Belarus - Minsk and Brest

Trip Start Feb 09, 2008

Trip End Jun 2008

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Where I stayed

Best Eastern Hotel Yubileiny Minsk

(Minsk hotels)

Flag of Belarus Minsk, Belarus
Sunday, May 25, 2008

Our last day in Vilnius was spent visiting the controversial "Stalin World" - a Soviet themed park with lots of statues torn down during the last days of communism in Lithuania. Unfortunately the bad weather caught up with us so we had to walk around in the pouring rain while being watched by the sinister eyes of Lenin and Stalin. The park is Gulag themed and surrounded by barbed wire and watch towers, while Soviet music blasts out from speakers. The miserable weather certainly added to the Gulag atmosphere of the place! Definately worth a trip if you're interested in this kind of thing.

Our bus jouney to Minsk the next day started off well (although it was still raining). It all seemed to be going smoothly until we got to the immigration desk on the Belarus side. I (Gavin) passed through with no problem, and headed back to the bus. Although Matt was directly behind me in the queue, everyone else arrived back to the bus first. Then we all sat there waiting for about half an hour. Finally Matt appeared with the news that his passport had been detained by the KGB! (Yes, they still call it the KGB in Belarus). Worryingly, they wanted to see my passport again too. We considered what to do - should we run for it?! Thankfully they retuned them both to us a few minutes later, but with no explaination!
Minsk itself seemed a rather uninspiring city, although this could be partly due to the fact that it barely stopped raining the whole time we were there, making everything look much more grey and dreary. There were some impressive Soviet-style buildings and monuments, and it seems that they build new apartment blocks in 70s Soviet style here (!). Lonely planet gives an impression of a very Soviet city, which is not untrue - but most cities in Russia are also like this. Walking in front of the KGB building and Lukashenkas residence does have quite an authoritarian air about it, however. There is not actually much to do in Minsk, but we think it could be a nice place to hang around if the weather is nice - there are lots of parks and wide open spaces where people undoutoubly sit around, drink beer and have a laugh as is common in Russia.

Our next stop was Brest, a town which most people visit to see the Brest Fortress. This is a massive monument built in the early 70s to the defenders of the fortress against the Nazi invasion in 1941. The monument itself is phonomenal - you walk in through a huge concrete star to the sound of marching music or a metranone (the only thing played on the radio between announcements during WWII for tuning purposes) and then proceed to an enourmous soldiers face carved from rock, next to a very tall titanium obelisk, graves of the dead and an eternal flame. Calming hymn-like music quietly sets the atmosphere around this area. You are also free to walk around the edges of the fortress, which are largely unrestored. The museum is interesting but all in Russian. You really have to see it to believe it but we both consider this to be one of the most impressive single sights on our trip.

Brest is a very pleasant, small town. It feels quite sterile but it is very clean and orderly. Wide streets and lots of trees convey a pleasant atmosphere, despite almost all the buildings in the town being Soviet era constructions. The hotel we stayed in here (Hotel Intourist) was probably the most North Korea-esque since Pyongyang. Everything about it was 70s, including the very dodgy lift!

We have now arrived in Warsaw and the weather is beautiful. Our first impressions are that Warsaw is a much more modern and developed city compared to our expectations. We are here for three days (having luckily secured a hotel room after several hours on our arrival - booking ahead is essential here!).