Three
days. It took me just three days, to finally, fully and forever realize one very easy point–
„Don’t be a victim of someone’s opinion. Prove it by yourself “.
Belarus.
Land which seemed always so close to me, yet somehow so far. For me, as an Ukrainian, living in Western Ukraine, it would take me around 4 hours to get to
Belarus (distance is small, but road is awful, and I mean really awful). However,
my road seemed always not on the right way. Only once I have travelled through
Belarus whilst I was going to Estonia. Surprisingly, during that trip I have no
memorable flashbacks stored, that is maybe due to the fact that the trip was
quite tiring with lots of custom check-ups and so on. The fact that we don’t
need visa there, and it would be relatively cheap trip as well as one full of
surprises, seemed not persuading enough. „Lukashenko is watching everyone“,
„You will get into trouble“, „What will You do there?“, „They have nothing but
potatoes“, „It's communism out there“. These and many other popular stereotypes
and media paradigms seem funny, yet again they can influence your attitude,
thoughts and expectations. Cannot say, that it was totally in my case, but
somehow I didn't go there. But finally, having found time and most importantly
perfect traveler (Roksana), as well as purpose, I managed to make a short time acquaintance
with this „last dictatorship in Europe“.
So, the
official reason for the visit was - World Ice Hockey Championship,
which was being held in Minsk. The game we had tickets to, was Slovakia vs.
Czech Republic. As a person living in Slovakia, and being with strong
connection with it, I was of course rather eager to see them succeed.
Our
trip started in Krakow, where via service called "blablacar.pl" we
had a ride to Bialystok. The price was rather cheap(we agreed on 60 zlotych) and had
to be comfortable, as it would take us only 7 hours to travel through almost
all the Poland. So it was on theory, but on practice, the car of the driver
broke down. We were near Kielce, near the highroad (read in middle of nothing), the rain started, so we had
quickly to react in order to catch the bus, train or whatever to get at least
to Warsaw. Luckily we managed to catch a train (1 minute was left until its departure),
and even more luckily to find another "blablacar.pl" offer from
Warsaw to Bialystok. Thus, the time schedule planned before was almost perfect,
as for the finances, we suffered a loss of 20 zlotych each. Still very good though. Apartment
we rented was cheap, comfortable and not far away from everything. This unexpected adventure, and short time acquintence with Kielce and Warsaw, made us tired though exited for further days.
Early in the morning, having bought some provision for the road from Biedronka, we went to the
bus station of the city, and had to wait just 20 mins for the next bus (they departure
basically every 30-40 mins). In meanwhile we tried to find the exchange office
to get some Belarussian rubles, but in three of them, all they had was only 20 000, which
is nearly 1 euro and 30 cents in value. And they wanted to sell it for 2.60.
Rather not, and no need to exchange such "amount" of cash. It killed us some time before our bus, oh sorry, personal
taxi. Let's call like that, as we were the only passengers on the board. The
road to the boarder took us around 1 hour in a very slow tempo. It was raining
kinda hard, and we were not in such hurry, so it was ok. We slowly reached the
customs, and were kind of impressed with really long queue of cars, trucks and
buses waiting, but even more were we surprised, that the driver went to a
particular bus platform. I think the reason was, that it was a special one, for
those travelling with the tickets to the Hockey Championship. Thirty minutes of
looking through the window on the people, who had to pack off all of the stuff
they bought, doing that in the next platform. Though it seemed for them quite
natural. Well, "foreign" hand trade at its best. Quite profitable,
but you have to pay other price - time. Time or money? Choice is yours.
As for
our time, we were already hitting the road, which was good, clean, and with all
the nature around, even seemed green. As we approached our next city on the map -
Grodno, first signs of the upcoming major event appeared. Thirty minutes later and we
were riding through the town, and already catching a really good impression from it. And as we
arrived at the train station, first thing to do - change the money, find
our apartment and afterwards explore the surroundings. Our flat was really
nice, new and fancy (with jacuzzi, hooray), as well as for relatively cheap price.
Well,
speaking about money. The conversation rate (as mentioned above) is 1 euro for
around 14 000 Belarussian rubles. If you change 100 euros, BUM, and you are a millionaire.
Simple as that. But honestly speaking, it made a psychologically good feeling on us.
Maybe it’s a good mind trick played by the government? More on that later.
As we
took off to explore the city and its most famous sightseeing places, it
finalized the good impression about it. We liked it. We wondered through main streets,
visited churches, big squared, amazing parks, clean streets and even tanks. I promised to Roksana that we will try some
traditional Belarussian food, or at least something from ex-Soviet state cuisines. As we were
wondering through the city with the mission to find some restaurant (turned out
to be a hard task actually, but maybe wrong streets), we dropped by some ground
level bistro-bar, which looked rather specific, but what might could have been
a place with good food. Unfortunately to us, it was no longer making food,
as....the cooking ladies have already begun their pre-holiday drinking feast.
Oh yes, holidays. 9th of May is the Victory day, commemorating the win over
fascist Germany. And yes, drinking, or would I rather say consuming alcohol
level, which was visible on the streets. But, let's not judge, as everyone knows
how to celebrate better, on his own opinion.
And
back to the food issue. A place we found is a typical "bar near the
station". Meaning, every local knows it’s good, even though the place doesn't look
nice. It was proven on practice, as many orders were taken. So we took the courage and
ordered chiburekki, a traditional dish of Crimean Tatars (well also of
other Turk nations). But for me it always makes a flashback of my time at the Black Sea.
"Haryachie chiburekki, pakupaem chiburekki!" (Hot chiburekki, buy
chiburekki), a phrase You can always hear on the beach of the Black sea from
the food retailers. But yes, you can also try it anywhere, as it was rather adopted as
a common food in Soviet states and widely spread. And Roksana, really liked local variant of it.
As she is a cooking expert, that's a compliment for the bar and the receipt itself. Next time - more food from Ukrainian Crimea.
After buying some food souvenirs from the supermarket and benefiting from the discount on them, kindly offered by one old lady in the queue, we walked to our appartment as we saw the sun go down, and end for us this amazing day.
to be continued...
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