Belarus: Brest
The next day I rested a bit at the hotel and then took a final stroll in central Minsk, taking in another museum and also finding the former residence of Lee Harvey Oswald and the monument to the Afghanistan dead, located by a faux Old Town with a few cafes and theme restaurants. At 3:30 I boarded a train, a modern Russian carriage with airplane style seats making the Moscow-Berlin journey, and headed towards the western city of Brest.
Brest, located across the Bug River from Poland, is the only place where I saw open resistance to the regime. Sitting next to the on the train to Brest was Viktor, who wasn’t about to let his very limited English get in the way of carrying on conversation for most of the 3 hour plus train ride. Brest born and bred, Viktor was unsentimental in telling me, especially with a soldier sitting across the aisle, that his country “is shit” and that it gets worse every year. The reason for the decline? “Our fucking president – he is no good.” And while in Minsk everything was clearly exactly how the government wanted, in Brest I saw two examples of the display of the nationalist – and forbidden – symbols; one on a long-haired teenager wearing a symbol emblazoned with the nationalist flag of Belarus (1918-1919 and 1991-1995). Also, stenciled on a lamp-post was the nationalist coat of arms, a knight on horseback similar to Lithuania.
Upon arrival in Brest I trekked across town to the Intourist, where I had to confront dual pricing. No matter, a nice enough room for 31 euros. Back at the train station to buy a ticket for the next day, I met two Russian girls, Yulia and Oksana, who were hitchhiking from their home in Karelia to Prague. Of course, being Russian speakers, they were able to find a hotel room for about a third of the price of mine. Walking back to the hotel I glimpsed a Lenin head, and I soon found myself in a small shop that was decorated as a full shrine to that ideology that now sits at the very top of history’s dustbin. Another place and it would have been done in a spirit of irony or camp. Here it was just normal.
The next morning I walked to the fortress of Brest, built in 1842 by the Russians to defend their western border and scene of heavy fighting in both world wars. Near the entrance are the ruins of the building where the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in 1918, excusing the new Bolshevik government from fighting the Tsar’s war at a huge material and territorial loss. The fortress is now home to an epic Soviet war memorial, Mount Rushmore style, and several museums. Its probably the best tourist attraction that Belarus inherited from the USSR. I bumped into the two Russians at the fortress, who were a big help with translation. They also told me that it was a poignant experience for them to be there, as a both the friend of Yulia’s grandfather died at the fort in 1941 – we found his name on the memorial – and because Brest has become a symbol in Russia of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, bestowed with the honorific “Hero Fortress.” After the fortress I tooled around Brest for a bit, used the Internet at the Beltelekom office, bought a t-shirt from Liechtenstein at a used-clothing store that I later lost (along with all my Belarus propaganda) and then picked up by bag at the hotel to take the 10 minute, and very heavily guarded, train ride across the river to Terespol, Poland, along with about 40 cigarette smugglers.
posted by Andy Schloss @ 12:16 PM
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