Adventures in White Russia - aka Belarus
My first time passing through the Minsk international airport in Belarus was a bit unusual. Every county I have visited all over the world has rigorous passport control. We landed in Minsk from Moscow on Aeroflot flight 1157. It was a full flight and I was in the last row. My Russian distributor bought the plane tickets. Fortunately it is just a one hour flight. Exiting the plane, we followed the signs for baggage claim. Usually passport control/immigration would be located prior to baggage claim. I walked straight to baggage claim and then right out the door to the parking lot. I paid $500 to get the required entry visa and no one seemed to care that I was in their country.
Upon reaching the Hotel Minsk, the clerk checking me in took my passport for about 10 minutes for some reason. I suspect the hotel contacts immigration and advises of visitors in the country. We will see how this all works when I try to fly back to Moscow tonight at 7:30 pm.
Belarus seems to be a pleasant country. The capitol city of Minsk is not modern. It is reminiscent of the Soviet era design that every building must be huge. It is clean and not congested. Belarus does have a bit of unfortunate recent history with the Chernobyl nuclear plant nearby on the Ukraine boarder. Prior to the Crimean crisis Russia was building a containment cap over the radioactive areas in Chernobyl. With the Ukraine split from Russia all of all that work has stopped. The bankrupt government in Kiev will have to pay for it or not.
The Belarus government claims to be moving toward capitalism but the vast majority of food is produced on collective farms and the government owns a minimum of 51% of every industry. If an enterprising collective farmer wants start his own farm, he must rent the farm land from the collective. Of course the collective gives him the least fertile land so he is doomed to fail and must return to the collective.
“In 1994, the first presidential elections were held and Alexander Lukashenko was elected president of Belarus. Under Lukashenko, economic reforms were slowed. The 1996 referendum resulted in the amendment of the constitution that took key powers off the parliament. In 2001, he was re-elected as president in elections described as undemocratic by Western observers. At the same time the west began criticising him of authoritarianism. In 2006, Lukashenko was once again re-elected in presidential elections which were again criticised as flawed by most European Union countries. In 2010, Lukashenko was re-elected once again in presidential elections, which were described as flawed by most EU countries and institutions. A peaceful protest against the electoral fraud was attacked by riot police and by armed men dressed in black. After that, up to 700 opposition activists, including 7 presidential candidates, were arrested by KGB.”
In order to replace the aging population on the collective farms the government is building many single family homes in the countryside. This is to lure young families out of the more exciting cities to free housing on the boring collective farms.
My local distributor Yuri hired the English professor from a local business school to be my tour guide for the day. Oleg speaks English with a touch of a British accent. He looks like he is in his late 60’s but is a chain smoker and has been a chain smoker his entire life so he may be a bit younger. His hacking cough is not a sign of good health. Oleg describes the school where he teaches as an asylum for rich brats whose parents think their children should be business entrepreneurs. He advises they are a wholly unmotivated bunch.
Oleg shared his view on the history of Belarus. He claims the name of the country means Bela = white and Rus is short for Russia so it translates as white Russia. The white does not refer to skin color. Instead it means free. When the Mongol hoards took over parts of Europe the area called Belarus maintained their freedom. In The Russian language red means beautiful so I guess white can mean free.
We spent several hours visiting a traditional peasant farming village. This is a tourist recreation of life on the farm in the 1800’s. The staff are quite motivated to show their skills in pottery making, baking, honey collection, moonshine distilling, black smithing and farming. I worked with the blacksmith to make a miniature horse shoe. Or perhaps it is a tiny pony shoe. I pumped the bellows to heat up the metal but not as aggressively as needed. I will do better next time. I pounded the near molten metal with various hammers and avoided showering myself with metal sparks. They have a full size windmill to grind corn and wheat. The top of the windmill rotates so the blades can face the wind. The owner of the windmill take 25% of the grain as the fee for allowing the farmers to use their windmill. The traditional noon meal is rye bread with pork fat, onions, salt and cabbage. It tasted fine as well as the pickled cumber on bread with honey.
On May 9 – 25, 2014 Minsk will host the 2014 Ice Hockey World Championship. The USA will face off against Belarus at 20:45 on May 9. When you see it on the news you already know something about Belarus.
I departed Minsk to return to Moscow and did have to pass through immigration/passport control. The entire plane load of passengers lined up at a random unmarked door and custom officials brought in two passengers at a time and slammed the door. A few minutes passed and two more victims are sucked behind the door. My Russian distributor Zurab and I went in together. Our local distributor Yuri had driven us to the airport and gave us both a gift of expensive vodka and brandy. The best vodka is made from wheat not potatoes. This was wheat Vodka. I mentioned I only had a backpack since this was a one night trip and we would not be able to get these liquids past security. Those of you that have read my blog regarding getting the war club through security in the Ukraine might think we had similar luck this time – NOT. The two bags of premium vodka and brandy were confiscated. Party at the Minsk airport tonight in security lane #1.
When I landed at the Moscow airport it was déjà vu all over again. I walked off the plane and out the door to the parking lot. No immigration entering Russia? We shall see how this works on Saturday when I fly out to go to Frankfurt, Germany and connect to the USA.
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