25 February 2002
Retiree in Zhabinka rejects pension from Lukashenko

 A newly retired man in a small town named Zhabinka in southwestern Belarus has refused to accept his first monthly pension of 68,000 rubels ($40), sending it to Minsk's Main Post Office "poste restante" for Aleksandr Lukashenko.
60-year-old Gennady Samoilenko also sent the Belarusian ruler a letter protesting his "starving retirement" and his pension that "can buy neither a good medicine nor a balanced diet." Mr. Samoilenko told BelaPAN he tried to send his pension directly to the presidential palace, but his local post office would not accept it.