Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Pictures from Minsk, Vitebsk and Polotsk
Monday, June 25, 2012
From Minsk via Vitebsk, Polotsk, Grodno, Bialystok and Kaunas to Vilnius
Hi Friends,
as I am writing this I am sitting in
my motorhome at a camping area in Vilnius/Lithuania. So indeed I’m on my way
again, or better the trip has started seriously.
So last Monday I had a last lesson
with my teacher, in this motorhome as my motorcycle battery had been flat again
and I needed to get it checked where it was bought. It turns out that I have
(again) an electric problem, something is draining the battery… I went to
Yamaha in Bialystok, but they said it could be a lot of things and all they
could do was check the switch assembly for moisture which they did and dried
and asked me to keep the bike out of the rain… great Italian quality as these
bikes are made by Malaguti in Italy and Yamaha sticks their label on them… But
at least it has a kick starter (I know why I picked this bike as none of the
others has that feature anymore).
After a very nice sort of farewell
dinner with Vadim Matiushkin and a short visit at a joint military cemetery
where apparently Russian and German soldiers of the WW I were put to rest I
went home to do my preparations for departure to be finished the next morning.
Well, it took me till afternoon till finally everything was ‘ship-shape’. I
stopped by at the bank to give back the apartment keys and even was able to
thank and say farewell to Sergej Kostyuchenko and Wladimir Dedioul and Ivan.
They all made my stay so pleasant and comfortable! So it looks like ‘I’ll be
back’…
As I was that much delayed I decided
to go directly to Vitebsk.
Vadim had pre-warned the local branch manager Oleg Anatolevitch Gladyshuk who spoke
quite good German and met me as I arrived together with the manager of a hotel
(a Priorbank customer) who insisted that I stay there. The following morning I
was picked up for an extensive city tour including the bank, the war monument
and various churches some of which had to be reconstructed as they were blown
up after the war by the Soviets. W also went to the summer house of Ilya Repin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Repin
A lovely peaceful place, but again, a reconstruction as his daughter in 1930
after his death sold (had to sell?) the house
which had been designed by him (for fire wood to the peasants). He also
had preferred to stay in Finland
and not return to the USSR…
Also After lunch we went to the birth place of Mark Chagall. As he had decided
not to accept an invitation to return to his homeland the then government
refused a big gift of his works that he offered which is the reason that today
not a single work of him can be seen in BY. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Chagall
My next destination was Polotsk,
about an hour from Vitebsk
and there I was received by the local branch manager Nina Nikolayevna Drosdova
with the daughter Tanja, acting as interpreter, who normally is working at
Priorbank Minsk in the Credit Department. They immediately proceeded to show me
the very interesting orthodox cloister of St. Sophia, the local Saint. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polotsk One of the nuns even showed us the old church
founded by her and now under restoration, a sight that ‘normal tourists’ would
not be able to see. After that I was told to leave my ‘Datcha’ at a parking
lot, gather what I needed for the night and we proceeded to a hunting lodge
(correct: also a customer) where we had dinner and then I had to be an
overnight guest of the owner of that place very nicely located at on of the
many lakes of BY.
The next morning they picked me up
again and showed me the city which is the oldest in BY and now again has some
nice and interesting sights. Again, some of the churches, especially one of the
two cathedrals, had to be reconstructed, the other one facing the main square
can’t be reconstructed as the Soviets built a big and ugly apartment block
there… At least the Priorbank branch is in a nicely restored building right
next to the main square… As I wanted to sort out the electric problem of the
Yamaha at the dealer in Bialystok and also needed to pick up my second lock I
had to head towards Poland, and as fast as possible as Vadim also ‘organized’
the branch manager of Grodno to help me jump the cue at the border, but that
would work only before 7pm. So I drove as quickly as possible which resulted
eventually in a part of my bicycle carrier breaking. When I tried to fix it
provisionally a police car stopped and checked my papers, but again, no problem
or fine… The border crossing still took 2 hours despite the cue jumping.
I proceeded to Bialystok (abt 60kms) and found a place near
the university to spend the night. The next morning I did my errands including
stocking up on supples and at 3 met my dear friend from Raiffeisen Bank Poland in
Wrozlaw Teresa Kacniarz and her husband Wieslaw. She had just arrived for the
Golden Wedding Anniversary of her parents. We had a nice chat and dinner at her
sisters where also her nephew looked at my computer and couldn’t find anything
wrong. But now it works better although he insists that he didn’t do anything…
In the evening we went to town and watched Germany
against Greece.
Saturday morning after some more
shopping I set off towards Vilnius/Lithuania via Kaunas which was a nice and easy drive. In Kaunas I just arrived in time when Napoleon crossed the
river into Russia,
well, the reenactment of that event of 1812. It was just finished and I saw the
Russian and French soldiers just coming back from the battle ground and
settling down for their apparently well deserved beers. Yes, and I saw Napoleon
too, he looked a bit grumpy, maybe because he had some idea that this thing
won’t end as planned… Kaunas
is a nice town but her remaining churches are not all restored yet. Many old
buildings have been restored but there still will be a lot more to do… Kaunas, like in other places in Lithuania also has the doubtful
fame to have started killing Jews even before the Nazis arrived…
As I wanted to spend more time in Vilnius and as this
camping ground seems to be nicer I proceeded the 100kms and found the camping
place and settled in. I took the Yamaha, got it (kick-) started as the battery
was flat again, and went to explore the town. Vilnius has about 700000 inhabitants (before
the war abt 500000 about half of which were Jews). It reminds me of Salzburg because of the
many churches and the fact that the city is built on several hills. As I didn’t
have a proper map I promptly got lost on the way back and had to ‘hire’ a
police cat that I found at a gas station… They were really nice and it was the
first time in my life that I enjoyed following a police car…
After a comfortable sleep and doing
my laundry, cleaning the Datcha I drove to town for the ‘real’ sightseeing. To
sum it up: this town is worth a visit. It has charm and they did nice
restorations of most of the churches and hotels and food are nice. I took many
pictures but won’t bother you with all of them… By the way, it’s now 0130 and I
won’t include any pictures today but will do that most likely tomorrow… I’m
simply too tired now…
Oh yes, before I forget: I won’t go
to Kaliningrad!
I just read in my travel guide that it would be a waste of time as hardly
anything of old Kรถnigsberg is left and the Russians had done a thorough job of redesigning
the city…. I frankly also don’t fancy spending about 5 or more hours
getting in and out of that enclave. This will happen anyway soon when I want to
go to St. Peterburg…
So I’m putting this online because I
know that by now you expect the news and I don’t want to disappoint you. Please
stay well and tuned…
Monday, June 18, 2012
Week 6 with Ivyanets
Hi Friends,
my last week was again what one would
call ‘routine’ by now apart from a very enjoyable dinner with Vladimir Dedioul,
giving me some more insights into the Belarussian history and its present
situation.
Without going into details I can
summarize that during the 6 weeks I enjoyed here I have yet to encounter any
sign of opposition. This doesn’t mean that I deny it exists. All I’m saying is,
that I didn’t see any open expression of it, not in Minsk and not in the country and I did
several excursions. Also there was no unusual presence of police/militia. I
only got checked twice, once at the May 9th celebration (and there
my passport wasn’t even opened) and once for speeding (see last week’s blog).
At the 9th May event I saw a lot of plain clothes security but since
then, I couldn’t notice any (you’ll say, of course). The system might not be
democratic but until it supports the majority of the population to an extent
that most of the people I spoke to are more afraid of a change than the
perpetuation of the system. The majority of the population doesn’t have
experience with any ‘western’ system but only sees the developments in Russia
over the last years and those are definitely not what they would like to see.
One of the problems in changing the
system may be the unwillingness of the political forces to encourage a
generation of entrepreneurs. The system
still favors conformism and independent thinking is potentially dangerous.
While there is a small business culture emerging, really independent mid-size companies
(like e.g. in Poland or Austria or Germany) in private hands appear to
be rare. Now what I don’t yet understand, however, is what are the ladies and
gentlemen doing for a living that I see driving Porsche Carreras, Panameras, Cayennes, Lamborghinis, Maseratis,
large new BMWs, Mercedes and any other luxury brand that comes to your mind?
And these vehicles I see more frequently than in Vienna… The only shortage I noticed so far is
with respect to textiles. It is noticeable when looking at the length of skirts
and dresses which are considerably shorter than in Vienna… but admittedly, in general, it
doesn’t look unattractive…
Friday night I was invited at Ivan’s
for dinner. His wife Marina cooked heavenly and would that have happened more
often during my stay it would have ended in disaster… Ivan also invited his
previous English teacher, a delightful lady who gave me a break by speaking
English. Unfortunately also this week didn’t bring the great ‘break through’,
as expected, but every little bit of progress helps and from this week on there
will definitely be less opportunity to ‘escape’ to English…
During this week I also did some
planning of my journey onwards and found an internet address to contact for
information re camping possibilities in BY. I didn’t get much information but
an invitation to attend a festival (‘Fest’ in Russian) in Ivyanets a
town/village about 70 kms from Minsk.
The family consists of a lady who is a private teacher for Polish, English and
French, her husband and 3 kids (about 2, 5, 8 years old). Her husband raises
chicken and you could call them a family of the ‘New Belorussians’. Their house
is quite modest but soon will be rebuilt with a government backed BYR loan that
of which in fact only 25% has to be paid back and the interest rate is about
1%. This apparently is part of the support system for families which have at
least 3 kids….How long such programs will be financeable is the big question… I
had to, again, ‘endure’ BY hospitality which meant cheese Dranikis (a kind
of ‘Hamburger’ made from cheese, flower,
egg and whatever…) quite tasty… and then was taken for a tour through town
which has a really nice and recently renovated baroque church with attached
Franciscan monastery which was returned to the church and indeed has a
population of some Polish and Belorussian monks… The real attraction though
(and reason for my excursion) was the Fest, sponsored by a local sweets
factory. The whole town, I got the impression, was in costumes and performed a
play which moved through town to the festival place about 2 kms away. I didn’t
understand anything but quite obviously it was dealing with history of a few
hundred years back and at one time the fights looked quite authentic…
As it happens the founder of the KGB
Dzershinsky was born and raised near Ivenez and, of course, I had to be shown
his birth place and a big monument which now houses a museum (which was
closed). An almost identical monument stands opposite the local KGB in Minsk. His parents were
upper Polish aristocrats, however without much money, and the guy developed into Stalin’s worst
henchmen and rumor has it that he even killed his sister. The next larger town
near Minsk now
also carries his name (Dzyarzhynsk
or Dzerzhinsk; formerly Koydanava) Pse also refer to the links:
Interesting in this context I also
found that he apparently spoke Hebrew in addition to Polish and Russian. The
former synagogue in Ivyanets (the only wooden one in BY) recently was returned
to the Jewish community which, however, is very small after the murders during
WW II (see above link about Dzyarzhinsk).
Friday afternoon also my computer
went on the blink and it took Ivan’s friend more than a day to get it back up
again…. what will I do in the coming months without him?...
A last remark for those that might be
interested in what I recently read (the Odessa
file, also thanks to Ivan) and now am reading: The Black Swan, The Impact of
the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I can highly recommend it,
especially to bankers. I downloaded it on my Kindle which I got as farewell
present from my staff and which I really start to highly appreciate…
So till next week again… if you are
still interested…hopefully from Kaliningrad…
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