When Alexey Bachinsky completed his journalism degree in 2011, he was already well aware that he could never work for Russian state television. Thankfully, at that time independent media still existed in the country, and so he found a position at independent news outlet Grani, before moving to socio-political comment and analysis site Kasparov.ru. A year before graduating, Alexey had met a Belarusian graphic designer named Andrey*, and the pair had fallen in love. When they met, Andrey lived in the Belarusian capital Minsk, where he had been involved in anti-Lukashenko protests since the 2006 presidential election.