Раман Цымбераў. Фота: сацсеткі
Raman Tsymberau, a Belarusian poet and publisher and owner of the online bookstore Kniger.by, which sold fiction and historical literature including books in the Belarusian language, has died at the age of 44.
Five days ago he suddenly fell ill and developed kidney problems. He later suffered a stroke. He was transferred to intensive care but could not be saved.
Raman Tsymberau was born on June 8, 1981, in Yeysk, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, but lived in Belarus from childhood. He worked as a lecturer at a college and at a university and obtained a master’s degree in economics in 2008.
Since 2001 he had worked as an individual entrepreneur in the book trade. He was the owner of the online bookstore Kniger.by and the administrator of the website for historical literature enthusiasts “Empire of History. Historical Club of Belarus.”
As a publisher and editor, he oversaw the book series “Such History,” in which around 20 editions devoted to the history of Belarus and military history had been published by January 2024. In 2025, he launched a children’s book series titled “Vetrachok.”
Among the notable books published by Tsymberau were “Minsk Prison Castle” by Dzmitry Drozd, “Hot Paraffin” by Vintses Mudrou, “Whisper” by Siarhei Leskets, “Kupala and Kolas Joke” by Pavel Karalyou, a collection of works by Kastus Seviarynets, and the children’s book “Grandfather’s Tales” by Dzied Jankel (Ihar Haikevich), among many others.
On January 24, 2024, the Ministry of Information of Belarus suspended for one month Tsymberau’s certificate granting him the right to publish printed editions.
He was the author of poetry in Belarusian and Russian. Four poetry collections by Raman Tsymberau were published: “The Mouse King” (2006), “Case History” (2011), “The Third Notebook” (2017), and “On the Streets of Babylon. The Curetes Guard” (2021). “On the Streets of Babylon. The Curetes Guard” was a double-sided collection (a flip book) containing poems written between 2015 and 2018.
Together with his daughter Emilia, he published a collection of children’s poems titled “Multicoloured Snowflakes.”
“A huge loss for the Belarusian book world, an abyss that it is unclear how, when, or whether it can ever be filled… I hope Raman felt how we worried about him in recent days and prayed. I hope he heard what we did not manage to tell him personally — about our gratitude, and about his strength and uniqueness,” wrote Tatsiana Niadbai, chair of the Belarusian PEN, on social media.