"Already Retired, But There's No One To Work."

• 15.07.2025, 14:37

Belarus is increasingly experiencing a shortage of workers.

- My husband and I are a family that has maintained friendships across decades and distance. But several times a year we get out to visit our buddies, although the long journey is not as easy for us as it used to be," reader Viktoria wrote to Charter97.org.

Friendly conversations and warm meetings help us survive in these difficult times. But our meeting is a bit overshadowed by the fact that our friend has to go to work. She is already retired, but there is no one to work, so she is begged and bribed. It's not easy to find a veterinarian for the farm. Almost impossible.

So Elena is retired, but she works non-stop. She laughs that all her life she worked on the farm for pennies, and now there is no one to work, so her salary in recent years increased to 2 thousand rubles.

So as long as there is strength, she works - it is necessary at least in retirement to prepare a safety cushion for passion.

But that's not all. My friend was even sent to a sanatorium! However, for some reason, not in Belarus, but somewhere either in Chuvashia or in Mordovia. But for free. So she's glad to have a vacation. It's not the French town of Biarritz, but it's better than nothing.

After 2020, the shortage of workers is so acute that the Lukashenko trade union sends ordinary village people to sanatoriums. Previously, you could only hear such a "success story" from minions in positions of power. And now ordinary specialists are pampered and appreciated in this way.

We joke: "Elena, if your bosses ask you to extend your contract, don't agree to go to Turkey! At least in your old age you will see the sea".