In a country where politics was long equated with conflict and powerlessness, entrepreneurship emerged as perhaps the only real space of personal freedom — a place where people could build and shape their own future.
For decades in Belarus, there was an unspoken deal: “Don’t touch power — and power won’t touch your business.” But after 2020, thousands of entrepreneurs — from a coffee shop on Marx Street to IT companies with hundreds of employees — realized that neutrality no longer exists. You didn’t need to be political to get shut down — your independence alone was enough to be seen as a threat. You could be entirely apolitical, but if you created a space of freedom, you were still seen as a danger to the system.
This was the turning point when it became clear: in Belarus, business is not just an economic activity, but a form of civic agency.
For me, this became clear a long time ago. That’s why the Imaguru startup hub was never meant to be a loyal or apolitical business structure, but rather a small island of autonomy — with its own culture, values, and horizontal connections. Our goal was to grow an ecosystem in which others could grow. A space where entrepreneurs don’t feel pressure. Where companies, teams, and ideas are born. Where initiative, not fear, sets the tone.
Three Ways Business Drives Democratization
1. Economic independence as the foundation of civic courage
When a person has their own business — even if it’s just a small workshop or an IT startup — they gain something no ideology can provide: internal footing.
They are no longer dependent on a boss, a ministry, or a state TV channel. They can say “no.”
It may sound simple, but economic agency lays the foundation for political agency. All talk about “civic engagement” is pointless if people don’t have the resources to act. Conversely, an entrepreneur — even one far removed from politics — lives by a different logic: they make decisions, take responsibility, and embrace risk.
2. Horizontal networks as an infrastructure of trust
In an authoritarian system, people operate within rigid vertical hierarchies: boss–employee, state–citizen. Where there is no trust, only fear or imitation can take root.
Entrepreneurship is one of the few areas in Belarus over the past 30 years where horizontal connections have emerged. I saw this at Imaguru: when we opened, people came not just for knowledge or investment — they came for the feeling of “I’m not alone.” Out of those regular meetups, pitches, and hackathons came not only startups, but also civil society — without slogans or flags.
The same thing was happening across the country: from the IT community to small coffee shops, barbershops, and workshops. At a certain point, the private sector became a systemic force, as its share of employment approached 50%. We tend to think of a “civic nation” as something built through protests. But in reality, a nation is built through recurring touchpoints, where people interact not as subordinates, but as partners. And business — especially small business — became that kind of school of solidarity.
3. IT as the first form of Belarusian freedom — and why it’s no longer enough
The rise of the IT sector was Belarus’s first quiet revolution. It became a way for people to escape the state without emigrating: working for the West, remote teams, exports without bureaucrats.
In 2020, PandaDoc publicly stood with the people and took responsibility — not just with words, but with action. The state responded immediately by imprisoning four employees. But the effect was the opposite: thousands of people around the world heard about Belarus not through stories about a dictator, but through the story of a company with more dignity than an entire government. And Belarus lost its first unicorn.
When Imaguru was shut down for offering people opportunities to grow and connect, it became clear: even a startup hub can be an act of resistance.
Innovation is impossible without freedom. Companies didn’t leave because of taxes — they left for rights. Despite being cautious, IT companies became one of the biggest “sponsors of freedom,” evacuating thousands of employees and their families, protecting them from repression and unemployment.
Belarus’s IT sector proved that even under an authoritarian regime, it is possible to build a globally competitive industry. But it’s no longer enough. It’s small and medium-sized businesses that create the cumulative effect of democratization. Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians interact with private businesses every day — and through that, they learn horizontal collaboration, initiative, and responsibility. This is how a culture of freedom takes root. But economic modernization in Belarus has always hit a wall: political unfreedom.
Today, a massive economic diaspora has formed outside of Belarus. In the EU alone, there are about 10,000 registered companies with Belarusian founders and over 30,000 sole proprietors. The top 10 largest companies with Belarusian roots abroad provide around 80,000 jobs and generate no less than $6 billion in annual revenue1. For comparison: that’s at least 6% of Belarus’s entire GDP and 2.5 times more than the total export revenue of the Hi-Tech Park’s IT services in 2024.
Belarusian business in exile — with billions in revenue and hundreds of thousands of jobs — functions like a distributed state. It connects people across borders, retains talent, and sets new rules. For the international community, this is a critical signal: the future of Belarus is already being built — just not inside the country, but beyond its borders.
The Future: Business as the Foundation of Democratization
Entrepreneurship is not just about money — it’s about the architecture of society. Cafés, services, creative studios, hubs, educational projects — these are the spaces where everyday practices of trust and solidarity are formed. In places where there is no parliament, no independent media, and no elections, every office or workshop becomes more than just a workplace — it becomes a point of freedom and trust.
If we agree that entrepreneurship is a driver of democratization, then it’s time to stop treating the Belarusian business as a peripheral part of politics. It’s not the background — it’s the driving force.
Belarusian transformation won’t begin with elections, a new Constitution, or Western sanctions. It will begin the moment society recognizes that entrepreneurship is not only about profit — it’s about values. When business — both big and small — is recognized not just as a source of taxes, but as what it already is in practice: a civic actor and an architect of future democracy.
- Revenue for EPAM is approximately USD 4.7 billion; Wargaming’s estimated revenue is around USD 1.1 billion; for Flo Health, it’s about USD 0.2 billion; and for PandaDoc, around USD 0.1 billion.
