Recipe for the Perfect Weekend

Take a true Brit, a Belarusian/American, Uppa Holland and a Hungarian and watch… :) 

Of course you need Belarus as well. 

Bon appétit!

Chernobyl and its Aftermath

I’m interested to a great extent in the history of the USSR and thus, that of the post-soviet region. The Chernobyl incident not only destroyed the lives of many people, but it also was one of the last blows given to the Soviet Union’s economy, thus (significantly) contributing to its disintegration. Belarus has been the most affected by the radioactive contamination unfortunately. Though the cultivation of different goods had always been important, the catastrophe as such set the production back a lot.

I don’t want to write in great details about the whole matter, since tremendous amount of information is available on the subject. I just advise you to watch this uncanny and outstanding documentary of the catastrophe. You can find it on the following link:

 Chernobyl uncensored - Documentary

Пока!

Last Saturday

I couldn’t have spent my last Saturday better. It was actually the best Saturday in Minsk.  It was a day of time travelling, good conversations and bafflement.

I met Женя (Zhenya) a few CS meetings ago. Born in Belarus, grown up in the US, he is a man of great spirit. It doesn’t happen often, that you meet people with whom you can speak so honestly after a short period of time. We spent the day talking and walking around. We ended up at the Дворец Спорта (Palace of Sport), which turned out to be great. At some point we met Uppa Holland as well. He was wandering around the place. Drinking cheap festival beer we watched the people, listened to the concerts and watched parts of the Sweden-Russian match, where Sweden got defeated.

It’s been incredible seeing all the people drinking, dancing, rooting for their team, singing and having fun. The music was sometimes just horrible, but it fitted the time and the place. I couldn’t stop taking photos and really just wished I could have just taken all those people with me. I had the perfect partner for observing the crowd. It was perfect as it was and moving. It’s a pity that that many people don’t know much about Belarus. In fact, it’s such a lovely place.  I’m going to miss the people.

I hope that I’ve managed to grab the moments of the day through my photos. 

Enjoy.

Pictures  

Пока!

Tales of May II

New photos here...

May continues with sweltering, humid weather and even shorter skirts. My feelings are mixed: on the one hand I am happy to return home, but on the other hand I am going to miss the people I got to know here. Especially the CS meetings. Anyway, 1 week to go and I leave the borders of Belarus. Brace yourself Budapest! I am returning!

This humid weather arrived so suddenly, that it took me by surprise. I don’t have many suitable clothes, but I am going to survive the remaining days. We had some “Blastery Days”, like in Winnie-the-Pooh (for this reason I watched this childhood favourite for the thousandth time). This year I had to miss our lovely Easter tradition, in the course of which the girls get watered by enthusiastic boys so as not to wither… for this reason I decided to water myself by getting out in the rain and getting soaked to the skin. It was refreshing in this crazy weather.

I can merrily say that after all it seems to be that I’ll be able to leave the country.  It is the peculiarity of this country that you always find yourself panicking when it comes to dealing with your visa. To cut a long story short: you shall never worry! The essence of the phenomenon can be perfectly explained again with the Russian word Сейчас („now”). Patience is the key. I got my residence permit prolonged, I got my exit visa and my Russian transit visa is under way. I can fetch it on 29 May.

The last days in the class are quite interesting: in our textbook the text was about anti-fascism and neo-Nazis, which is quite an interesting topic to discuss with students from so different countries (currently: from Turkey, China, Switzerland and Hungary). It is great that the writers of contemporary textbooks include such topics as well.

In this week I again want to say a big thank you for the CS meeting, which has been spent with lovely people, as usual.

Though my mind was troubled because of the visas and in addition I had a persistent stomach ache throughout the week, I had a few hours of mirth. Luckily, the stomach ache is over, but now my companion is a sharp pain in the back (i.e. my waist), which makes me walk around like a proper babooshka. Hurrey!

I was meditating on what I’m going to miss from Belarus, besides the friends. The list is sort of ready:

1. сырок : ~Túró Rudi/ a sweet miracle with cottage cheese. Big selection, lovely variety.
2. Масло = Butter: Surprisingly good!
3. Хлеб = Bread: I loved the variety of brown breads already in Finland, and the same goes for Belarus. They are the cheapest option and they taste great!
4. Бублики = it’s like a sweet “pretzel” and comes in a round form. It’s a Russian invention. You can see strings of them in some shops.
5. Сметана = tejföl/ sour cream: Just like home! Such a comfort! Though here I tasted some that are even better than some of ours.
6. Морожоное = ice cream. No comments needed.

Tomorrow I’m heading to Minsk Arena, to take a few shots of the crazy fans of hockey! :) Semifinals and the finals are coming on the weekend.

Пока!

Travelling in Belarus III: Grodno/Гродно

I visited this nice little town on 18^th May, last Sunday.

My train arrived quite early, at 6AM. I rested for a while in the train station, then I spent the day walking around and taking photos. It was the day when my stomach ache started, so it overshadowed my experience a bit, but in spite of this, Grodno became one of my favourite cities in the country.

I visited a couple of churches and it was interesting that everywhere they seemed to have a holiday. All the churched were stuffed. At one of the churches children had their first Holy Communion. At one of the Orthodox churches people were shouting. Maybe it is part of the Pentecost period.

Photos of Grodno 

Now let’s talk about the history of the region and the city.

The region is situated on the northwest part of Belarus and has borders with Poland and Lithuania. Here lives the majority of the Polish minority of the country. Very often you can see Polish writing on the streets.

The region is famed for its classical architecture. The centre of Grodno is even considered a special architectural zone by law. The city was first mentioned in 1127 in the Primary Chronicle. By 1280 the region became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the coming centuries the city, - as well as the rest of the country - saw many battles and fierce fights. The 20^th Century was yet another busy period. The area “changed hands” many times and finally The Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 incorporated Grodno region into Poland. The Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, then when the country was divided up by Nazi Germany and the USSR under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of Non-Agression, an important engagement took place in and around Grodno between the Red Army and the Polish troops, as the Russian troops marched to protect the borders of the SU. One word to sum up the rest: Bloodshed! Grodno fell once more for the Germans in 1941. The liberating Soviet troops came too late to save the local Jewish people. The majority of them died in the concentration camps.

After having survived the ordeals of the 20^th Century, Grodno became one of the most major cities in Belarus.

It is a very calm and appealing city, with a population of ~ 277,000.

I think that it is quite easy to see all the sites just walking around in the city. I did not take advantage of the public transport. There are many churches in town, of which the Jesuit Farny Cathedral, the Bernadino Church and Seminary, and the Church of St. Christmas and the Blessed Virgin is absolutely worth checking out. My personal favourite was the last one. It is an Orthodox church with beautiful frescos. The oldest building in town is the Kolozhskaya Church of St Boris and St Hleb. I did not manage to get there unfortunately.

In the centre you can find Sovietskaya Square and Street. The street reminded me of the little town where I went to high school (Háromszoros hurrá Szentendrének!), so I particularly enjoyed walking around there.

There is a tank in the roundabouts nearby, which is nice and just a stone's throw away you can find on the riverside the rather strange and stunning building of the Drama Theatre. A must see!

It’s a buzzy little town! I enjoyed my stay there and it was yet again lovely to enjoy the benefits of platzkart. :)

Source: Nigel Roberts: Belarus

About the World Championship in Numbers

The Championship is happening, so I won’t pretend that it does not, despite the fact that I don’t wish to attend the matches. I just want to walk around Minsk Arena to take some photos and to observe the crowd for a while.

I did not have the intention of writing about the event, but Wednesday, on the CS meeting I got hold of my favourite newspaper in Minsk, Большой, where I read an interesting article. I will publish here a translation of the article. All the credit goes to the writer of the article. 

Those, who have a good command of Russian, may read the article online: bolshoi.by

So, let’s see those numbers!

16 – the number of the teams that fight with each other for the title of best hockey nation. Among the teams we can find teams with srong hockey past (e.g that of the USA and Canada) and there is for example France and Italy, who are not particularly known for their knowledge of hockey.

64 – the number of matches in the World Championship. It’s like an overdose for the fans of this sport.

5 – the number of years Belarus had been preparing for the games. It was decided on 5^th May 2009 that the Championship would be held here. Hungary (hurrey!), Latvia and Ukraine were the other “contestants” for organizing the event, but finally Belarus won.

11,4 – million euro. Practically, the budget of the world championship. It was spent on the construction of arenas, the town’s infrastructure, etc. Thanks to this amount of money the town underwent a great development.

50 – million dollars. The estimated amount of income for the arrangement of the World Championship (if I understand right)

23 – billion rubles. This money they spent on the different kind of souvenirs related to the Championship. By the way, the mascot of the championship is a bison, which can be found all over town. I’ve already uploaded a couple of pictures about it on Picasa.

64 – this amount of euro costs the cheapest pack for fans: it includes a ticket for the games, for the transport and the cost of one bed in the student village for 1 night. Packs for the VIP-section cost around 1000 euro.

10 – the number of the national dishes the restaurants and cafés in Minsk has the include on their menus. So don’t get too surprised if in a sushi-restaurant you’re being offered draniki as the place’s speciality.

I hope that it was as interesting for you, as it was for me. :)

Пока! :)