In the photo - Alyaksei Strelnikov at the festival "Lyubimauka" © social networks of Alyaksei Strelnikov

Yesterday, December 17, Alyaksei Strelnikov, candidate of art history, theater critic, director, journalist and teacher, died. Strelnikov's death was reported by his friends.

Alyaksei Strelnikov was born in 1983 in Novosibirsk, grew up in Belarus. He graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of the Belarusian State University and postgraduate studies in theater studies at the Belarusian Academy of Arts.

Author of articles on theater, curator of theater projects, cooperated with theater and drama festivals of Russia. Taught at the Belarusian Academy of Arts, in 2020 he was fired due to his support for political protests in Belarus.

Anastasia Vasilevich, head of the Center for Belarusian Drama, told our editors: "Lesha has always been a mouthpiece of Belarusian culture in the European context. Thanks to him, many people learned about us, he broadcasted the values of freedom, love, acceptance and art. First - people. The most important thing is that he always approached culture in this way: people create the product, not through the product to judge people. He was the person who saw in others - a person, and only then a creator, a creator, a worker. A humanistic approach and the same principles of life, it is very painful, Lesha, that you are gone. And there are no words to write these lines. But his humanism greatly influenced Belarusian culture and art."

Theater critic and head of the Mobile Art Theater Alyaksei Kiselyov shared with our editors: "Belarus has a very developed and powerful independent art. This art is influential, which goes beyond the borders of the country. Especially - theatrical. Popular plays in Russia by Pavlo Prazhko, Maksim Dasko, Konstantin Steshik, Dmitriy Bogaslavskyi are often unbearable, radical and cosmically wonderful. Music - "Loop of Affection", "Cassiopeia", "Silver Wedding", "Addis Ababa" - many entered the European music scene directly from the Belarusian theater. The puppet school of Belarus is a separate phenomenon: in Russia, at least, the names of Aleksey Lyalevsky and Alexander Yanushkevich are well known.

Alyaksei Strelnikov in this landscape from a distance seems to me to be the central connecting link. Curator and theoretician, he always knew how to introduce everyone and make them fall in love with each other. As a critic - attentive, sensitive and uncompromising. He combined an educational approach with an analytical one, which is extremely rare. Strelnikov simply lacks the barrier of prejudice in communication. He sees a person for the first time, and already this person is his close friend. He read everything, watched everything, listened to everything. I won't even say out of the blue if I know anyone else as interesting in modern theater, as adventurous an intellectual. At the same time, of course, a punk for whom the concept of "in spite of" is more understandable than "thanks to". He was engaged in theater, of course, against the odds. But many, including me, learned, understood and did a lot of things in the profession thanks to him. Modern Belarusian art is so visible and alive in many respects thanks to Strelnikov.
As a director, he created theater wherever it was not yet forbidden. The last time we saw each other, he was telling me about apartment plays. He told stories with burning eyes, the story turned into a performance. A man of Renaissance beauty. It breathed some biblical antiquity. And he could just take it and start dancing.
A huge heart. Engine of love and wisdom.

It seemed that he had already done an inestimable amount for the theater and for the people of the theater. He, of course, distributed himself, distributed to others. And his pulse will continue to beat in those who managed to get to know and work at least a little with Les.
But now it is acutely felt how little this is compared to what he could still do in the second half of his life - for the theater, for his family and for himself. Strelnikov would not like such pathos, but, damn, it's about the final, now it's okay. The first act left us warm and grateful. And the second, we will definitely see everything a little later. Lesha is already playing it in eternity."