Some people really believe Lukashenko's regime was using snow cannons on the protesters yesterday. Sort of like water cannons.

I treated that little thing that lipski wrote as a joke of the desperate, miserable people still very capable of having a laugh, not as a conspiracy theory... The way lipski treated it, I guess:

As for the "snow cannons" - I apologize :-) I only reproduced the rumor that was making rounds among the rally's participants, but I now see that it ended up getting repeated in many places. Even at maidan.org.ua :-) I have to admit, however, that the snowfall was really so heavy that it was easy to believe in the snow cannons and what not.

Here's the maidan.org.ua bit:

21:35

From the roofs, they are shooting artificial snow out of snow cannons, imitating a snowstorm.

You can't see a thing at the square.

But everyone understands that the snow is artificial and continue to stand at maidan. People are laughing because this reminds them of the circus.

The police starts greeting people.

There're over 30,000 people in the square now.

LJ user wolny - who was following the events from New York - wrote in a comment that snowboardists at one of the Belarusian forums said it did look like artificial snow (similar to what they have at a Silichi ski resort) - to which lipski replied that folks from geography department said that the storm was moving from northwest and that three hours before a similar snowfall happened in Lagoisk. Moreover, it was snowing as heavily in other parts of Minsk.

Whatever.

Meanwhile, it has been announced that Lukashenko won 82.6% of the votes. Milinkevich received 6%.

Belarusian Maidan's part 2 is supposed to begin in seven hours.