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Honeymoon In The Gulag
WATCH: Svyatlana Gorokhovik prepares for her wedding to jailed Belarusian activist Pavel Vinahradau.
Like most couples, Svyatlana Gorokhovik and Pavel Vinahradau had dreamed of a wedding filled with merriment, friends and champagne.
This is difficult, however, when the groom is serving time in a drab Belarusian prison.
Instead, the young couple had to settle for a no-frills ceremony at the jail where Vinahradau is serving a four-year sentence for taking part in protests in December against the disputed re-election of Belarus' authoritarian leader, Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Gorokhovik, 24, and Vinahradau, 23, were scheduled to exchange vows on July 22 at a high-security prison in the southern Belarusian city of Ivatsevichy.
Despite the lackluster venue and a prison ban on champagne, Gorokhovik indicated RFE/RL in this video that she determined to make the most of her wedding day.
The marriage will mark the end of a seven-month separation for the young couple. Since Vinahradau's detention in December, they had seen each other only at his court trial and during several prison visits when they spoke through a glass window.
Gorokhovik says Vinahradau proposed to her in a letter while in jail. As a married couple, they will now have the right to several three-day reunions every year.
Having a wife outside prison, she hopes, will also help him endure the remaining three-and-a-half years he must spend behind bars.
-- Claire Bigg (with reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus Service)