World Belarus Minsk

To Russia With Love

Yartsevo to Minsk Jun 30, 2007

This morning when we got up most people were feeling pretty rough, although by some strange, yet lucky, twist of fate I wasn't feeling too bad. After breakfast we all got on the bus and went to a church just outside of Yartsevo. About a mile from the church we pulled over and met Dodgy Michael who we could buy t-shirts, vodka, and porn from. After everyone had purchased everything they wanted we continued to the church. The church was really nice, and apparently had just been renovated and re-opened for the public to view. The priest didn't speak any English, so our guide would translate everything. The priest was also bringing people to the crypt, but I ended up opting out, and instead going outside and sitting. Kristy was feeling pretty rough from the night before, and I just talked to her and got updated on some of the gossip from the previous night.

After the church we drove to Smolensk for a city tour, although no one was really that interested in the tour! No one had ever heard of Smolensk, so none of the history meant anything to anyone, and we were all so tired, that it was mostly a waste of time for us. In the city tour we had one stop, which was at the Assumption Church, and it was amazingly beautiful, and a real shock to all of us! To get to the church we had to walk up several flights of stairs, and there were beggars all along the stairs. When we finally got up to the church and walked in we were stunned to see that the inside was ornately decorated, and a shock considering we weren't in a very big city! While we were in the church there was a service going on, and it was nice to see the church being used. After we got out of the church it was already lunch, so we drove to a place we where we were given 15 minutes to use the washroom and grab lunch (like that was going to happen!) As we were walking to the restaurant Chris was a couple steps ahead of me, and most people were amazed at how well he was doing considering how drunk he'd been the night before. Well as he was walking he suddenly veered off the path and threw up for about 10 seconds... then kept walking... barely missing a beat! I turned to Reky and we both kind of looked at each other, and then Chris veered further off the path to throw up a couple more times! The walk to the little restaurant was a couple minutes, and when we got there it seemed like we stepped through the looking glass into a crazy Russian Wonderland! It was the most colourful place I have seen in my life! Most people used the washrooms, and no one really had many rubbles left, so lunch was very sparse for most people (I had a sundae!)

After our break we were back on the bus and went to the Katyn Forest memorial. At Katyn Forrest 21,000 Polish elite were rounded up and executed by the Russians, simply for being smart, which was a threat to Stalin. When this was discovered the Russians blamed the German's (easy targets after WWII) and tried to divert attention by building a memorial at Khatyn Village (which I will describe later). In 1990 Gorbachev finally admitted to a mild version of the events that transpired here. The memorial here is very serene, a pathway through the woods with little memorials throughout. I walked through with Tom and Stacey, and it was really nice

Then we were back on the bus and we made it over the Belarus border in less than an hour. Our first stop in Belarus was the Khatyn Village memorial. In Khatyn Village the Nazi's had rounded everyone from the town up, put them in a shed and burned it down. There were three survivors. Two girls, who went to live in another village, and they were killed when that village was also burned alive. The other survivor was Josef Kaminski, who was the man modeled in the Unconquered Man statue, he is holding his son, who he found at the site after the Nazi's left. He worked at the memorial and was often seen caring for different parts of the memorial over the years. At the memorial, soil was taken from each of the 618 villages burned to create part of this memorial; the cemetery of villages has a plot for each of the 185 villages that were never rebuilt. The bells at the village ring every 30 seconds, representing some (I think the rate that Belarusian's died in the war) rate of death during WWII. There is also a Memory Wall with a plaque and alcove for each of the concentration camps and sites of mass extermination within Belarus. The memorial was very nice, and Justine and I wandered through and actually talked a little French as we looked at everything. We also saw our last bride here. Throughout Russia we had seen brides and bridal parties all over the place, and especially at war memorials. Our Russian guides explained that in Russia it is tradition to go to a war memorial on your wedding day to pay tribute to those that gave their lives in the wars. Although the younger generation really doesn't know much about the wars, or what life was like back then (nor do they really care... as here in Canada as well), they still keep to the tradition of going to the memorials, which I thought was really sweet.

We continued through Belarus, and made our way to Minsk! Here we had a city tour, and I was amazed to see how beautiful the city is! I really didn't know what to expect in Belarus, but I was thinking it would probably be fairly run down and dirty and grey. But it was the opposite! Everything was clean and beautiful, and for some reason reminded me of the song "Shiny Happy People Holding Hands"!! On the tour we saw the KGB building, Independence Square, October Square, and we stopped at the Island of Tears for some photos.

The next stop for the night was supper, and Che had warned us that we normally get an exploding Chicken Kiev for supper. This evening was no different, although it didn't really explode so much as slowly seep buttery goodness out. Although Donna's did have a bit of an explosion! There was also the world's smallest wedding going on. There was a bride and a bridal party at one table... and I swear that was all that was there for the wedding! After supper we had time to stop at a supermarket for lunch the next day and I stocked up on chips, gummy candies and other junk food as everything here was ridiculously cheap. The store was also a normal grocery store where you could walk through and pick whatever you wanted to eat, which was a real treat after all the communist grocery stores! At the till I was paying and Tom and Troy were one till over when suddenly Tom's nose started to bleed. Luckily I was standing next to a Kleenex display and was able to toss a travel pack over to Tom. He was pretty embarrassed, and figured it was some sort of sign that he should stay in and relax that night!

Back at the hotel I changed and met Jenn, Stacey, Kristy, David and Rhian downstairs as we were all heading downtown to see the city. Of the whole tour I think us six and maybe a handful of others were the only ones that decided to go out and I was really surprised as we only had one day in Belarus! We took the metro downtown, and then made a quick stop at October Square for some photos. Here David complained that the girls were taking forever to take pictures and he was in need of a beer! After a couple more photos we wandered down the main street and saw a small outdoor pub were we stopped for a drink. Here some strange local fellow kept trying to talk to me, even though we established in about 30 second that I didn't speak Russian and he didn't speak English! But he still spent about 5 minutes trying to talk to me in line for drinks! Although when we were all outside enjoying our drinks he did become useful as he took a photo of the six of us! We all had a drink and then the place was closing down, so we headed to our next stop. It was kind of strange as we walked through the city that night as there was hardly anyone out, and it was a Saturday night!

We were looking for a club called "Night Star" that our guide that day had told us about. When we found the club we discovered it had a cover charge, and Kristy, Stacey and I had only exchanged €15 each, and the cover charge would pretty much wipe us out for money! Jenn really wanted to go in the club, but in the end we all ended up going to an Irish pub next door and having a couple drinks there.

Then we headed back to the metro, and discovered that we must have gotten the times wrong because we had missed the last metro of the night. We had to separate into two groups of three and cabbed it back to the McDonald's next to the hotel. Mackers had a 'walk through' window, and the wait was actually a lot of fun. David, Jenn and Stacey were ahead of us, then there was a group of three Belarussian guys, and then Rhian, Kristy and myself. We ended up talking to the Belarussian's around us for the wait and it was pretty entertaining, although most of the people didn't speak much English. When we had our food we went to a table and ate and chatted with the people we'd just met. One claimed to speak French so David called me over... but I think he know about three French words! There was also a military guy that we were all talking to, but we couldn't take any photos of him... but he did let me wear his hat for one picture! After we finished out food and said good-bye to our Belarussian friends we headed back to the hotel and then to sleep around 3am.