Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the woman who catapulted onto the Belarusian political scene to oust the man the world knows as Europe's last dictator, may be an accidental challenger, running in Sunday's presidential election only because of her arrest of her opposition activist husband, Sergei.
But her strength and determination that turned her into a surprise opposition rival who has refused to accept Alexander Lukashenko's victory in rigged elections may date back to the age of 12, when she went for them past myself in a rural part of Ireland.
Tikhanovskaya was one of the "Chernobyl children", whose health had been directly or indirectly affected by the radioactive impact of the 1986 nuclear disaster in neighboring Ukraine, and who had been welcomed by Irish families.
"Little girl"
Henry Deane (72) and his wife Marian first took Tikhanovskaya, who they knew as Svyeta, to their home in Roscrea, County Tipperary, in the mid-90s.
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“Two children arrived that year. "Svyeta was a similar age to my daughter Mary and they got along very well," said Deane. "As a child she was very smart, she knew English better than others. She served as a translator and a kind of spokesperson for others."
However, Deane said he could not guess the life trajectory of "this little girl", as Lukashenko contemptuously calls her.
"Some of the children were clearly traumatized by all this work, by the situation in those villages of Belarus at that time, not only because of Chernobyl, but also because of the economy. It was very difficult," he said.
Thus, Deane traveled to Mikashevichi, Tikhanovskaya's village, after becoming a co-founder of a Chernobyl charity. Mikashevichi was north of the border with Ukraine and was hit hard by the disaster.
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"At that time, Belarusian hospitals were filled with children facing all kinds of problems. Svetlana's teacher was our translator. We traveled to Belarus regularly, visited the school and that's how we got to know him and took him with us," said Deane.
In Roscrea, with a population of 7, children were given great medical attention, as sight and hearing problems were common there. And to make their recovery easier, the children were often taken out on picnics, sent to the Tullamore cinema and shopping centers.
