The family came to the East Coast about a year ago at the suggestion of Marina Lvova, who runs the nonprofit Belarusians in Boston, drawn by Boston's cultural scene, proximity to Europe and vibrant Belarusian expatriate community. When his children finished school in May of that year, the family packed four suitcases with some vital documents and photos and flew from Belarus to the nation of Georgia, then on to Seattle, where his parents live.

“Lots of kids in Belarus have both parents in prison,' he said. He took it as a thinly-veiled threat to break up their family. Still, it wasn't until March 2021 when the police came after his wife, Tanya, and accused her of defrauding the nation's state-sponsored child support system and threatened her with two years in jail that he knew he had to get out. In response, he had one more act of defiance - using his baritone voice in a video of the traditional Belarusian hymn, 'Mahutny Bozha,' which means 'Mighty God,' and has become a signature anthem of the opposition to Lukashenko. His public opposition to Lukashenko got him fired from the opera for an 'act of immorality' and he was black-listed, he said.

I said, ‘Yes they pay me, but they don’t own me.’” “I was well paid in Belarus and I had all the benefits from that. “They said, ‘What is the problem with you? You have everything you need,’” he said. He renounced three awards that he had received personally from Lukashenko. “It was so evident to all of us that we could not keep silent any more,” he said. When Lukashenko won a sixth term in office in 2020 in an election regarded by his opposition and the West as fraudulent, Silchukou joined tens of thousands of Belarusians at election protests that were violently suppressed and resulted in the arrests of thousands. “I am known in Europe, but I've never performed in the States, and it was like a blank piece of paper for me, just a new page,' he said during a recent interview in Boston. He's now living in suburban Boston with his wife and three children and teaches music to middle school students while he tries to revive his singing career in the U.S., where he remains relatively unknown. Silchukou dared to speak out against Alexander Lukashenko, who has led the former Soviet republic with an iron fist for nearly three decades.

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