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Graduation party for the Lukashenko family

Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya, linked to Aleksandr Lukashenko’s daughter-in-law, earned more than 700,000 Belarusian roubles in state tenders last year.

 

Between June 2023 and June 2024, the private company signed over 30 contracts with government agencies. It won contracts exclusively through the single-source procurement procedure, which is a simpler and less competitive way to select a winning bidder.

Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya is a production center. Tatsiana Kulakova is the company’s deputy director. She is a sibling of Hanna Lukashenko, Dzmitry Lukashenko’s wife. Hanna Lukashenko writes lyrics for the media holding’s artists under the pseudonym Hanna Sialuk. Earlier, we reported that Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya is a co-owner of Muzykalnaya Chastota, the company behind the registration of three new radio stations in Belarus.

In June, Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya won a tender to organise a concert for Hrodna graduates. The city allocated 114,000 Belarusian roubles for the celebration. The event featured performances by Belarusian artists Teo and Olga Ryzhikova, as well as Lera Bernatovich and Artem Skorol, protégés of Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya.

 

The concert was held on June 14 as part of the city-wide graduation ceremony, which was oganised in Hrodno for the first time. The choice of the new format was no accident. In April this year, Aleksandr Lukashenko demanded that this year’s graduation ceremony be a modest affair — no limousines or galas at restaurants. The celebrations were centralised and controlled by the local authorities. Limousines were replaced by parades, and restaurants and cafes made way for buffets in school gyms and corridors.

 

Thus, the new celebration format played into the hands of Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya, which made good money on the concert in Hrodna. The production centre regularly supplies its artists to various events commissioned by the state.

 

For example, the production centre will receive 4,400 Belarusian roubles for the performance of the Rozovye Rozy trio at the Independence Day gala concert at the Ivatsevichy Community Center. Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya sold Cosa Nostra cover band for a Pastavy festival for 5,500 roubles. For the performance of both bands in Astravets at the festive event dedicated to the 79th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the production centre received 11,000 Belarusian roubles.

 

However, concerts are only one source of income for Lukashenko’s daughter-in-law’s company. Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya’s most significant contract was signed in September 2023 with the Second National Television (ONT). Its value was almost 516,000 Belarusian roubles. The government-funded broadcaster acquired the rights to use intellectual property from the private company.

 

All indications are that the transaction is related to selling the rights to a new music show called Morning Song. It will be launched on ONT at the beginning of the current TV season. Marat Markau, Chairman of the Board of the Second National TV Channel, made the announcement.

 

According to Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya’s YouTube channel, the project was commissioned by the ONT. The show hosts are the musicians from the Rozovye Rozy trio. Tatsiana Kulakova produces the band. The guests are primarily singers for whom Hanna Sialuk has written lyrics, as well as performers produced by the company.

 

This is not the first collaboration between Muzykalnaya Mediakompaniya and ONT. With the support of the state-organised trade unions, they have already launched a musical project called Star Trek, in which producers are forging national stars out of employees of state-owned companies from all over Belarus. Auditions for the third season of the show have just closed.