Belarus
The last dictatorship of Europe, how can you stop yourself from going to Belarus when you hear those words? Last year the leader Aleksandr Lukashenko finally made it possible to go to Belarus for a couple of days without a visa and my friend Erik and I decided to meet up in the capital Minsk. We took a cab into town and the driver offered us free water bottles that were lying in the taxi, but they seem to have been opened before so we never dared to drink it.
Beforehand this would possibly be the worst country I've ever went to, but they must have put all of their money into the capital because to my surprise it looked nice during the long taxi ride. Not a single one of those gigantic apartment complex looked worn-down, not even in the suburbs. We were beginning to think that all the beautiful women who looked like models, the casually relaxing people in the pedal boats on the cozy river and the heat from the sun must all be an illusion made up by Lukashenko, this can't be for real?
I thought nothing more of it and we went to Upper City which is the old town to try and find a bar which would show the game, but none would. The old city was beautiful and picturesque and reminded me of Lithuania's capital Vilnius, which is one of my favourite places.
It was hard to find a place to eat, not because there were no restaurants, but none of them had an English menu and they only speak Belarusian and Russian. The only thing we saw in English was a big sign at a hipster bar in the distance that read "The Prostitute Is Here". I tried to make Erik go there because I thought it was so outrageous to have a sign like that, but he refused. We settled for a pizza place nearby instead and by mistake I ordered a pizza that was big enough to feed a whole family. Sweden unexpectedly won the game by 3-0 and went onto the round of 16 and I dropped my jaw and got into a mood of celebration. I almost forced Erik to go with me to the bar with the prostitute sign and when we came up close we saw that it read Thai Prostitute Is Here, which didn't make it any better. The place looked cool though, trashy and fancy at the same time and we both ordered the Thai prostitute, yeah well since it was the name of a drink!
Suddenly we had too move from the outdoor seating because a couple would get married there. A woman came in her normal clothes and put flowers she had picked herself all over the place. Then the man came in his normal clothes and they sat down, listened to some classical love songs and made out for a couple of hours. I guess a wedding is celebrated a bit different here.
We went by the Island Of Tears on our way back to the hotel and saw the crying guardian angel.
"The island is a memorial commemorating Soviet soldiers from Belarus who died in the decade-long war with Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. The centrepiece is the chapel, with haunting figures of grieving mothers, sisters and widows at its base. A nearby fountain features the boy-like figure of an angel, rigged up to cry teardrops. You may notice that a certain part of his anatomy is shinier than the rest. This is explained by the tradition of newlyweds visiting war memorials on their wedding day, and a modern folk belief that if the bride gropes this poor young lad’s privates she’ll be guaranteed children."
We noticed a guy in his 20's who stood and took pictures next to the angel, and we didn't know why but we both thought something was odd with him, he stood out somehow.
When we came back to the hotel I couldn't log into my Facebook account, but Erik could. I was beginning to think they had banned me for what I had written to the picture earlier. I didn't think it was controversial but I couldn't see any other reason for me not to be able to log in, and after all we're in a dictatorship. We had almost forgot about that since we enjoyed the city so much. I didn't get much sleep that night because I was afraid I had offended the government and I was scared of what could happen to me.
The next day I tried to forget about the ban and we went to see the Great Patriotic War Museum by Erik's request. On our way there we could see they were getting ready for the yearly war parade where they have tanks and stuff like that go through the city while the people stand and cheer them on. It felt like a joke but they are serious about it, and it made me feel like I had went into a time machine and gone back to the 1930/40s.
The museum looked majestic from outside and inside it was the same old relics from war.
I'm not that interested in it so we went to an amusement park instead to play some old arcade games from the Soviet era.
In the evening we had some vodka and took a cab to the National Library Of Belarus in the outskirts of town. It looks amazing in daylight with it's odd structure but even more so in the evening when it lights up.
Unfortunately they have sold a part of its beauty to some companies who wants their name to be seen on it as a commercial, but other than that it was amazing. Now remember that we're far from the city and who do you think we see? The guy in his 20's from the Island Of Tears with his camera again, it was so weird that we joked about him being a spy who followed us around.
We had some more to drink at a playground in the suburb of Belarus to celebrate my birthday and I climbed a miniature of the Eiffel Tower and pretended to be King Kong.
That's the only right way to celebrate your birthday! We knew it was illegal to drink in public but I think it was pretty obvious that we were drunk since Erik walked right into a woman by mistake and I almost did the same. We noticed a white trash fashion in the suburb of the girls wearing sandals with some puffy pink thing on them.
We went back into town to continue the celebration of my birthday and we ended up at the bar that we loved so much from the day before. We met Vera and her boyfriend at the outdoor seating and it was fun and interesting to talk to someone who had been living all of their lives in Belarus. This is one of the things I enjoy the most with my travels, to hear about lives that are completely different yet quite similar to mine and we had a great evening together. It was the perfect end to a surprisingly great visit to Belarus. I asked them if we could keep contact through Facebook and when Vera tried to add me she couldn't, it was blocked. She could add Erik though and now it was pretty clear that the government had blocked me. I was happy to be able to leave the country the next day without any problems, and I was also happy to survive the flight going to Helsinki in Finland. It was a Belarusian flight and it was the smallest and oldest plane that I have ever seen, it felt like something from a bad comedy where the plane would break into pieces but I survived to tell this story!
* Best things about Belarus – the beautiful people seem so relaxed and they enjoy life while strolling around in a slow pace in the beautiful city, I had some amazing drinks at the bar Cherdak and the river is a beautiful focus point for the city, I also enjoyed to see another side of Minsk when we went out in the suburbs to see the National Library and all in all I'm very happily surprised by the country
* Most mediocre thing about Belarus – the war museums look the same all over the world, but if you're really interested in it you can go
* Worst things about Belarus – the dictatorship is horrible, it left a bad taste to a nearly perfect visit, and stop the commercials at the National Library, it looks so much better without it
Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):
1. USA
2. Croatia
3. Montenegro
4. Andorra
5. Cyprus
6. Turkey
7. Greece
8. Italy
9. Spain
10. Monaco
11. Malta
12. Netherlands
13. Iceland
14. Denmark
15. Sweden
16. Lithuania
17. Macedonia
18. Armenia
19. Portugal
20. Hungary
21. Slovakia
22. Belarus
23. Slovenia
24. Austria
25. New Zealand
26. Ireland
27. Germany
28. United Kingdom
29. Belgium
30. Poland
31. Vatican City
32. Estonia
33. Czech Republic
34. Switzerland
35. San Marino
36. Kosovo
37. Romania
38. Finland
39. Latvia
40. Azerbaijan
41. Georgia
42. Moldova
43. Norway
44. Ukraine
45. France
46. Bulgaria
47. Luxembourg
48. Liechtenstein
49. China
50. Serbia
51. Bosnia And Herzegovina
52. Albania
Beforehand this would possibly be the worst country I've ever went to, but they must have put all of their money into the capital because to my surprise it looked nice during the long taxi ride. Not a single one of those gigantic apartment complex looked worn-down, not even in the suburbs. We were beginning to think that all the beautiful women who looked like models, the casually relaxing people in the pedal boats on the cozy river and the heat from the sun must all be an illusion made up by Lukashenko, this can't be for real?
I loved it from the get-go and we went to see the monument to fallen Jewish people on March 2 1942 to pay respect to the dark history of the young country that declared independence in the early 90s from USSR. As Sweden and Mexico would play World Cup football in the neighbouring country Russia this day, I posted on Facebook that I was sad to miss the game since I was in Belarus instead of Russia and I included the picture of me by the monument to show I was in Belarus.
I thought nothing more of it and we went to Upper City which is the old town to try and find a bar which would show the game, but none would. The old city was beautiful and picturesque and reminded me of Lithuania's capital Vilnius, which is one of my favourite places.
It was hard to find a place to eat, not because there were no restaurants, but none of them had an English menu and they only speak Belarusian and Russian. The only thing we saw in English was a big sign at a hipster bar in the distance that read "The Prostitute Is Here". I tried to make Erik go there because I thought it was so outrageous to have a sign like that, but he refused. We settled for a pizza place nearby instead and by mistake I ordered a pizza that was big enough to feed a whole family. Sweden unexpectedly won the game by 3-0 and went onto the round of 16 and I dropped my jaw and got into a mood of celebration. I almost forced Erik to go with me to the bar with the prostitute sign and when we came up close we saw that it read Thai Prostitute Is Here, which didn't make it any better. The place looked cool though, trashy and fancy at the same time and we both ordered the Thai prostitute, yeah well since it was the name of a drink!
Now we could relax, they didn't have any real prostitutes there, they only had awesome drinks with awful names. Erik asked the waiter if he could recommend another drink and he pointed at a drink that was supposed to not come in a bottle or glass. He came out with the drink in a bag that you carry a goldfish in and the slice of orange made it look like there was a fish swimming in it too.
Suddenly we had too move from the outdoor seating because a couple would get married there. A woman came in her normal clothes and put flowers she had picked herself all over the place. Then the man came in his normal clothes and they sat down, listened to some classical love songs and made out for a couple of hours. I guess a wedding is celebrated a bit different here.
We went by the Island Of Tears on our way back to the hotel and saw the crying guardian angel.
"The island is a memorial commemorating Soviet soldiers from Belarus who died in the decade-long war with Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989. The centrepiece is the chapel, with haunting figures of grieving mothers, sisters and widows at its base. A nearby fountain features the boy-like figure of an angel, rigged up to cry teardrops. You may notice that a certain part of his anatomy is shinier than the rest. This is explained by the tradition of newlyweds visiting war memorials on their wedding day, and a modern folk belief that if the bride gropes this poor young lad’s privates she’ll be guaranteed children."
We noticed a guy in his 20's who stood and took pictures next to the angel, and we didn't know why but we both thought something was odd with him, he stood out somehow.
When we came back to the hotel I couldn't log into my Facebook account, but Erik could. I was beginning to think they had banned me for what I had written to the picture earlier. I didn't think it was controversial but I couldn't see any other reason for me not to be able to log in, and after all we're in a dictatorship. We had almost forgot about that since we enjoyed the city so much. I didn't get much sleep that night because I was afraid I had offended the government and I was scared of what could happen to me.
The next day I tried to forget about the ban and we went to see the Great Patriotic War Museum by Erik's request. On our way there we could see they were getting ready for the yearly war parade where they have tanks and stuff like that go through the city while the people stand and cheer them on. It felt like a joke but they are serious about it, and it made me feel like I had went into a time machine and gone back to the 1930/40s.
The museum looked majestic from outside and inside it was the same old relics from war.
I'm not that interested in it so we went to an amusement park instead to play some old arcade games from the Soviet era.
In the evening we had some vodka and took a cab to the National Library Of Belarus in the outskirts of town. It looks amazing in daylight with it's odd structure but even more so in the evening when it lights up.
Unfortunately they have sold a part of its beauty to some companies who wants their name to be seen on it as a commercial, but other than that it was amazing. Now remember that we're far from the city and who do you think we see? The guy in his 20's from the Island Of Tears with his camera again, it was so weird that we joked about him being a spy who followed us around.
We had some more to drink at a playground in the suburb of Belarus to celebrate my birthday and I climbed a miniature of the Eiffel Tower and pretended to be King Kong.
That's the only right way to celebrate your birthday! We knew it was illegal to drink in public but I think it was pretty obvious that we were drunk since Erik walked right into a woman by mistake and I almost did the same. We noticed a white trash fashion in the suburb of the girls wearing sandals with some puffy pink thing on them.
We went back into town to continue the celebration of my birthday and we ended up at the bar that we loved so much from the day before. We met Vera and her boyfriend at the outdoor seating and it was fun and interesting to talk to someone who had been living all of their lives in Belarus. This is one of the things I enjoy the most with my travels, to hear about lives that are completely different yet quite similar to mine and we had a great evening together. It was the perfect end to a surprisingly great visit to Belarus. I asked them if we could keep contact through Facebook and when Vera tried to add me she couldn't, it was blocked. She could add Erik though and now it was pretty clear that the government had blocked me. I was happy to be able to leave the country the next day without any problems, and I was also happy to survive the flight going to Helsinki in Finland. It was a Belarusian flight and it was the smallest and oldest plane that I have ever seen, it felt like something from a bad comedy where the plane would break into pieces but I survived to tell this story!
* Best things about Belarus – the beautiful people seem so relaxed and they enjoy life while strolling around in a slow pace in the beautiful city, I had some amazing drinks at the bar Cherdak and the river is a beautiful focus point for the city, I also enjoyed to see another side of Minsk when we went out in the suburbs to see the National Library and all in all I'm very happily surprised by the country
* Most mediocre thing about Belarus – the war museums look the same all over the world, but if you're really interested in it you can go
* Worst things about Belarus – the dictatorship is horrible, it left a bad taste to a nearly perfect visit, and stop the commercials at the National Library, it looks so much better without it
Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):
1. USA
2. Croatia
3. Montenegro
4. Andorra
5. Cyprus
6. Turkey
7. Greece
8. Italy
9. Spain
10. Monaco
11. Malta
12. Netherlands
13. Iceland
14. Denmark
15. Sweden
16. Lithuania
17. Macedonia
18. Armenia
19. Portugal
20. Hungary
21. Slovakia
22. Belarus
23. Slovenia
24. Austria
25. New Zealand
26. Ireland
27. Germany
28. United Kingdom
29. Belgium
30. Poland
31. Vatican City
32. Estonia
33. Czech Republic
34. Switzerland
35. San Marino
36. Kosovo
37. Romania
38. Finland
39. Latvia
40. Azerbaijan
41. Georgia
42. Moldova
43. Norway
44. Ukraine
45. France
46. Bulgaria
47. Luxembourg
48. Liechtenstein
49. China
50. Serbia
51. Bosnia And Herzegovina
52. Albania
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