Private life

"All my life is like a hamster wheel."

The inclinations to become a president should be innate. If you don’t have this, you can still become a president, you will be a literate, educated person, but you will not be a leader. A president must be a leader. If he is not a leader, he is a weak president.

Presidents are not made, presidents are born. If you are not meant for it, you will not be president. You must have this connection to people. This is key for president. It must be natural.

"All my life (I think the life of other presidents, too) is like running inside a hamster wheel. I get up and start running. How can one run for 25 years? You get used to it. The wheel keeps spinning and there is no way to avoid it. If you don’t run, the wheel will keep spinning and will throw you off. It is a way of life. I am already accustomed to it."

"What is power? I don’t know the exact answer. Frankly speaking, it is a colossal opportunity to do something for the people of your country and maybe people pf other countries. What does it taste like? Tastes differ. For someone it is sweet, for someone else it is bittersweet. It is bitter for me."

"Wherever I go (and I’ve been all over the world already), I spend two days and feel homesick. I cannot spend more than two days outside my country. Not because I am the head of state but because I just feel this way. I want every Belarusian to feel homesick for the native country: if your soul is here, then my presidency was not in vain."

"A feeling of overwhelming excitement. When you reach certain heights, excuse me for being immodest, when you become a well-known person, when you come home to the place you were born and grew up and meet face-to-face with the people, who know you better than anyone else in the world, you feel not just excited, you feel terribly excited."

"Everything here is special for me. It is my birthplace. There is not a single square meter of land I haven’t walked barefoot. Or shepherded cows – there was some spare grassland in my time, it has become overgrown since then, we used to procure firewood over there. Every meter bears imprints of my feet. This is why everything here is still unusual and yet familiar to me."

"I was leading the horse, ridging potatoes… The field was split in three parts. It was noon, terrible heat, plenty of flies and botflies… Later on I was ridging potatoes myself while my younger cousin was leading the horse. He was shorter than me and he had to keep his arms raised in order to lead the horse by the bridle. Anyway, the impression was not really good back then but very useful today."

"I wanted to be a border guard. I graduated from university with good grades, I was an only son of my mother and back then the army did not conscript men with a pedagogical degree at all. But all my cousins were border guards. And the cousin I grew up with. I remember when he went to join the army and returned decorated with medals and orders. Certainly, it encouraged me to join the border troops."

"Indeed I love movies more than anything else. Because probably I understand it best of all. I dabbled in music a bit. And it influenced my preferences. I spent some time on photography once. They say it is an art. I would spend days in the photo lab. This is why I understand it a bit."

"If I have a busy day and get back home late, let’s say, at 10-11 in the evening, I still need to ski at least 7-8km. When I have time to spare, we go skiing for 2-3 hours."

"Thirteen is my favorite number, so to say. If I work out, go skiing and have a 1km lap, then I do 13km. Not 10km, not 15km, but 13km. If I do any exercises somewhere, I do it 13 times or several bouts of 13 jerks. This is why I have a very good attitude to the number, but I don’t know even why."

"Automobiles are my favorite means of transportation. Starting with motorcycles and ending with automobiles, I am quite good at driving them. This is why I am not going to prevaricate and say that the bus was my favorite means of transportation, although I’ve travelled a lot by bus and by diesel train."

"They sometimes criticize me for building too many ice arenas because I am an ice hockey fan… But I’ve already said I became an ice hockey fan by accident. I was a football enthusiast. I played football all my life. When I got injured (half of my knee was cut away), it became difficult for me to even jump on this soft field. Movements in ice hockey are different – soft and light. I cannot live without sport. And I advise you to go in for sport, too. This is why I play ice hockey."