Nobel prize winning Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich on Thursday said she loved the Russia of "ballet, literature and ballet" but not the country it has become under President Vladimir Putin. 

"I love the Russian world, but the kind, humane Russian world," she said at a press conference in Minsk. "I do not love Beria, Stalin, Putin... how low they let Russia sink," she said, referring to the former Soviet leader and his head of the secret police.