instance, Oonopidae, Dysderidae, Zodariidae and Sparassidae families- could be used by researchers as indicators of the singularities and ecological qualities of some natural areas.

"In the studied communities, these families are those with a higher level of endemism. If we consider the difficulty when identifying certain Iberian species and the likelihood to find undescribed species, the option of using spider families -instead of species- could ease the use of spiders as ecological and conservation indicators", authors say.

Improving biodiversity conservation strategies

The lack of many experts able to identify and describe spider species and the great diversity of this group are factors that make it difficult for researchers to study the ecology of Iberian spider communities, and by extension, many others. Expanding the knowledge on the biodiversity of the peninsular spider fauna requires the promotion of monitoring programs and a regular control of temporary changes in the communities.

In this context, the published article in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation brings new information to improve the conservation and management of national parks and protected areas in general. It reveals new data on the number and composition of species in the communities in the national parks, information that enables having a reference for future monitoring plans. Also, it identifies the most relevant groups depending on their endemic levels (that is, those with potentially high values for conservation).

"Our study also states that different habitats within the same area or park could have a differential value regarding conservation and scientific interest, and consequently, they could be an object of several levels of prioritization in conservation actions", conclude the researchers.

Infection by parasites disturbs flight behaviour in shoals of fish

Biologists study social responsiveness in fish

UNIVERSITY OF MÜNSTER

Research News

 

IMAGE: INFECTION BY PARASITES DISTURBS FLIGHT BEHAVIOUR IN SHOALS OF FISH. view more 

CREDIT: WWU/JÖRN SCHARSACK

In order to escape predators, many fish - including insects, fish and birds - have developed strategies for rapidly transmitting information on threats to others of their species. This information is transmitted within a group of hundreds, or even thousands, of individuals in (escape) waves. This collective response is also, in the case of fish, known as shoal behaviour. Special parasites can, however, manipulate such a survival strategy. Researchers at the University of Münster have discovered that infected individual fish disturb the transmission of flight behaviour and, as a result, increase not only their own risk of being eaten, but also that of other - non-infected - members of the group. The results of the study have been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

Background and methodology

In order to study social responsiveness in fish, the researchers used the tapeworm Schistocephalus solidus as a parasite. The three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus - an important model in ecological and evolutionary parasitology - was used as an intermediate host. The parasite ensures that the fish is less prone to be scared and more courageous and, as a result, increases its risk-taking behaviour. This poses the threat that the stickleback will very probably fall prey to the final host of the parasite, a fish-eating bird. In aquariums the scientists simulated a bird strike on shoals of sticklebacks. "When the shoal consisted only of healthy - in other words, non-infected - sticklebacks, the escape wave continued quickly through the entire shoal after the bird strike, even though the sticklebacks at the back were only able to see the response of their conspecifics and not the bird strike itself", explains Nicolle Demandt from the Institute of Evolution and Biodiversity at the University of Münster and lead author of the study. "When we placed infected sticklebacks in the middle of the shoal, the escape wave came to a virtual halt and it only got through to the fish at the back to a limited extent."

Although the manipulation of behaviour on the part of parasites is widespread in the animal kingdom, many studies carried out so far have only concentrated on the infected animals themselves and on the manipulation of their behaviour. "Ours is the first experimental study which shows how individuals whose behaviour has been manipulated by parasites can influence the transmission of information and, as a result, collective flight responses - in other words, shoal behaviour," explains Prof. Joachim Kurtz, in whose laboratory the study was carried out. The researchers examined the connection between parasitic infection and flight depth, as well as the time the fish spent in the danger zone before and after the bird strike.

Sticklebacks with a high parasitic infection displayed a tendency to take flight to not such a deep level and they remained in the danger zone for a longer period of time than did sticklebacks with less parasitic infection. "The result indicates that the loss of energy might play a role in the extent to which behaviour is manipulated," explains Dr. Jörn Scharsack, who led the study. "Parasites remove energy from their hosts, which leads for example to a reduction in fat reserves and a higher food requirement. Infected fish should therefore invest less energy in flight response and return more quickly to looking for food."

As sticklebacks are found in very different aquatic systems - e.g. clear lakes, turbid rivers and sea environments - transferring the results of the study to the fishes' natural habitats depends on the local surroundings. In clear waters, the results can indeed be transferred to the natural habitat as the fish use their eyes to react to the signals from other sticklebacks taking flight. In more turbid surroundings, however, the fish can rely more on other senses. For example, by means of their lateral line organs they can feel even the smallest changes in pressure caused by the movements made by their neighbours in the shoal. Other factors influencing the transfer of the laboratory study to a natural environment are the size of the shoal, the number of infected individuals and the extent of their parasitic infection.

Should it be a general phenomenon that infected individuals have an influence on the collective responses of the entire group, this might be of wide-ranging significance for the animal kingdom - even including a possible influence of parasites on human group behaviour, say the researchers.

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Soldiers benefit from psychological health research

Army scientists develop training to mitigate misdirected anger, aggression

U.S. ARMY RESEARCH LABORATORY

Research News

 

ADELPHI, Md. -- Army scientists developed computer-based training to help Soldiers avoid unnecessary social conflict and mitigate anger-related outcomes.

Scientists at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's, now referred to as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory and the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research, developed a Hostile Bias Modification Training protocol to reduce hostile attribution bias, anger and reactive aggression in ambiguous social conflict situations, which can jeopardize social bonds, relationships with significant others, team culture and performance.

"This was a unique across agency collaborative effort bringing together clinical psychology and cognitive science Army researchers to investigate reactive aggressive behavior," said Army researcher Dr. Sue Kase. "After reading an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers conference publication on social bias factors associated with information transmission, Capt. Jeffery Osgood of WRAIR contacted the ARL co-authors for assistance."

At the time, in 2018, the laboratory was very fortunate to have the effort and crowdsourcing platform resources available to respond immediately to Osgood's request, Kase said.

This established a scientific alliance between the organizations by translating WRAIR's research needs to fit one of the laboratory's ongoing internal research methodologies--technological advances in large scale online data collection.

"Osgood's team brought clinical psychology expertise to the table while we offered our expertise in large scale crowdsourcing experimentation in cognitive behavior," Kase said. "When a partner agency requests our assistance, it is important to think outside the box because the potential impact could be significant and directly transition to the welfare of the Soldier. As in this case, the research will improve the psychological health of Soldiers both in the field and in post-service."

The study consisted of two crowdsourced experiments investigating if HBMT could reduce overall hostile attribution bias as well as perceived hostility, anger and aggression.

HBMT exposed participants to three types of word fragments: ambiguous, aggressive and non-aggressive. Participants were instructed to only form non-aggressive words and not respond in other cases.

Next, participants reacted to vignettes where in some cases the wrongdoer was clearly hostile while in others it was ambiguous.

Participants returned after several days to complete the second part of the study on real-world situations such as driving and social media behavior.

The results of the study, published in the journal Cognitive Therapy and Research, indicate that HBMT was effective in reducing hostile attribution bias, anger and reactive aggression in ambiguous situations.

"Most importantly, these effects appear to extend beyond the laboratory to real world aggression including aggressive driving and virtual aggression on social media," Kase said. "The effects sustained for the entire duration of the study (up to 96 hours). HBMT appears to be an easily implemented intervention to mitigate anger-related outcomes and its online delivery would enable mobile use in the field."

While the results of the study are very promising, the research team said there is more work to be done moving in to the future.

"Though more research is needed, we believe that HBMT could be effective as both a standalone tool for use at home, in field settings, or in concert with other therapeutic options to help mitigate unwarranted anger and aggression," Osgood said. "We are excited about HBMT's potential to both prevent and treat behavioral health concerns."

Kase said that the research team believes this research will positively impact Soldiers operating in both non-hostile and hostile environments.

"Positive team dynamics and task performance are critical when working in close coordination during challenging critical missions," Kase said. "Unwarranted anger in these types of situations can degrade individual team member cognitive processes and physical performance and potentially lead to violence-related consequences. Results from the study help us understand more about unwarranted aggressive behavior and, more generally, contribute to improving the psychological health of Soldiers, including those who have separated from the service. The knowledge gained is applicable to avoiding unnecessary social conflict and mitigating anger-related outcomes in both operational field settings and civilian populated areas."

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ODR: INVESTIGATION

Leaked police data reveals level of violence against protesters in Belarus

Over the past two months, Belarus has witnessed unprecedented violence against protesters in the aftermath of its presidential election. New data confirms its scale.

Media Zona
3 November 2020

Illustration: Maria Tolstova / Mediazona

“Everyone was on their knees, they kept on cramming people into the bus. And then the violence started. The riot police officer said that we had to get up as fast as we could, grab our things and leave the bus. And they started beating people until they stood up. One of them would hold someone while the other beat them. They were just beating and saying: ‘What did you want, bitch, change?’”

This is how one resident of Minsk describes his arrest on 9 August. Alongside thousands of others, journalist Alyaksei Khudanau had gone out to protest against Belarus’ election results after Alyaksandr Lukashenka had been declared the winner.

Official results awarded Lukashenka 80% of the vote, but a significant number of Belarusians believe that the results were falsified, and that Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the only independent candidate, is the real winner of the election. Other candidates were forced to either leave the country or have been arrested, including Tsikhanouskaya’s husband, popular video blogger Siarhei Tsikhanousky.

The protests have not let up since. Every week, tens of thousands of residents of Minsk, the capital, and other cities come out onto the streets to protest against Lukashenka, who has been in power for 26 years. In Minsk, the numbers of attendees have exceeded 100,000 - a huge figure for a city of two million. In response, Belarusian police have used riot batons and water cannons to disperse people. The EU has now sanctioned Belarusian officials for election falsification and police violence.

The police response was particularly brutal immediately after the election. In the days after 9 August, masked police officers detained people across Minsk, shooting flash grenades and rubber bullets at crowds, beating people on city streets, police vans and police stations. Several people died amid the violence: a special forces officer shot protester Alyaksandr Taraikousky dead in Minsk; in Brest, a plain clothes police officer shot Hienadz Shutau, a biker; and Mikita Kryutsou, a football fan, died in unclear circumstances in the city of Maladzyechna (the official version is suicide).

The exact number of people who have suffered at the hands of the Belarusian police is unknown. Belarusian state agencies do not publish statistics on violent incidents involving the police, but as we have discovered - they do collect this information.

Mediazona, a Russian media outlet which focuses on the law and justice system, recently received a data archive held by Belarus’ Investigative Committee from an anonymous source. These documents consist of several spreadsheets containing information about individual instances of police violence, as well as inspections concerning reports of torture. Analysis of these documents shows that the minimum number of people injured by Belarusian police during protests in August and September 2020 is 1,373 people.

Meanwhile, Lukashenka refuses to negotiate with protesters. Instead, in his public remarks, he constantly thanks the Belarusian police. “You have stopped this trash on the clean, comfortable [streets] of Minsk,” Lukashenka said in late September. Indeed, the Belarusian authorities have opened a criminal case into an “attempted coup of state power” by members of the Coordination Council, set up by the Belarusian opposition - of whom many have fled the country or are now under arrest. Ordinary protesters are also facing criminal cases. According to human rights defenders, 435 people are facing prosecution as a result of Belarus’ election campaign and the ensuing protests.

Despite the large number of injuries, the Belarusian authorities have not opened a single investigation into violence committed by police officers.

In cooperation with Mediazona, openDemocracy publishes their investigation in translation here. You can read the full version here.

Akrestsina detention centre in Minsk, one of the main sites of violence against people detained during Belarus' pro-democracy protests | (c) Kommersant Photo Agency/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved

Why we trust this data presented by an anonymous source

Mediazona was already familiar with one of the documents in the archive - a spreadsheet of injuries inflicted by flash grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas. We had previously received this document from a different anonymous source. Part of the records were accompanied by the names of hospitals in Minsk where injured people were taken. We showed this information to sources in Minsk City Hospital No. 10 and the city’s clinical emergency care hospital. In the latter, our data matched the hospital’s entire list of patients for that time, whereas our source in Hospital No. 10 stated that two of the people in our list did not contact them for medical treatment.

Many of the more serious cases connected to protesters’ eye injuries, amputations, comas and deaths have been described by journalists previously, including by Mediazona. Descriptions of these incidents matched information held in our archive.

We also checked information concerning beatings at Minsk’s Akrestsina jail against prisoner lists compiled by the Viasna human rights centre. The team also showed the documents to a source in one of the Investigative Committee’s central directorates. They confirmed the spreadsheets and other documents were genuine.
How we analysed the severity of the injuries

The Investigative Committee’s documents report medical diagnoses given to protesters, and from the majority of diagnoses it is clear how exactly protesters were injured. We have visualised these injuries via silhouettes representing each of the 1,373 people injured.

We categorised injuries by severity - light injuries (1), medium injuries (2) and heavy injuries (3). If part of someone’s body was not injured, we indicated it (0 points). We also analysed injuries in terms of how they were inflicted - beating, rubber bullets, flash grenades or gas.

We categorised bruising, contusions and light burns as light injuries; lacerated wounds, head injuries and multiple traumas - medium; and firearm wounds, internal injuries, broken bones and amputations - heavy.

With the average age of an injured person coming to 31, young men were most likely to be injured at the protests. The worst injuries came from rubber bullets and flash grenades.

A selection of protesters coded according to their injuries 

| Illustration: Maria Tolstova / Mediazona

Belarusian police aimed for protesters’ vital organs

Judging by injuries caused by rubber bullets (40 cases), it is clear that police officers often shot people in the head, chest and stomach when dispersing protests - and these weapons caused the most serious injuries. On 10 August, 34-year-old Alyaksandr Taraikousky died from a rubber bullet shot to the chest - holding his hands in the air, he had approached special forces officers near the Pushkinskaya metro station in Minsk.

One 24-year-old protester received a rubber bullet to the stomach, leading to a hernia of the small intestine; another participant, a 37-year-old businessman, had his rib cage penetrated by a rubber bullet, causing damage to his right lung. Doctors diagnosed him with open pneumothorax, where air accumulates between the chest wall and lung after an open chest wound - which in serious instances can lead to a collapsed lung.

“I was in a coma for three days, but I was awake for a few moments. The doctors say it’s rare, but it happens,” recalled Alyaksandr Pastukhau, whose lung was penetrated by a rubber bullet. “I remember how they cut my clothes off. The doctors’ speaking when they tried to straighten out my lung during the operation. And how my brain was panicking: it’s sending signals, but my body isn’t responding. And it was terrifying that I could wake up with brain damage. It’s surprising that they shot from such a short distance at my chest. In a way, it’s good they shot me in the right lung. If they’d shot me in the left, we might not be speaking now.”

When police fired rubber bullets at protesters’ heads, they caused head traumas and broke facial bones. For instance, the data shows how a 40-year-old man wound up in hospital with the following diagnosis: “closed head trauma, concussion, multiple gunshot injuries to the right jaw.” His rib cage, stomach and left thigh were also injured. Another protester, 29, was hit by a rubber bullet, which smashed through his maxillary sinus, just behind his cheek, fracturing his nose. Another person was shot with a rubber bullet in the eye, receiving a serious contusion.

Why does the Belarusian Investigative Committee hold data on injured persons and how many people were injured?

It is impossible to give an overall number of people injured at protests in Belarus. The data we received only relates to the situation in Minsk, although police used violence to disperse crowds in other cities. The data in our possession shows instances where law enforcement received information from a hospital or an injured party contacted them to report physical harm.

A source in Minsk City Hospital No.10, which received a large number of injured persons during the protests, explains that doctors contact the police regarding all incidents of physical violence. An emergency service worker in Minsk confirms this procedure: “If we write a diagnosis such as closed head trauma, dislocation, broken bones and so on in our call-out cards, you need to indicate how the injury was caused. We just put down ‘criminals’ and wrote that, according to the patients, the injuries were caused by police officers, riot police and traffic police.” According to this source, this kind of information is automatically passed on to the police, and doctors have to later give statements.

Other protesters may have received injuries that did not require treatment in hospital, or could have contacted volunteer medics for help. Many people injured during the protesters did not contact the Investigative Committee - some may have thought it pointless, others may have feared criminal prosecution. There are cases where an official complaint led to a criminal case against someone injured during the protests - for example, this happened to Anastasia Dudina, whose eardrum was injured after a flash grenade exploded nearby. After leaving hospital, she wrote a complaint to the Investigative Committee, and then became a suspect in a criminal investigation into “mass unrest”.

This situation encourages people to go into hiding, leave the country or not contact Belarusian law enforcement. The 1,373 injuries in our archive are therefore only a minimal estimate of the numbers of injuries. In reality, there are definitely more.

How flash grenades injured protesters

Flash grenades were used en masse during the first days of the protest, and would explode at thigh level or lower when they hit crowds of people, leaving injuries across a person’s whole body - while the grenade’s shock wave led to serious bruising and head traumas.

Indeed, grenades used by Belarusian police caused no less serious injuries than rubber bullets. When a flash grenade exploded near one 30-year-old man, the explosion ripped off his right foot. For two other protesters, flash grenades broke a finger on their left hand, their left foot and their calf bone - shattering these bones into multiple pieces. A flash grenade also fractured a vertebra in a 33-year-old man’s lower back.

For one injured man, a fragment of a flash grenade entered his chest, leading to pneumothorax.

“I live near the Pushkinskaya Metro,” says Heorhiy Saikousky, a Minsk resident who lost a foot to a flash grenade. “On 10 August, I was coming home around 11pm with some friends. I heard some explosions, but I didn’t have internet access on my phone, and I didn’t understand what was going on. Suddenly I saw the police. They were around 100 metres from me. As far as I could tell, the protesters were near the Ice palace [an indoor sporting arena in Minsk], but there was no one really near me. I couldn’t have predicted that a flash grenade would fly into this empty space.”

Most people injured by riot equipment came to hospital straight off the street, avoiding police stations and detention centres. The more seriously injured people were sent to a military hospital, while the rest were divided between city hospitals and Minsk’s emergency hospital.

“We saw a lot of multiple injuries,” an emergency service worker tells us. “These are always closed head traumas and then different combinations: broken ribs, shoulder bones, hip bones, or broken extremities. Bruises, blunt force injuries, scratches - we weren’t coding these, we just described where they were.”



Video showing Belarusian police using flash grenades to disperse protesters in Minsk, on the evening of election day, 9 August
Most people were beaten after being detained by police, not during street clashes

More than half of the injuries took place in police vans, police stations and detention centres in Akrestsina and Zhodzina - that is, when people were not resisting the police, let alone represented a risk. Many were beaten on several occasions - during detention, then in the police van or station, and then in the detention centre. In many cases, this torture went on for several days.
Police specifically beat detainees on the head and buttocks

After being beaten at the Akrestsina detention centre and police stations, detainees were released with head traumas and bruising to their spine, abdomen, shoulders, buttocks and thighs. Around 200 people received head traumas and concussions. Some detainees were placed face-down on the floor or with their faces against the wall, and were then beaten with riot sticks. On 11 October, the NEXTA Telegram channel published a video showing how detainees were forced through a column of police officers, who beat them as they went.

More than 25 people contacted hospitals with broken bones and serious injuries. One young man, 21, was beaten until the main airway in his left lung was ruptured, causing air to escape from his lungs into his chest cavity. Another man the same age received two broken ribs. Indeed, the latter’s whole body was covered in bruises - his chest, back, thighs, knees, shoulders and left hand.

Injuries connected to sexual violence

Three detainees received injuries consistent with sexual violence either at the Akrestsina detention centre or en route there. A 31-year-old man was hospitalised with intramucosal hemorrhages of the rectum, a 29-year-old man had an anal fissure and bleeding. A third party, a 17-year-old man, received - aside from other injuries - an injury to his rectal mucosa.

Ales, a 30-year-old programmer (whose name has been changed), told journalists how he was raped. “The riot police demanded that I unlock my phone, and then called the senior officer. He started threatening me with inserting a riot stick into my anus. I was lying on the floor of the police van, and he cut my shorts and underwear open. He asked his colleagues for a condom. I was lying on the floor face-down, but I could see how he put the condom on the riot baton. And then he inserted it into my anus. He pulled it out and then asked for the password again. And then he began beating me - punching and kicking. I was hit in the ribs, the face, my teeth - two of them were broken.”

10 August: violence on the street - followed by beatings at Akrestsina detention centre, police stations

In Minsk, police organised the most brutal dispersal of protesters on 10 August. On city streets, not counting beatings in police stations and Akrestsina detention centre, 291 people received injuries. That day also saw mass detentions, with more than 3,000 people arrested. In the days after, law enforcement would beat detainees again and again.

Siarhei (name changed) was detained on 10 August, and recalls how he and other detainees were brought to Akrestsina. “When we were released [from the police van], they didn’t explain the rules - you couldn’t look around, they would just hit you and say: ‘Run!’ You run on, they beat you and say: ‘Get down!’ Then you run on and they hit you: ‘Hands behind your back!’ People didn’t understand where they’d ended up, but first they beat you, then they explain. By that point every one had been beaten - perhaps lightly, but still.”

People were then lined up on their knees along the wall in the Akrestsina detention centre yard.

“We ran out of the van and stood next to the fence on our knees,” Siarhei continues. “On our knees. Those who were beaten in the legs could not physically get on their knees and had to sit down. And then they were beaten with riot batons for that. They beat them until they themselves realised that someone couldn’t get on their knees, or they just dragged them away when someone fell.”

The next eruption of violence came on 13 September during a march on the Belarusian government residential compound in Drazdy just outside Minsk. For the first time in a month, more than two dozen cases of violence were reported in our data - and that’s when our data ends.

Belarusian law enforcement beat everybody, including women and teenagers

Violence by Belarusian security forces was conducted en masse and was not selective: officers did not try to suppress specific groups of people whom they considered a threat, but attempted to beat everybody they found.

Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Belarusian state propaganda insisted that the election rallies were attended mostly by drunks and drug users. “Some people are high, a lot of drunks, people with drugs,” is how Lukashenka described protesters immediately after the election. The data in our possession disproves this claim: the number of people whose diagnoses refer to intoxication is insignificant - less than 2%. There are no references in the medical reports of drug use.

The data refers to at least 24 injured persons under 18. They were beaten exactly the same as adults: under-age persons received concussions, cuts and bruises. One 17-year-old, Timur, was beaten to the extent that he had to be placed in a medically-induced coma.

The data refers to 57 women injured during the protests. The oldest of them is 72: on 12 August, police officers beat her near the investigative detention centre on Minsk’s Volodarsky Street, breaking her wrist. Women were subject to torture following detention, too. Judging by the seriousness of the injuries, it’s clear women were beaten exactly the same as men.

As far as we understand, not a single criminal investigation has been opened into the actions of Belarusian law enforcement during the protests. The Minsk Prosecutor’s Office refused to state whether torture committed in the Akrestsina detention centre is being investigated, stating that information was “for internal use”.

On Sunday 11 October, Belarusian law enforcement once again resorted to brutal detentions and beating protesters. The country’s deputy interior minister stated that the police are ready to use lethal force.

Since then, Belarusian authorities have dispersed Sunday protests in the country forcefully, but people continue to attend them. On 1 November, Minsk witnessed a “March against terror” - participants aimed to visit Kurapaty, a Soviet execution site outside the capital. The authorities, however, responded with force, and have charged more than 200 detainees as part of an investigation into “mass unrest” during the march.


Editor: Dmitry Treshchanin

Text: Maxim Litvarin, Anastasia Boiko, Yegor Skovoroda

Graphics: David Frenkel, Nikita Shulaev

Illustration: Maria Tolstova

Analysis: Yegor Skovoroda, Maxim Litavrin, Anastasia Boiko, David Frenkel, Dmitry Treshchanin, Anastasia Poryseva, Khatima Mutaeva, Viktoria Rozhitsyna, Mikhail Lebedev

Translation: openDemocracy

The enduring creativity of the #FreeBelarus movement
November 7, 2020
Portia Kentish


Portia Kentish


With most of the world focused on the US presidential election and the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the struggle for freedom in Belarus has faded into the background. But the innovative resilience of the country’s opposition movement is not something to be forgotten about.

For the past few months, ever since a rigged presidential election in August, Belarusians have endured harrowing repression in their fight for democratic freedoms. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have nevertheless defied the brutal actions of the country’s security forces to take to the streets of the capital Minsk, where artists and activists have joined forces with factory workers and civil servants to demand a new, free, and fair election.

Yet, as their fight continues, their oppressor is continuing to develop both covert and overt means of repression, with President Alexander Lukashenko showing no signs of backing down.

Belarusians have not given up hope

Just last week, opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, by any objective measure the winner of August’s election, called for a nationwide general strike, after a demand for the president’s resignation fell on deaf ears. Once again, however, the authorities cracked down brutally, forcing many to return to work, and beating or arresting those who didn’t. Restaurants which came out on strike have since been closed down due to “health and safety” regulations. On social media, multiple videos have surfaced of Belarusian security forces storming into apartments in search of protesters, including pensioners and the disabled.

For many on the ground, the immediate cause for optimism that the protests offered back in August have since been replaced by the realisation that bringing about change will be a long haul. Mr Lukashenko himself has promised limited change and reform, although few – unsurprisingly – are taking his word for it.

In what often gets called “Europe’s last dictatorship”, protests have become as routine as their repression, and the country’s security forces aren’t showing any signs of relenting. In this, however, Belarusians are showing extraordinary creativity to ensure the movement does not get suffocated.

Many are using the encrypted messaging app Telegram to keep up the pressure, which has been a driving force of organisation for the opposition. Since the initial protests in August, many groups have localised, into cities, townships, sometimes even apartment blocks.

Through Telegram, anything from the distribution of pamphlets and ideas, to concerts and lectures have been organised, in a desperate bid to keep up momentum, and most of all, hope.

Changes

In the northern suburbs of the nation’s capital, a courtyard protest venue has sprung up, chosen for a mural symbolic of the opposition movement. It shows two DJs who, after being hired to perform at a pro-Lukashenko gathering, instead played the 1989 track Peremen (Changes) by Viktor Tsoi, symbol of a resistance against authoritarianism in the region. The square has since been unofficially renamed Changes Square, where musicians give concerts most weekends.

For many, this not only boosts morale, but provides a creative outlet. Similarly, the Belarusian rock band Dai Darogu! (Дай Дарогу!) recently released their seventh studio album, their most political yet, denouncing police brutality and aiming to capture the defiant spirit of protest. The band, which formed in the western city of Brest in 1998, aimed to once again use art as a defiant voice.

Yuri Stylsky, the band’s lead singer, dedicated their album, called Under the Howling of Dogs to “all the honest, courageous, sincere and fiery hearts” across his homeland. The album cover, illustrated by Ania Crook, echoes this sentiment, detailing a crowd of anti-government protesters.

Similar work has popped up all around the country, as artists continue to channel their talents into political resilience. A great example of this is the Belarusian art magazine, Chrysalis, which has developed an online ‘protest art’ exhibition of works from all around the country. The magazine, which virtually showcases work through its website and Instagram account aims to develops Belarus’s creative economy by providing an international platform for arises to express themselves, has given space for visual artists to speak out against repression, since the beginning of the #FreeBelarus movement.

“Contemporary art is completely absent in the concept of development of Belarus, but we believe that a healthy society cannot exist without it. Just like the economy, it cannot be successful without the creative part, while the situation in Belarus is critical and continues to degrade,” write the magazine’s editors. “We see a way to develop an intelligent economy and creative professions in the revival of Belarusian contemporary artists.”

‘Ordinary people commit evil’

These exhibitions have not only included illustrations and paintings but banners, photography, graffiti, and even tattoos, many of which feature the red and white motif of the old Belarusian flag that has become another symbol of the opposition. Many, such as this illustration by Yuliya Arabei emphasise the power of the people within the protest movement. Others aim to shed light on the injustice of police brutality, and the role of the security forces as “puppets” of the regime, such as this work by Katya Klitos.

Chrysalis has also used the movement as a way to highlight the pertinence of older works, such as this 2012 installation by Tima Radha called Stability, which alludes to similar themes of authoritarian state power built on violence and repression.

Young Belarusian artist Andrey Anro has taken a slightly different approach in his contribution to art pieces of the movement. His latest series called Person of the System instead aims to shed light on those contributing to keeping the Lukashenko regime in power.

“As Hannah Arendt wrote, ordinary people commit evil, accepting the order established in society as a norm and conscientiously fulfilling the obligations prescribed by the current law,” says Anro.

For those out on the streets, bringing a rucksack of essential items to every protest in case of arrest, the solidarity provided by Belarusian artists is ensuring that the movement endures.

The creativity of the opposition, whether that be via the use of Telegram to organise localised protests and concerts, or the visual art that speaks a thousands words, is all about sustaining the voice of those asking for freedom.

Why war-torn east Ukraine votes for pro-Russian parties

UkraineAlert by Mykhaylo Shtekel

A Ukrainian soldier pictured close to the frontline of the Russo-Ukrainian War in eastern Ukraine. (REUTERS/Baz Ratner)

Pro-Russian candidates and parties achieved considerable success in eastern Ukraine during nationwide local elections held on October 25. In towns and cities throughout the region, Moscow-friendly political forces claimed the lion’s share of the vote and maintained their traditional dominance over the political landscape.

This result was widely expected. Despite the close proximity and heavy emotional toll of the six-year Russo-Ukrainian War, political loyalties in the region have changed little since the prewar era. Young voters remain deeply disillusioned and inclined to abstain, while the elderly electorate continues to dutifully back the kind of paternalistic pro-Russian parties that have long held sway in these parts.

Nowhere is the resilience of Ukraine’s pro-Russian vote more apparent than in Slovyansk. Six years ago, this city of a little over 100,000 people served as the initial focus of Kremlin efforts to spark a massive anti-Kyiv uprising throughout eastern and southern Ukraine. For three months beginning in April 2014, it was the de facto capital of Novorossiya (“New Russia”), the client state that Moscow intended to create from the ruins of independent Ukraine.

During the Russian occupation of Slovyansk, the city suffered an array of horrors including mass expropriation of businesses and property, arbitrary arrests and detentions, forced labor, torture, and executions. The nightmare finally ended in July 2014 when Ukrainian forces liberated Slovyansk. It has remained at peace ever since.

This experience has scarred the city in many ways, but it has made relatively little impact on the political landscape. A clear majority of local citizens still feel strong ties to Russia, while suspicion of Ukrainian political parties in Kyiv runs deep. These preferences were on display during the recent local election, which saw a pair of pro-Russian politicians make it through to this month’s runoff vote to choose the next mayor of Slovyansk.

The two candidates are incumbent mayor Vadim Lyakh (Opposition Bloc party) and his challenger Pavlo Prydvorov (Opposition Platform-For Life party). Prydvorov is the former secretary of Slovyansk City Council. He also served briefly as acting mayor in the immediate aftermath of the city’s liberation in 2014.

Both politicians attended Slovyansk City Council sessions at the time of the Kremlin takeover in spring and early summer 2014, and are accused of backing the creation of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic. Neither has ever faced charges over their involvement in the Russian proxy regime that ruled the city during those fateful months.

This lack of criminal prosecutions is a common theme in the liberated parts of eastern Ukraine, where many local officials initially backed the Kremlin uprising but have since managed to remain in office by making themselves useful to the Ukrainian government in Kyiv. Lyakh was elected mayor of Slovyansk in 2015, while Prydvorov became a member of the city council at the same time.

Among the many local officials in eastern Ukraine who stand accused of supporting the Russian invasion of 2014, the most notorious is arguably former Slovyansk mayor Nelya Shtepa. In late 2014, she was charged with separatism and organizing a terrorist group. Shtepa spent three years in custody before being placed under house arrest in 2017. Six years on, her case is still in court, but she is no longer subject to any restrictions.

Shtepa has remained defiant throughout, and has sought to portray herself as something of a martyr. She even campaigned in the recent election to win her old job back, finishing third and narrowly missing out on a place in the coming head-to-head vote between the two front runners.

The dominance of pro-Russian politics in Slovyansk creates obvious challenges for the city’s considerable contingent of pro-Western residents and supporters of Ukraine’s European integration. Local activist Dmytro Braslavsky says most of Slovyansk’s European-leaning voters will now back current mayor Vadim Lyakh, who he calls “the lesser of two evils.”

Braslavsky believes voter apathy is one of the key obstacles faced by pro-Western politicians seeking to make inroads in eastern Ukraine, and claims few residents of Slovyansk appreciate the significance of local elections. This is especially true among younger demographics, he says.

“It is still very hard to explain to people that the municipal authorities are more important for everyday life in Slovyansk than either the president or parliament,” explains Braslavsky. “Young people in particular did not vote in the first round, and it is likely that turnout in the second round will be even lower. They could have made a difference if they had backed the more pro-Western candidate from the Servant of the People party. Instead, elderly voters have once again determined the outcome of an election in Slovyansk. No wonder we are still ruled by the same political class as before.”

Local ecological activist Kapitalina Pasikova shares many of Braslavsky’s concerns and admits to feeling depressed following the October 25 vote. She argues that a mood of resignation prevents Slovyansk residents from becoming engaged in efforts to bring about meaningful change, and points to local elections five years ago as a key turning point for many local people that crushed fledgling hopes of a new beginning. “When the city was first liberated in 2014, lots of activists initially emerged,” Pasikova recalls. “We believed this was our city. We felt it was up to us to make things better. But the 2015 local elections were devastating. Everything remained the same and all the old faces returned to power.”

Thirty-something Slovyansk resident Ksenia is wary of speaking publicly about the political climate in the city and asked not to use her full name. She claims the atmosphere is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for those who support Ukraine’s westwards geopolitical trajectory. “Many pro-European people are now looking to leave Slovyansk, and some would like to leave Ukraine entirely.”

Ksenia herself says she has no such plans, and would prefer to build a future in her home town. She was not at all surprised by the results of the recent local elections and favors a pragmatic approach, arguing that anyone planning to remain in Slovyansk must adapt to existing political realities rather than pinning their hopes on change. “I am certainly not waiting for any miracles from politicians,” she quips.

Despite the gloomy mood among many in Slovyansk’s pro-Western community, the political atmosphere in the city is not entirely unchanging. During his past five years in office, Mayor Lyakh has begun to tentatively embrace a number of more pro-European positions, according to political analyst and Slovyansk resident Denis Bigunov. This attempt to claim the middle ground makes perfect sense politically, says Bigunov. “Lyakh received around 30% of votes in the first round of the recent local elections, while the leading pro-Western candidate from the Servant of the People party secured almost 15%. By demonstrating that he does not intend to be a strictly pro-Russian politician, Lyakh hopes to gain pro-European votes in the second round while maintaining his traditional support base among pensioners.”

The advances made by Euro-friendly candidates during the recent local elections in Slovyansk are still far too modest to worry the city’s pro-Russian political heavyweights. Nevertheless, there are numerous similar signs of a gradual shift taking place across the region, beginning with President Zelenskyy’s remarkable performance in 2019’s presidential and parliamentary elections, and continuing in the stronger-than-expected recent showing in parts of eastern Ukraine by former president Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party.

If this is evidence of a changing political landscape, it is taking place at near-glacial pace. In reality, it may take decades before the balance of power shifts decisively away from a political status quo rooted in traditional notions of strong ties with Russia.

This is only natural, says Bigunov. He argues that Slovyansk and other cities in eastern Ukraine lack the historical ties that bind much of central and western Ukraine to a broader European political culture. Instead, the far younger settlements of the east have known nothing but authoritarian rule for more than a century. Czarist autocracy was followed directly by Bolshevik totalitarianism. The eventual collapse of the Soviet Union then led to a new era of regional dominance by Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. Genuine democracy did not reach Slovyansk until summer 2014, when it arrived together with the Ukrainian Army.

Six years on, pro-Russian parties continue to dominate political affairs in the city, much as they do elsewhere in eastern Ukraine. However, the region’s pro-Western electorate is slowly finding its voice and gradually becoming a factor to be reckoned with in the electoral calculations of rival candidates. This is undermining the monopoly on power that once stifled public debate. A more pluralistic political culture is slowly taking shape, but pro-Russian parties will likely remain in the ascendancy for a long time to come.

Mykhaylo Shtekel is a journalist with Radio Svoboda.

THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY

The Bulgarian city of Plovdiv has an almost untranslatable word – “aylyak” – that manifests as a refusal to get caught up in the rat race and a scepticism about the value of overwork.

By Will Buckingham

5 November 2020

Bulgaria’s second city of Plovdiv is proud of its reputation for doing things its own way. As soon as you step off the bus from the capital of Sofia, you can feel the change in pace of life. People walk more slowly. They seem to have more time on their hands. The traffic is less hectic. As you walk to the city centre through the park, where old men gather to play chess and people lounge and chat in the shade of the old trees, Plovdiv immediately feels different. There’s a kind of insouciance to Plovdiv, something that is both immediately apparent and hard to put your finger on.

In the downtown Kapana district, people spill out of bars and cafes into the pedestrian streets. Under brightly painted murals on the walls, groups of young people hang out, flirt and check their phones. In the cafe by the Dzhumaya Mosque in the town centre, people sit for hours and sip cups of Turkish coffee. Even the cats in the cobbled streets of the old town seem more languid than elsewhere. They stretch and purr, then they roll over and go back to sleep. If you ask the people here why the city is so relaxed, they will tell you: Plovdiv, they will say, is “aylyak”.



Plovdiv is Bulgaria’s second-largest city and one of the oldest cities in Europe

 (Credit: Nataliya Nazarova/Alamy)

The word “aylyak” is not much used outside of Plovdiv, even though it appears in Bulgarian dictionaries from the late 19th Century. It is a loan-word from the Turkish “aylaklık”, which means “idleness”, “dawdling” or “vagabondage”, and it’s rooted in the Turkish “aylık”, meaning “month”.

According to Yana Genova, director of the Sofia Literature and Translation House, the original meaning of aylyak was somebody hired to work month-by-month, who consequently knew what it was to have time on their hands. The verb that goes with aylyak is “bichim”, a derivative of the verb “bicha”, which means to strike, to whip, or to cut beams and boards from a tree trunk. The idea of striking, whipping or cutting is a reminder that aylyak is something active. If you want to practice aylyak, you have to slice out chunks of time for yourself. You must take the initiative to sever yourself from your daily concerns.

But whatever the origins of the word, in contemporary Plovdiv, aylyak has taken on its own meaning and significance, something not to be translated so much as lived. When you ask people to explain what it means, more often than not they will tell you a joke. The joke goes like this. A citizen of Plovdiv is hanging out with a Spanish visitor to the city. “What is aylyak?” the Spaniard asks. The Bulgarian thinks for a few moments, and then says, “It’s like your mañana, mañana, but without all the stress.”

In 2019, Plovdiv shared the title of European Capital of Culture with Matera in Italy. As a part of the City of Culture activities, one organisation – the Fire Theatre Mime Company, headed by Bulgarian actor, director and mime artist Plamen Radev Georgiev – ran a series of public consultations to explore aylyak in more depth. He wanted to know what aylyak is, what its origins are and how it became so closely associated with Plovdiv.



Plovdiv was awarded the title of European Capital of Culture in 2019

(Credit: Mehdi33300/Alamy)

I caught up with Georgiev in a cafe in Sofia. He was born in Stara Zagora, about 80km to the north-east, and when he arrived in Plovdiv in 2018, it was as an outsider to the complexities of aylyak culture. “Our research was difficult,” he told me. “People asked why we were interested in aylyak. They said it wasn’t a value at all. It was just laziness.”


It’s like your mañana, mañana, but without all the stress

But through the public discussions, a broader picture emerged. Aylyak, people said, was about finding time. It was about sitting down for breakfast with friends and finding that you were still hanging out by nightfall. It was about taking pleasure in your environment. It was tied in with social status, with a kind of dandyish wandering the streets with nothing to do. And, on a deeper level – Georgiev called this “Zen aylyak” – it was to do with freedom of the soul. “Aylyak means that you can be engaged with the difficulties of life, but you remain safe from all life’s problems,” he said.

In Sofia, many people I spoke with were sceptical about aylyak, seeing it as nothing more than Capital of Culture branding or hipster marketing. I, too, was unconvinced. So, I caught the bus from Sofia to Plovdiv, to spend several days in the city and whip some aylyak of my own. In Plovdiv, I talked to Dr Svetoslava Mancheva, an anthropologist and director of ACEA Mediator, an organisation dedicated to linking communities and urban spaces. Originally from Kardzhali in the country’s south-west, Svetoslava is a self-confessed convert to aylyak. She has been living in Plovdiv for 10 years and has no intention of leaving. “Many people come to live here specifically because it is aylyak,” she said. Her colleague, Elitsa Kapusheva, told me she was brought up in Plovdiv but recently moved back from Berlin. She was glad to be home, she said: Berlin was good, but it wasn’t aylyak.



The city has a uniquely relaxed vibe, with locals taking time to slow down and enjoy life (Credit: ICP/Alamy)

For Mancheva, aylyak is rooted in Plovdiv’s long history of cultural diversity. The historian Mary C Neuberger describes how the city was a thriving commercial hub in the 19th Century. Of all the cities in the Ottoman Empire, it was second only to Istanbul, and was home to Jews, Greeks, Bulgarians, Roma, Armenians and Slavs, crowded together in the streets and kafenes, or coffeehouses. Mancheva says that aylyak was a response to the challenges of living alongside strangers. “It’s about finding a space of your own in the city,” she said. “For me, the ground of aylyak is communication. You don’t need to like each other. What matters is the will to talk, the desire to understand.”

Historical accounts of Plovdiv’s coffeehouses in the 19th Century describe them as places where artisans and merchants mingled and where time passed slowly. The 19th-Century Bulgarian poet Hristo Danov wrote disapprovingly of how people spent all day in kafenes. People go to the kafene, he wrote, to smoke, talk, drink coffee, and “impatiently wait for the sun to set so they can move on to plum brandy”. Outsiders also picked up on Plovdiv’s uniquely relaxed feel. In his 1906 travel account, the British traveller John Foster Fraser was entranced by the pace of life in Plovdiv (then called Philippopolis):

“Picture the scene. A garden, lit with many lamps. Beneath the trees innumerable tables. At the tables sat ‘all Philippopolis,’ sipping coffee, drinking beer, toasting one another in litres of wine. At one end of the garden was a little stage. There was a Hungarian band which played rhapsodically… It was Sunday night and Philippopolis was enjoying itself.”



Plovdiv's 2nd-Century AD amphitheatre is one of the best-preserved ancient theatres in the world (Credit: Evgeni Dinev Photography/Getty Images)

As I chatted to Mancheva and Kapusheva about aylyak, they returned again and again to one idea. Aylyak is about finding space. It is about finding space in a busy day to drink coffee. It is about finding nooks and crevices in the city – alleyways, small parks, benches – where you can hang out with friends, play music, drink beer or chat. It is about making space for others when you communicate. And, as Georgiev told me, it is about finding a space of freedom in the middle of life’s difficulties. For those who have developed the knack, like Mancheva and Kapusheva, there is no better way of living.

Aylyak means that you can be engaged with the difficulties of life, but you remain safe from all life’s problems

After several days in Plovdiv, I lost my scepticism and learned how to bichim aylyak. I strolled the streets. I took it easy. And strangely, I found I got no less done, only everything was done with less stress. Towards the end of my stay, I wondered whether Plovdiv has something to offer the rest of the world. I emailed the Bulgarian writer Filip Gyurov, who researched aylyak as a philosophy of life and as an alternative to economic growth as part of his MSc thesis at Lund University. “It is not all about the hustle and bustle of the big city, the need to buy the newest tech toy, the need to always climb the social ladder,” Gyurov wrote to me. “People, especially young people, have experienced the awful side effects of burnout. Hence the need to slow down, to de-grow, to live more in sync with nature and ourselves.”

On my last afternoon in Plovdiv, I sat in the cafe outside the Dzhumaya Mosque. I ordered a Turkish coffee and a portion of kyunefe, a dessert that originated in the Middle East and that, in a stroke of culinary brilliance, combines baklava and cheese. The coffee arrived with a small glass of sweet rosewater syrup that took the edge off the bitterness. Beside the mosque, underneath the rose bushes, a ginger and white cat dozed peaceably. I didn’t have my watch. I felt no need to check my phone. I had no appointments to keep. I drank my coffee and let the afternoon unfold, knowing that I had all the time in the world.



Aylyak is rooted in Plovdiv’s long history of cultural diversity, when the city was a thriving commercial hub (Credit: Ivan Hristov/EyeEm/Getty Images)

Soul of the City is a series from BBC Travel that invites you to uncover the unique characteristics of cities around the world through the stories of the people who live there.

Paul Lafargue: The Right To Be Lazy (1883)

www.marxists.org › archive › lafargue › lazy

Nov 13, 2003 — (1883). Written: Saint Pélagie Prison, 1883. Source: The Right To Be Lazy and Other Studies Translated: Charles Kerr First Published: ...