I was chatting the other day with Ihar Mahaniok, a former TOL blogger from Belarus who now works for Google in Zurich. Ihar was reminding me that it was already two years since the death of Uladzimir Katkouski, a pioneer of the Belarusian Internet and especially the blogosphere.

I met Uladizmir probably around four years ago, as TOL was starting to get involved in new media and had just received a grant to promote blogging in Belarus. Without many contacts in the area, I started to inquire about individuals that might help us with the project, and as luck would have it, I soon found that one of the best and most popular bloggers happened to live in Prague and work over at Radio Free Europe. We met and Uladzimir graciously agreed to get involved, even though we at TOL were mere beginners and he was already quite advanced in his knowledge and experiences. He recruited Ihar and helped us with the initial strategy, but we hadn’t moved very far when news came of a tragic accident in the center of Prague.

If I remember correctly, Uladzimir and his wife were simply walking along a street when a fire engine ran a red light, and then spun out of control in trying to avoid a collision with a tram, hitting the couple. Also if I am remembering correctly, it turned out that there wasn’t even a fire. So sad. I would strongly encourage everyone to check out Ihar’s post (in English), which gives an overview of Uladzimir’s contribution to the Belarusian online world.