Qui Transtulit Sustinet

Europe's Last Dictatorship: Belarus

June 29-30, Minsk, Belarus

I make a thousand decisions everyday when I am traveling and mistakes are bound to happen. That is what I said to console myself about an especially bone-headed move regarding my visa to Belarus. When asked by the girl at the Vilnius travel agency how long I wanted to stay in Belarus, I absent mindedly said “oh, about three days or so…” When I got the visa, I saw that it was valid for exactly three days only, when I had the right for a full 30-day visa at the same price. Its put a bit of a crunch on my time here in White Russia. The train pulled into Minsk station at about 10:30 am and after a brief chat with a girl at the station while waiting in line to use the ATM – she used to work at a summer camp in New Hampshire, the world is a small place – I excitedly set out to see this Stalinist showcase of a city. Here are a few things I learned about Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenka, beloved father of the nation:



1) Lukashenka doesn’t like coins: No coins are used in Belarus, only paper notes issued at regular intervals between 10 and 500,000 Belarusian rubles. In practice this means that you buy a soda for about 2150 rubles, pay with a 5000 note, and are given such a thick wad of paper as change that my wallet could barely close. Everybody in Belarus is an expert money counter, as it takes a full minute to give out change. There are 2100 rubles to the dollar, so interestingly, it is cheaper to use 10 ruble notes as toilet paper than it is to buy a roll. This of course hasn’t occurred to the folks at the National Museum of History and Culture, who keep their latrines stocked with strips from newspaper Pravda.



2) Lukashenka doesn’t want people to enjoy public spaces: Belarus perhaps looks like what would have transpired had the USSR been able to follow the same road as China – capitalism, albeit in a controlled form, with an authoritarian government. The Minsk cityscape is comparable to that of Kiev, but whereas every space inch in Kiev is covered in giant billboards or fluorescent signs advertising Western brands, Minsk is empty and austere, save for the massive amounts of government propaganda with flags, maps, and patriotic slogans the order du jour. The country is gearing up for Independence Day on July 3rd (which commemorates liberation from the Germans in 1944, and not independence from the USSR, which was unwanted and unmarked on the calendar) and while I am sure that Belarusians are happy for the occasion, I am suspicious when the government uses large numbers of exclamation points in its propaganda. Minsk is quiet and calm, and while there are shops and stores, even an Adidas store, they are low-key and without the glitz or glossiness I am used to elsewhere. It is clear that the government keeps a tight ship. People live their lives indoors, and it is quiet on the street, people are deliberate and keep their head down. On two occasions I saw police or army guys, who are omnipresent, tell people to move along if they tarried too long at one spot. Once, a group of three people sitting on the steps of the KGB (still in business) headquarters, and later, when about five slightly Goth-looking teenage girls sat down on the steps of the Palace of the Republic concert hall, a Spetnaz guy came over and told them to move along.



3) When asked nationality, Lukasheka answers “Soviet:” Not a surprise, but the rulers of Belarus clearly decided that they would change the least amount possible that they thought they could get away with. So, the flag is the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic flag minus the hammer and sickle. That brand might be gone, but Lukasheka didn’t have the hart to ditch the red star, which is still there on the national coat of arms, on the walls, on the uniforms of soldiers. Of course Lenin still guards the entrance to the government administration building, and many fine pieces of social realism grace Minsk such as the interior of the GUM department store, on the metro, and in and on many of the beautiful public buildings that line the main street of Francyska Skamyk like the main post office and the Belarus State University. The well-tended Soviet legacy, along with the current regime that does its best to emulate the Soviet playbook of societal control, make Minsk a very unusual place to visit.



4) Lukashenka is well guarded: Across the street from the Palace of the Republic and the Great Patriotic War Museum, whose roof is crowned with a huge light-up block of letters that reads “The deeds of mankind will live forever!,” is the Presidential Palace where the President lives and works. I approached and was quickly stopped by a plain-clothed security agent who told me to backup. I could see that there was some sort of going-on in front as a bunch of soldiers were standing stiffly while some suits paced back and forth on their phones, but I was prevented from investigating closer by at least 20 un-uniformed security thugs, fanned out around the building. I continued on, but hitting the street I then saw a large motorcade pass by escorting a town car with a Venezuelan flag. I made it just in time for a crowd to emerge from the motorcade, and followed closely by a media scrum, scurried quickly inside the building. So who knows, maybe I saw Lukashenka and Chavez?



5) Lukashenka holds no grudges: The Germans leveled Minsk, along with much of Belarus, but German seems to be the main Western language spoken, at least by the older generation. The receptionist at the lovely Hotel Sputnik – which would be considered 1950s retro in the US but is the normal state of being here, spoke to me in German, which was smart because “zwanzig minuten’ means a whole lot more to me than something in Russian. At dinner at the hotel restaurant I couldn’t figure out the menu so I told the waiter to follow me and walked to where a large party was feasting and pointed out what I wanted. After some interested questions my way, I ended up joining the table, which was a German-Belarusian dairy concern, and found myself in a real world episode of “The Belarusian Office’ witnessing all the men vie for the attentions of the lovely Olga, the drunken murmurings of the German boss which oscillated between benevolent and stormy, especially when he broke the chair, and the watchful eye of the sane one, an older guy who later whispered to my astonishment, when the others were dancing or throwing up in the toilet, “so…you’re Jewish right?” I suppose that Jews and Belarusians have coexisted long enough for a sort of Jew-dar to develop. And this being Belarus, the evening was about 6 bottles of vodka strong, tempered with drawn-out toasts – “To America! To President Lukashenka!” and copious amounts of black bread.

posted by Andy Schloss @ 10:37 AM