Xmas Trip to Belarus (Part 2/4) - Minsk: Blast From the Past
Updated: Mar 31, 2019
Alternative Christmas
After a couple of pleasant if uneventful days spent wondering around Brest’s provincial streets we moved to the capital, Minsk. Temperatures had risen to zero and there was a thaw in the air, slush underfoot, which was making getting around a soggy affair. The train network in Belarus is extensive and inexpensive – the three hundred kilometre journey took four hours and cost $5, though queuing up and buying tickets proved a challenge with all signs in Cyrillic, no English speakers anywhere, and long queues. We travelled on December 25th, but there was no disruption to our travel plans as Christmas is celebrated two weeks later (January 6th) in Belarus as in all Orthodox Christian countries. It was getting light at around 9.30am and getting dark at 6.30pm, which has an oddly discombobulating effect on the body clock, though it’s ideal for late risers like myself. Minsk, a city of 2 million people, for most people conjures up no exotic images, and is synonymous with drab, Soviet conformist architecture and cold, wide, featureless boulevards, having been almost completely rebuilt after the destruction of WWII or ‘The Great War’ (as Russian speakers refer to it). This was indeed the first impression, and with a persistent cold sleet falling as we left the station – another grand building – it was not the most memorable entrance to the capital.
Gradually though, after a couple of days spent wandering the city, its frostiness melted away slightly. It may not have fired my imagination but the neo-classical, functional grandness and glitziness of Minsk’s main shopping street, the unpronounceable Nyezhavisymosty (replete with most of the high street brands you’d expect in a European capital) was fascinating and unexpected. Hummers, Mercedes and BMWs line the roads - there is hardly a Lada to be seen - whilst people are well-dressed, young men and women in all the latest fashions. The streets are spotless and orderly, graffiti is entirely absent. Police are everywhere but don’t bother the tourist. Not the backward city I had been expecting, in short. Yet appearances are often deceptive. The majority of Belarusians live on the breadline, basic commodities are pricey for most and the country has been close to financial meltdown with several devaluations of the ruble.
Soviet-era Time Capsule?
How this added up was a mystery until Alexei, a student at Minsk University I met one night, explained to me: “Appearance is important here so although you may own a smart car and a widescreen TV, you might be eating bread and cabbage soup every day. Meat maybe once or twice a week. Vodka is the one luxury people allow themselves.” Like Russia, Belarus has some of the highest alcohol consumption rates in the world, and obviously the health issues which go along with that. Life expectancy is only 69 for men, 70 for women. Interestingly, cigarettes were also very affordable. The point of having savings in a country where you’re not sure if your savings will be worth anything the next day must have a powerful effect on consumerist instincts though, and alcohol is also seen as an escape. He also pointed out the costly bars: “People cannot afford to go out unless they are on western wages, which is why restaurants and bars in Minsk are so pricey – they are not for locals.” It seemed a kind of Alice Through the Looking Glass-effect had taken hold in Minsk, which gave it a bizarre curiosity factor. Whatever western observers may say though, Minsk is no Soviet time–capsule when it comes to shopping. Although the famous GUM and TSUM Soviet-era store still exist, stocking often dated, kitsch or tawdry Russian products, huge shopping malls like Stolitsa near Ploshad Lenina with all the latest western brands attest to the fact that the consumerist spirit is alive and well in Belarus.This does not extend to the hostel scene in Minsk unfortunately, the city being more or less bereft of quality budget accommodation. Our cosy place, New Hostel was more like a homestay than a hostel with only a couple of dorms and a small kitchen, but was well-placed and central. It was one of the very few places in the lower price range, Minsk being more aimed at the business traveller than the backpacker. Our hostel owner, though reluctant to speak her mind regarding the president (a common feature in the country after years of repression), did opine that the government makes it extremely difficult for such small businesses to exist, with mountains of bureaucracy and high taxation preventing lower prices being an option.
Forking Out
Provided you have a moderately sturdy wallet, Minsk also offers the visitor a decent array of cafes, bars and restaurants, many of which are surprisingly swanky. Local food is well-represented, the best place to try local specialities being one of the point-and-grab style places where workers tend to go such as Lido or Maestro. The advantage of such places is that you get charged local rates, unlike in some restaurants where the English menu often does not feature any prices, leaving the tourist wide open to being overcharged. Sushi, as in Warsaw and everywhere else these days, seems to be the latest craze sweeping the city, and there is everything from Azeri to French to Thai dotting the city, whilst young urban types pass their days in mellow cafes sipping lattes, much as they do in the rest of Europe. By night, the city lets its hair down – well, at least half-way, and there are plenty of bars serving a surprising array of western brands around the centre. Rakovsky Brovar is a place serving a micro-beer brewed on the premises, and the Belarusians certainly have a growing taste for the frothy stuff after years of vodka consumption.
No Logo A thing you notice in Minsk, and the whole country, is a lack of advertising hoardings adorning every available public space, and this, along with no high-rise buildings and plenty of green areas, gives the city a sense of space, of open skies. You are able to breathe, especially when you escape the traffic along the river Svislach or Gorky Park. Minsk is often compared favourably to Moscow in this respect, and with good reason – Russia’s capital suffers from some of the worst traffic and pollution problems in the world, and is a place where escaping ambient noise is virtually impossible. Surprisingly, unlike other countries I had visited with autocrats in charge, there are very few pictures of the leader around, though there are plenty of nationalistic messages on buildings and billboards to stir the patriotic heart.
Another interesting oddity in the suburbs is that many of the grey blocks are brightened up with colourful patriotic images of soldiers, healthy-looking farm workers and proletariat happy at work – bygone images from a lost age which would look out-of-place even in Russia or China today but which seem oddly at home in Belarus, nostalgic as it seems to be for bygone times. We trekked out to the outskirts of town to check out