Freedom has lit the world

Piotr Klueev speaks five languages, and studied philosophy in college. He plays the piano, keyboard, and sang in a band that hit it big. A few years back, Love Machine was selling out arenas all over Russia. 

Twenty, 30, 40 thousand people would come to hear the band, and then the music stopped. War came. Piotr made a decision. He would not play and pay taxes to fund a war machine killing Ukrainians. This was the choice faced by every entertainer in Russia. He estimates that 90 percent have kept jamming, and business has never been better for them. Piotr explained that most concerts have become fascist political rallies — “Z” rallies — for Putin’s war, where young people sing, dance and cheer for dead Ukranians, and the possibility of dying for Mother Russia. He has no interest. 

Piotr was born in a small corner of the world, where Poland, Lithuania and Belarus come together. He was born in Belarus, which is led by the iron-fisted dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko. 

Lukashenko was defeated in an election in 2020, but refused to yield power. Instead, he imprisoned the opposition. 

Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets, and demanded change. They demanded democracy, liberty and opportunity. They marched, sang songs of freedom, and stood for the innate dignity of the human being. Piotr did his part. He was on the stage, firing up the crowd: 

He said he wasn’t afraid, and always knew exactly what was going to happen in the end, but that didn’t make it any less jarring when it did. Piotr received a call on December 16, 2020, from his business manager and lawyer, telling him that his bank accounts had been seized, and that he should leave the country immediately. He crossed the border into Ukraine a few hours later. 

Piotr knows scores of people who have been sentenced to five, 10 and 13 years of imprisonment for speaking out against a political leader. He knows that if he were to return to Belarus he would be arrested and jailed for over a decade. 

Piotr went from being a millionaire rock star to political refugee in an instant. Below are some photos from his prior life, performing at concerts across Russia and Belarus:

He lost everything, but according to him:

Everything was nothing important because there is nothing without freedom.

He is confident that he will have success in his next act, just as he is confident about the future in the long run. However, he sees a dark chapter ahead for humanity. He wants Americans to understand something: 

War is coming. 

Piotr wants you to know that Vladimir Putin is a fascist, and he wants war. 

He laughed out loud over the stupendous idiocy of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin, and said:

Can you imagine? Putin starts talking about the ninth century, and Tucker Carlson doesn’t cut him off and say, “Excuse me?” “You started a war in the 21st century because of what happened in the ninth?” 

Piotr is one of the owners of a bar in Warsaw called Karma. It sits under a bridge, and is filled with 20-, 30- and 40-somethings, who have found a refuge and community in a country that has welcomed them in a desperate hour:

Piotr talked to me about the importance of community, and the shared sense of loss that binds the crowd at Karma. They share profound loss. They have lost their jobs, money, careers, friends, and country. Most cannot go back.

Politics is an urgent issue at Karma. No one has the luxury of being ignorant around what is happening in the world. There seems to be no desire to be dead and blind to what is swirling all around. 

Piotr has great gratitude for Poland, which has given his family refuge and citizenship. He appreciates the strength of Poland’s people, economy and military. The democracy here is no longer fragile, but rather, enduring. There will be no step back in the face of Russian aggression from the Poles, who will never be subjugated again. 

Piotr is also worried about what is happening in America, a country to which he has traveled extensively.

He doesn’t understand why Americans don’t understand that the world needs them, not because of our weapons, but because of the success of an idea. Freedom. It has lit the world. 

Piotr doesn’t have any illusions about the world. He understands how dark it is, but he is undeterred. His goal is simple:

I want to be a little bit of light in the Kingdom of Darkness. 

He is. 

Freedom is that light, and every American should be grateful for our inheritance. We are lucky people. 

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