Well, not really, it was Belarus and while it wasn’t quite as Soviet as some articles say, it certainly has plenty of the good old days including a real dictator and an active KGB. His name is Lukashenko and he is supposedly the only European dictator but I think if you include Russia he is not alone. I went there because earlier this year I found out they had a temporary 5 day visa free deal as long as you fly in and out of Minsk, which is an hour’s flight from Warsaw. So away I went, in a short haul Brazilian jet from Fred Chopin Airport.
I always get a bit concerned when approaching immigration in authoritarian countries and this one requires you have evidence of medical insurance, which I had, but the immigration person (complete with boards on her shoulders) looked at it for a long time, then scrutinised me very carefully, then fiddled with her computer even longer, and eventually banged her stamp three times and I was in. Waiting in arrivals with the reassuring notice with one’s name was Sergey, who I had found online, and he greeted me very enthusiastically, partly because he had driven people from 59 countries and he was about to hit 60 with this NZer. By the time we got to town he had played me a very slow military version of our national anthem, told me about his two failed marriages, his children, his business, his previous jobs, what an unpleasant person Lukashenko is, what a pack of bastards the Russians are, and pointed out all the sights in the evening light. It is about a half hour ride.
The next morning I set off in SUNSHINE to explore with a very inadequate map. I just followed the people in front who were all going the same way and ended up walking under the very smart new main railway station and eventually came out from underground in front of the only building I had seen a photo of. Which meant I knew where I was and could get some use from the map. Minsk was a battleground in WW2 so was mostly rebuilt in Soviet style after the war although some buildings were recreated. There are big squares with grand monuments, lots of block-long equally grand buildings and things like the People’s Palace. I spent two days looking around and the best place was the Great Patriotic War Museum. Once again a flash new building and inside more information than you need, but also lots of big boys stuff. The biggest were about 6 Russian tanks including the legendary T34 of which I bought a fridge magnet; at least 2 German tanks one of which was also pretty big but not a Tiger; lots of planes that did look real but who knows, including an ME 109 and a couple of Yaks; and every gun used from pocket pistols to big artillery and mortar machinery. The theme of war and human misery from the Baltics continued here but the sole bad people were the Germans because Belarus had been part of Russia for a long time so only had one invasion and one liberation, in the last few hundred years, just to be accurate. Their losses were huge and there were plenty of concentration camps in Belarus, one of which was the fourth biggest. There is an astonishingly resonant monument to the lost women on a little island in Minsk which would easily be the best war memorial I have ever seen.
That evening I reasoned with myself that as my two previous evening meals had been cheap and unexciting I was due something better. Having consulted the online Oracle I went to Cafe du Lux and things got nicely evened out. The food was sort of yummy old school French and the wine was pretty good. In addition a selection of the local well off and trendy could be watched. The women were mostly young and decorative with one beside me looking very familiar, and after a lot of consideration I worked out she was a double of the one married to an English prince who is pregnant with a third child. Not sure what her name is. When one of the waiters asked where I was from he got quite excited because he had been to an educational tasting of our wines. As with every other country these days, people in Belarus know about NZ and it’s referred to in a very positive way. Everyone says they want to visit and on my flight back to Warsaw today the young nerd I sat next to said he plans to shift to NZ as soon as he can. When I asked why,
he went all ecological so I didn’t spoil his day and tell him about the dirty polluting dairy farmers.
On the third day I had organised Sergey to take me on a day trip to a couple of small towns that had castles as the tourist attraction, but my unspoken plan was to whip through them and concentrate on looking at the country in preparation for a stint as the temporary Agricultural Correspondent. Fortunately the castles were pretty interesting because once again I was in flat country, and even worse, to my surprise agriculture is still collectivised. That means it’s all the same boring cropping apart from one orchard of the smallest, most miserable apple trees I have ever seen. There was a bit of early growth from winter wheat and much of the maize has yet to be harvested, and the only other visual agricultural excitement was the existence of big round bales. I assume they were of maize for the unseen cows inside the odd big shed. Tractors were not often spied and those that did appear looked ready for the knackers yard. The only active add-on to tractors was a muck spreader. The village houses generally looked from the 1920s and there were plenty of them were abandoned and derelict. Socialism is a great way to freeze history.
People are leaving the country for the usual reason of why be a peasant when you can live in the city and work less and earn more. Agricultural workers get paid less than the average US$350 a month and couple that with all the fun of living in an old house and enduring four and a half months of winter snow with no cafe to serve you fancy coffees, so its no surprise. We had lunch in a small town where I was polite and partook of local cuisine.
First was seasonal mushroom soup which was delicious. It’s mushroom time and all along the road locals had little stalls selling them. The ones in my soup were thin and yellow and obviously not poisonous. Second course was the national favourite, potato pancakes. “Stodgy” came immediately to my mind. Closely followed by “uninspiring”. My drink was also a national favourite called kvass, pronounced “kwass”, which is not alcoholic despite looking like beer and is made from fermented bread. It’s quite refreshing and acceptable. On the way back Sergey asked if I would like to detour to the highest point in Belarus but when he added that it was only 445 m. high I demurred. While continuing to drive he got out his phone and found the video he took of an Icelandic client who travels to the highest point of the countries he visits. Then he found me more videos all while we zipped down a motorway. He also showed me a photoshopped picture of Lukashenko beside one of Hitler where they looked pretty similar although the former’s moustache is a bit wider. Sergey was a good guy and on this day I learnt lots more about him including the trials of having an alcoholic father, and how when after he showed his second ex-in-laws his new apartment his second ex-wife called him the next day to explain their divorce was a mistake and how about getting back together. After the divorce she had married her fancy younger man, had a child and got divorced again. He didn’t think reuniting was a good idea. So if you go to Belarus he comes highly recommended. I understand the videos I watched are accessible through www.autotransfer.by.
The fourth day I had to be ready to depart at 4 p.m. which left a bit of time to fill so I decided to go shopping on the off chance of finding a couple of items of warm clothing I think I am going to need. Apart from one modern smallish shopping mall and another hidden under Independence Square, shops are not obvious. All the big grand buildings were not designed with anything commercial in mind so there are very few shop windows to show you what is inside and signs generally have just initials or a few words in Cyrillic. When you sense something useful might be within you have to open several doors to get inside and find out. Sometimes you find interesting things and other times you mutter sorry and reverse out. According to Google there is a GUM department store, and either Google is lying about where it is, or it is well hidden in one of the four large buildings I investigated. Or perhaps it has retired, the Tripadvisor reviews l saw said it was a bit of the past. I found a few other places but not what I wanted so I ended up sitting in the sun outside, with my back to the chilly breeze, having my favourite Thai soup for lunch with a beer. Those people in the villages don’t know what they are missing. Most shop assistants from here would be fired on the spot at home. They take no interest in customers, never offer to help, and are usually otherwise engaged on the phone or chatting to each other. I asked one if she spoke English and she admitted to a little, so I asked if there was a bigger size in a jacket and the answer was that she didn’t know. End of story. A guide in Vilnius told us about the amazement when McDonald’s opened and the assistants smiled at you and asked if they could help. Even more amazing was that everything on the menu was available, and you got it within a few minutes. Those strange American ways have yet to conquer all.
For those of a cautious financial attitude you would like Minsk. I changed US$100 on arrival and didn’t spend it all despite four lunches and dinners including the flash one, a haircut, two fridge magnets, museum and castle entrance fees, a couple of ice creams, and a very nice bottle of Georgian red wine. For those free spirits who enjoy jaywalking, like me, it is not ideal. Although the police presence was much lower than I expected everyone waits for the lights and no one I saw crossed a road away from the official place.
In conclusion, Belarus is not a must-see but it certainly wasn’t a waste of four days.
Dennis
PS. If you’re grammatically observant you may have noticed I am trying to join the Oxford comma club.