Lifetrippin. "In the land of Lukashenka" pt.2

part one of my story here.

9th of May in Belarus is a special day. Victory Day over the fascists. It is celebrated with a huge military parade, together with a variety of events for young and old as a follow-up. One of our goals for this trip, was to see this parade, as it is quite an extraordinary experience. Unfortunately, in order to make it for the start, we had to leave Grodno at 5 in the morning, as the parade had to begin at 9 a.m. and to last only for 4 hours. We decided to skip this possibility, as it would influence our further plans. So around 11 a.m., we headed to the bus station, and were lucky to be offered a place to go in a private mini-van, for a cheaper price (120 000 Belarussian rubles), together with a possibility to arrive to Minsk a bit as faster. There were 5 passengers all together with us. The quality of the road was good, we drove quite fast, and again, the surroundings looked very clean and ...green. On our way we also noticed, so-called agro-villages, those specially focusing on the production of groceries. I think super-eco-natural as well. 

Lifetrippin. "In the land of Lukashenka" pt.1

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“.