On September 5, 2026, at 12:00 p.m., the Museum of Free Belarus in Warsaw will open the temporary exhibition “The First Undemocratic Ones,” dedicated to the 2001 presidential election in Belarus. The opening will include a meeting with direct participants in the events and a tour of the exhibition led by the participants themselves.
The exhibition marks the 25th anniversary of the 2001 presidential election — an election that became an important stage in the development of Belarus’s democratic movement amid growing state control over the media and the electoral process.
At the center of the exhibition are street campaign materials and personal artifacts belonging to participants in the 2001 election campaign, which are now held in the collection of the Museum of Free Belarus.
One of the most prominent elements of the campaign at the time was the activity of the youth initiative “Zubr,” which conducted an extensive street campaign despite having no access to independent media. Posters, stickers, leaflets and other materials became an important tool for communicating with the public and a way to circumvent state control over the information space.
On September 5, Pavel Kazanetski and Uladzimir Kobets — direct participants in the democratic movement and the events of 2001 — will take part in the opening of the exhibition. They were the ones who donated some of the materials on display to the Museum of Free Belarus.
During the meeting, they will talk about the election campaign, street campaigning and the work of democratic initiatives under conditions of state control. The meeting will be followed by a tour of the exhibition with the participation of its direct witnesses.
The exhibition will be open for just one week, from September 5 to 11, 2026.
Event opening: September 5, 2026, Museum of Free Belarus (ul. Foksal 11, Warsaw). Admission is free.
