Visiting
Belarus is not impossible at most times but doesn't seem to be the
travel of a life: lot of paperwork, showing up at an embassy, paying
a lot of money for visa and what you get is a place of which you
don't know too much and possibly don't wanna experience too much
either. This changed temporarily for 25th
April - 31st
May 2014 because of the Hockey World Championship held
in the capital, Minsk between 9-25th
May. No visa needed, no paperwork needed, no embassy needed and even
the freeways are free of charge for foreign visitors: why not to take
a look?
We decided to
do it and after buying tickets for less than 10 USD per person we
spent 9 days traveling from Hungary to see Belarus. What we found
there was absolutely different from what we expected. Below you'll
find some information about getting around the country and some
pictures with some of our interesting experiences.
Language:
Russian is the
spoken language by all the people you'll be likely to meet; English
spoken in hostels by Couchsurfing hosts in Brest and Minsk, Polish
comes useful in Brest and Minsk, many seemed to have learned German
but weren't overly willing to speak it.
Cyrillic
letters are the official ones. Learn them letters before you go. It
might seem difficult but it's not. 20 minutes to 1 hour should be
enough to learn the printed Cyrillic letters so you'll be able to
recognize signs like “MINSK”, “BANK”, “HOSTEL”, etc.
Cyrillic
letters here.
Accommodation:
We slept in
tent, hostels and used Couchsurfing. Can not tell much about hotels
but we are positive that the country is not really ready to have many
visitors and there will be thousands of extra visitors for the Hockey
Championship and not only: a large number of tickets were bought by
Poles that wanna visit the country and don't only go to see the
matches. Try to send couchrequests ahead of time and/or make
reservations. We were glad to stay in Hostel Revolucion in Minsk and get
to know the nice English speaking daytime receptionist and
having spent the night in bunk beds in basic rooms with
corridors having stylish decoration and atmosphere.
Getting around:
When entering the country (at least a good 1 hour procedure) make
sure you have your ice-hockey ticket on you printed and keep it with
yourself at all times as it functions as your visa. Only one person
can enter with one ticket and it functions as a single-entry visa.
Try to enter through a small border crossing station. You might
become a celebrity and the waiting time is less than on a bigger one.
We entered from Sławatycze-Damacawa, Poland near the main Brest
crossing.
Public transportation seemed efficient and a good possibility to see
and interact with locals and we'd recommend it for those who plan to
stay more than a week in the country. There are few buses to remote
areas and there are trains connecting Brest, Minsk and Vitebsk with
cheap tickets and sleeping cars too. The best way to get around is by
your own car. Road quality is good. Comparable to the former Eastern
bloc countries and you can count with an average of 90 kms/hour on
main roads and 110 kms/hour on the highway (Brest-Minsk-and further
on to Moscow). We were told on the border that you can go to Russia
(and Kazahstan) without border control. The news are confirmed but if
not having visa to Russia you can be prosecuted and we would choose
another time (and a visa) to visit Moscow. Hitch-hiking was quite
usual for locals and they do not pay for the rides.
Getting to know
the country:
What we got
hold of was an 8 year old Lonely Planet guidebook on Belarus that
seemingly talked about a different country. There's a newer edition
though from autumn 2013, I don't know about that. While the sights
and museums remain (with the Great Patriotic Museum being temporarily
closed) the country's outlook and people's behavior does not have to do much with the book's content.
So - if you are willing to have a non-shallow/non-package-tourist
style experience in Belarus try to get in contact with the locals.
Without at least intermediate Russian knowledge we'd recommend
CouchSurfing, hostels (Minsk) and bars in towns. Locals will be most
likely surprised to see Western visitors however all who speak
English have traveled and/or studied in the European Union. People
talk freely about their opinion on anything including politics,
political systems, etc. Whenever we mentioned Lukashenko, a short
silence followed. You might wanna avoid using his name in the first
minutes of the conversation.
Food:
Belarus had the worst cuisine of the many countries we have visited.
Don't expect anything good. Meat is usually not fresh and only
available in 2-3 different varieties (mainly pork, sometimes chicken)
while the national dish is POTATO: but it's made without salt and
generally anything you'll have will be tasteless and not very fresh.
Other pieces of cuisine like borsch soup and golubtsy are taken from
Polish-Ukrainian cuisine but are always worse than in these
countries. Usually grocery stores seemed to have more fresh and
better quality products. We visited 2 expensive restaurants, many
by-the-side-of-the-road and many places in smaller towns. Quality
ranged from almost inedible to
just-a-little-bit-better-than-the-cheapest-Chinese-place at home.
Desserts were generally good quality. See some suggestions and places
to avoid below.
 |
| Felicia, the wife of Boris |
4 of us, Boris, Szilárd, Małgorzata and myself have driven
2900 kms by the invincible 17 year old Skoda Felicia on our 9 day
tour through Poland, Belarus and Uraine.
 |
| Boris, Szilárd, Malgorzata, Daniel |
Krakow: well-known, beautiful and touristy city. We chose it because
of our friends.
Lublin: Quite out of the tourist routes town with a great Old Town
area and a former concentration camp with a good exhibition some 10
kms out of the town. If going by car check out Da Grasso pizzeria in
the outskirts of the town.
Belarus:
 |
| Lublin castle |
Belarus:
Brest: visit the fortress, walk on the main street of the town and
roam around a little bit. Quite Polish atmosphere. Take a look at the
line of people in front of the Polish embassy trying to get a “Polish
card”. Avoid “Friom”, the local McDonald's looking-like thing.
Almost inedible and overpriced. The Anchor restaurant however served
great fish, chicken and pork. But mostly fish and while the trout was
all right, the “paltus” was heavenly.
 |
| Brest railway station |
 |
| Brest fortress, Thirst statue |
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| Brest Fortress, tank of the Red Army |
Kobryn: see out-of-the tourist way small town life. The Lakomka
ready-made food and dessert place serves decent meals.
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| Local bank offering 37% interest rate on local Belorussian rubel while 5,5% for USD and EUR |
 |
| One of the few not-f***ing bad quality meals |
The countryside: get off the road and look around. We stopped by during cow-milking and walked away with 3 liters of fresh milk after helping the locals a little bit while later thanks to Boris' Russian knowledge we made a deal of sleeping in one of the houses for 250.000 Belorussian rubel, some 18 euro for the 4 of us and got into another drinking night and see a little bit of village life through the life of 4 future veterinarian students. One of the highlights is the well-taken care of and pastoral countryside with its clean houses and yards.
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| With our hosts in Imyanin |
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| Contributing by human workforce to the local economy |
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| Boris and the cows... |
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| Niasviezh |
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| Mir Castle |
Mir castle: Arrived again after opening hours (until 5 pm) but the castle was open with a hotel inside (100 usd a night if I remember well). A site to remember and on the way from Brest to Minsk.
Minsk: The big surprise. Fashionable people, expensive cars parking next to the statue of Lenin, beautifully illuminated houses and the cleanest capital we have ever seen. By the huge sized buildings and large avenues this completely rebuilt city resembled Paris without traffic jams. Good bars (TNT rock bar with live rock music almost every night), with a high number of hookers and girls taking you to hooker bars for commission. Taxis are reasonable (some 5 dollars for a good 8 km ride) but in front of rip-off places better to agree on the price or simply try to hitch-hike with payment included: a local car stopped for us earlier than the 5-6 bypassing cabs... A good way to see Minsk is is by renting bicycles for 2-4 hours. We got the directions in our hostel, the "Revolucion".
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| TNT Rockbar, Minsk |
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| Boris... ...outculturing us |
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| Lenin lives, Lenin lived, Lenin will live |
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| Minsk, Theatre of the Army |
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| Saint... ...Boris? |
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| Malgorzata and the cart |
Dudutki: 40 kms from Minsk there's a genuine tourist site for Russian and Belorussian families. The only place where we've seen a tour guide showing something to people. The 6 euro entrance fee includes a taste of home made butter and flavoured cheese, seeing rabbits, chickens, ostriches, peacocks, goats and a reconstructed village with a wooden church and mills. 100% touristy but still has a great feel of the calm countryside. The place offers reasonably priced fresh-made dishes. It's family-friendly: what else is there to say? :)
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| Dudutki: get bit by a friendly ostrich! |
Belovezhskaya Forest and National Park: we arrived to the forest quite late (driving from Minsk) and after paying a little more than 1 euro entrance fee we could see animals in cages (from small cages for foxes, owls and other smaller animals we arrived to the bigger areas for deers and the national pride: BISONs. Best way to see the forest is probably if you give it at least a half day and you rent a bike in the nearby hotels/guesthouses. To get an idea of the area an hour is more than enough.
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| The Bison |
Ukraine: Getting to Ukraine was interesting: between the Belorussian
and Ukrainian border we have found 2 abandoned and out-gutted cars
and after taking pictures I took a souvenir from one of them. On the
Ukrainian side the border police officer after a thorough search
found the part of the car and threatened me with 5 years in prison
then 200 euro penalty while at the end we agreed in a 55 euro bribe.
Seemingly there still is a price to enter Ukraine in a god-forgotten
small border station.
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| Crossing to Ukraine |
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| The local bus |
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| "International road" in Ukraine |
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| Taking over... |
Lviv: The former Austro-Hungarian, later Polish town has traffic like
in the Balkans, beautiful buildings all over being neglected for
decades, European Union flags and doesn't have the atmosphere of a
city in a country where civil war is going on: lively, extremely
cheap (prices hasn't raised in the last months followed to 30-35%
inflation of the local currency compared to USD or EUR).
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| Old Town of Lviv |
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| Lviv - Secession architecture from the Austro-Hungarian times |
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| Lviv, Ukraine |
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| The guards of the Ukrainian flag from the Maidan on the main square of Lviv |
Learn more:
Our
routeVisit more:
We planned to visit in Belarus the Chernobyl area that can be only visited by organized tours, Vitebsk, the home town of Marc Chagall; Navahrudak, the home town of Adam Mickiewicz and Hrodna. If in the area it's worth visiting Białystok in Poland and Vilnius in Lithuania.
Belarus is waiting to surprise you!
