Six Final Adventures

From what I've heard, people were a bit shocked by my random adventures with the Belarusian journalists last week. Random adventures, however, were what my last two weeks in Belarus were based on. After my university work finished on May 31st, I committed myself to doing as many exciting things as I could, while seeing as many of my friends as possible. Paired with packing up my life and cleaning up my apartment, I've been quite busy these past few weeks.

To begin with, following our adventures at the Beatles Fest and our random road tripping the next day, I was dropped off at the train station in Molodechno to take the train to Vilnius. A few weeks previously I had gotten wind of the World Lithuanian Economic Forum, taking place in Vilnius on June 3rd. While it seemed like a great opportunity to network, I was not sure it would be worth it to go to Vilnius for just such an event. I wrote it off, then, practically at last minute, decided that preemptive regret was one of the worst feelings in the world, and booked my ticket. It ended up being a very long day of lectures and discussions that encouraged optimistic investment in Lithuania, and did not touch much upon my particular concerns regrading being a Lithuanian-American who wants to move to Lithuania, but finds the pay prohibitively low. The real fun came after the forum, when most of the participants continued to a bar for networking and debauchery until 3 o'clock AM. The next day, I indulged in some Lithuanian Tribe Pride with one of the only other William and Mary Lietuves! Viltis met up with me in Vilnius and we wandered around a bit, had lunch at Uzupio Kavine, and caught up on life. She'll be around Lietuva for a while this summer, so that is, of course, not the last time I'll be seeing her. I returned to Vilnius on Tuesday night, but it felt like a Sunday night, and I officially lost track of what day it was from that day forward.

  World Lithuanian Economic Forum

Go Tribe in Vilnius! 

A few days later I had a final picnic with a group of my students. I tried to invite all of them, but, for whatever reason, only about five of them made it. We met at the train station to go out to the Minsk Sea, a large, man-made, somewhat swimmable reservoir about 15 km from the city center. After walking a bit we settled down on the grass to chat and munch on the goodies we brought to share. Waiting for some more friends to arrive, it began raining, so when they finally came, two hours after they said they would, we quickly decided to re-load the cars and go back to one of our company's apartments. There, we dressed the table as we would for any dinner party, and our picnic took a strange turn. We sang, danced, played salad bowl and kings (which is a game foreign to Belarus and provided for plenty of laughs) and ate the shashlik that we intended on eating at the beach. As one AM approached, the guys tried to get us to stay, but we managed to slip out to catch the last metro back home. It was a lot of fun to share a real party with my students, for whom all year I've struggled to define the line between friend and teacher.

Polina and Kristina at our picnic.

Free Concert!

Indoor picnic.

To summarize my encounters and observations of this year, I created something like a capstone presentation to give to some groups at the youth education centers Lamora and Fialta. Actually, the idea was first proposed to me by my friend, Tanya, and I agreed to make it, since it was a great chance to organize my thoughts on the year. I prepared the outline of the presentation about two weeks before I performed, but created the slideshow the day of, and it was mostly improvised. I felt guilty for defining it so late and taking advantage of my English fluency, but it ended up going quite well. After each presentation I invited the audience to come hang out with me, the first time at home, and the second time in an outdoor cafe. It was in these situations that I started realizing how many cool people I wish I had met sooner during my time in Belarus! They were great successes and it was rewarding to discuss my observations with other foreigners and local friends afterwards.
One of my closest friends in Minsk, Katya, actually lives fairly far outside the city and works all the time, so she is always busy. When I say all the time, I mean it, since she works in a 24-hour call center and often has late-night shifts. Having not seen her in several months, we arranged one night that I would meet her outside her office when her shift ended at midnight, and I would return home with her for a night of food, wine, and sunrise-watching. We didn't actually plan on watching the sunrise, but we had so much to talk about, sitting on her front porch that night, that we didn't get to bed until around 4 AM. We slept for a few hours and I woke up to return to the city in the early afternoon. Ever since I first went to her house I have been in love with it; although I feel at home everywhere, her house is the closest thing I had in Belarus. When I was leaving, I knew I would come back.

I love this picture of Katya's parents. They're like Soviet movie stars or something.

Katya and I hung out more in my last week than any other time. We even went out to lunch the day before I left!

A few hours after my night at Katya's, tired thought I was, I had more things to do. That evening was the official Embassy send-off for the Fulbright scholars this year. We were supposed to gather at the embassy at six o'clock, but just one hour before the rain started pouring down in sheets. I arrived home from a walk soaked to the skin and suggested to Leah that we call a cab. As it turned out, no taxi was to be had in the city, and we were reluctant to make the walk from our apartment to a reception that was in our honor in the pouring rain. So, I took advantage of our position and gave the embassy a call, asking if they could send a car over to pick us up. Just as we were reluctant to walk in the rain, the drivers were reluctant to come get us during a rainy rush hour, but they came nonetheless to escort us to the small American fortress in Minsk. The reception was fairly awkward, as friends and colleagues praised our work and collaboration, but I was happy to thank each of them for their support throughout the year and to say a final farewell to the embassy staff who, while always busy, was able to help us through a lot of the crazy things we went through.

Speech!

My last big adventure took place on Wednesday. As I prepared to make my departure I asked some friends what things they recommended I should absolutely do in my last days in Belarus. The first suggestion was to go bike-riding, since the country is so flat and beautiful, it provides the perfect landscape for such a sport. The second suggestion was go to Dudutki, an ethnographic museum about 45 km outside of Minsk and one of the two places that has a license to make Samogon, Belarusian moonshine. So, I decided to combine the two suggestions and bike the 45 km to get to Dudutki. Two acquaintances joined me for the ride, which took us about four hours and completely knocked us out. Once we arrived we walked around the sites, which was somewhat underwhelming, since it was nothing I hadn't seen before in Rumsiskes or at Neringa, for example, and, come five o'clock, decided that we should take the bus back, handing the bus driver a few extra rubles for the trouble of driving three bikes as well.

 

For your viewing pleasure, a video of me having a tutorial on and tasting Samagon at Dudutki.

All of my plans for spending my last two free weeks in Belarus writing, reading and recuperating went out the window. When in Rome, do as the Romans, right? And when in Belarus, go on adventures, because you don't know when you'll be back, or if you'll be allowed at all!

The Official Beginning of Life After Belarus

Not that many cafes are open at 9 o'clock AM on Sunday mornings in Vilnius, but, having been sent off early this morning, I managed to find one on Traku gatve that is serving my purposes fairly well. Fresh pastries, hot coffee and wifi; what else could you possibly want?

I've been in Vilnius for about twelve hours now, having left Minsk on the 18.50 train. The ride was no more and no less eventful than any of the other five times I've taken that very same train to Vilnius this year. I was in the first row of the entire train, since I booked my ticket almost a month ago, and the rest of the passengers expressed their curiosity at my huge baggage with only their eyes and, thankfully, not their mouths. I started reflecting on my year in Minsk a few weeks ago, but the digestion process began in earnest not more than 20 minutes after our departure. I found myself scribbling in a new notebook that a friend had gifted me, which will serve as my official thought bank from now until it is full. With the number of thoughts I'm having, it won't be too long, and I can only hope it lasts through this month, until I return to the States one month from now (almost exactly!).

Some of these preliminary thoughts sprouted from the splendid goodbye party that I threw for myself on Friday night. The facebook event was called, "GET OUT OF BELARUS, MONIKA!" and I invited everyone I knew to gather together on the occasion of the expiration of visa 0066188. Something like thirty people came up to Dom Fulbrighta over the course of the evening; I couldn't tell whether people really liked me, or if they were just really glad to see me leave. Students, colleagues, friends, people I had known since day one, people I had met only days before, and people I had never even met before (friends of friends) came bearing gifts of chocolate, books, postcards and well-wishes, expressing quite sincerely how glad they were that we had met and how sad they were to see me leave.

The late crowd at the party on Ulitsa Lenina, lined up on the wall of Lenin. Adrian, Me, Thomas, Leah, Lena, Alex, and Thomas.

I can't find it in myself to cry. I hugged everyone and thanked them for coming and thanked them for being a part of my time in Belarus. Reflecting on this yesterday on the train, I was really struck by the fact that I had affected so many people, even in small ways. From the beginning I had found it really difficult to connect with people and to make friends, and it seemed that Belarusians just don't let people in. Now that I'm leaving, I see that they did let me in, just not as far as I am used to in other contexts.

I keep saying that I learned a lot about myself this year, but I am seeing now that the things I learned would have been impossible to learn on my own. I would never have learned how to teach, or that teaching isn't for me, without my students. I would never have gained confidence in my ability to live and travel on my own without reinforcement from my friends and sharing in those adventures with them. I would never have spoken Russian with any degree of fluency without the patience of my Russian-speaking friends. I would never have come closer to understanding the political and emotional status of Belarus without hearing personal stories from the witnesses, those who have grown up in this strangely unique country.

I am still learning. I am learning to ask more questions. I always asked questions for myself, but tried to answer them by observation. Perhaps I have always been afraid of offending someone with a question that digs too deep. Now I realize that people, in most cases, want to tell the stories they have, and it's a matter of asking the right questions to set these stories free. Then it's another process entirely to adapt those stories to some sort of written format.

Digesting a year abroad is always a long process, one that I would prefer not to commit time to. Thinking too hard about this year will drive me crazy. Hopefully my plans of traveling around Lithuania, Belgium and England will distract me enough. In all likelihood, it will simply give me more sensations to process. I can't complain. I decided a while ago that I would rather be a traveler than a tourist, and if this catch-22 is the price I have to pay, I think I'm doing alright for myself.

Misadventures of a Not-Cover-Girl

 One of my new favorite churches ever in Shilavichi. 

Late on Wednesday night, I got the following message, and my ears perked up to what seemed to be a unique chance for an adventure:

An opportunity has come up for a female English speaker to be on the cover of a magazine. It requires you to take off the next two days of work and you will be taken to grodno region, wined and dined. They had an English speaking tourist lined up, but she canceled. You'll be leaving at eleven on Thursday, so write to me ASAP.

What it should have read was:

An opportunity has come up for a female English speaker to go on a random road trip around Belarus with the editorial staff of Yoga+Life magazine. It requires you to take off the next two days of work and you will be taken to a selection of tiny, obscure towns in the Grodno region to look at cute, old, religious buildings. They had an English-speaking tourist lined up, but when she bailed they decided that any foreigner will do... get in touch ASAP, since you'll be leaving in 10 hours.

Not knowing what I would be in for, but knowing that I was, in fact, free for the next two days, I decided to call in and volunteer. The voice on the other end of the line sounded incredibly relieved, and I was actually really excited just hearing some of the vague details she offered. The following morning I found myself waiting on the corner outside our apartment with a suitcase and no real idea of what I was in for.

Valera and Oleg found me on the corner after I had been waiting for about ten minutes and quickly ushered me over to Oleg's car. Oleg was a slightly-short and sturdily-built, bearded twenty-something with a tanned face and a penchant for smoking. Valera was, despite her personal protests, a hipster, with huge, square nerd glasses and a short haircut with some crazy shaved sections. We drove out to the edge of the city, to a neighborhood where I had not yet been, to meet up with the rest of our company, Igor and Denis, and hit the road for adventures.

Adventures. 

 

It became quickly clear that I was not quite going to be featured in the magazine; rather, my job was to provide an extra, outsider perspective on the ridiculous places that we were visiting. Our first stop was a giant bison statue on the border between the Minsk and Brest regions, followed by a brief tour of a small town called Старая Мыш, where we stood outside the local school and the Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as sat on the sidewalk to ice cream. Once we crossed into the Grodno region we stopped in another small village where there was a beautiful stone church and a natural spring of "holy water" where I washed my face for the sake of tradition.

 Our "rental" car.

The trip was filled with silly stops and banter. The group borrowed a VW Golf for the trip from the dealership in exchange for some promotional photos, but we were left without a good music selection. Serendipitously, we found a mixed CD on the side of the road and ended up listening to a strange mix of Scorpions, Frank Sinatra, Russian Club Music and Adele. The driving was going well until the clouds rolled in, and, as "Skyfall" started streaming from the speakers, the sky actually broke open and poured hail upon us. We pulled over to the side of the road and decided to cut our wandering short, heading directly for our final destination, Volkovysk.

Skyfall.

 

Upon our arrival, we checked into the hotel and met up with a local historian, who showed us around to the local sites in the span of about 90 minutes, including the Catholic church, the military, Orthodox, and Jewish cemeteries, and up the 113 steps of the city's highest peak. We finished our tour at a pizza restaurant where we revived ourselves before doing a little more driving around the area, visiting some of the fancy stone Gothic churches in the surrounding villages.

 Volkovysk from atop one of its three hills.

By the end of the night I was completely exhausted, but we stayed up for a bit in the hotel having a traditional Soviet hotel party; vodka, sausage and all. I couldn't manage to stay long, and ended up going back to Valera's and my room before the party ended. Changing into my pajamas, I took a moment to appreciate the pure sovietness of the room; the tiny, rough, and mismatched towels, the lumpy bed, the bare pipes in the bathroom, and, posted by the door, the list enumerating the items in the room and the informational poster about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted. Despite these discomforts, I was able to fall asleep in approximately thirty seconds.

 Hopefully I've made enough of an impact on my Tourism and Hotel Management students that hotel conditions will improve in the future. This place was absurd.

We awoke the next morning bright and early to pursue further adventures. Breakfast was a cheap ordeal in the hotel's cafe's "banquet hall," which we had to pass through the kitchen in order to access. Our first stops this morning included a a few of the churches we had seen the night before by dark. We drove north of the town, passing through field and forest to get to other small towns, stopping along the way to see more unique Catholic churches that may never be visited otherwise.

Orthodox Church near Jelka.

Oldest Gothic Church in Belarus.

At around lunchtime we found ourselves in the town of Ross', where we stopped in a Коктейл Холл (Cocktail Hall) for some beverages that I think were supposed to resemble milkshakes, but were a bit thin and bland to make the cut. Near the town was the highlight of our random adventures: a chalk quarry. I, of course, didn't know the word for quarry, so what I managed to understand of the destination was that it would be a nice place to swim. When I started to see the clouds of white dust rise from the road, the huge machinery, and, finally, the strangely out-of-place hills and valleys, I realized where it was that we were going and that, despite the heat, I probably wouldn't want to go swimming, since quarries are notoriously dangerous to swim in.

As we approached the active quarry I got more and more nervous, but, as it turned out, at this section it would have been impossible to swim, anyway, since they were still digging there. We got out of the car to marvel at the Grand Canyon of Belarus, then continued on our way. Not more than two minutes down the road we came upon the inactive quarry, the colorful hills and deep valley cradling a perfect mirror of azure water. I stood at the edge, absorbing what seemed to be an impossible image in Belarus. Never did I think I would find something that would at all resemble the Grand Canyon in this country, but there I was, standing on the edge of something truly phenomenal.

Phenomenal.

Our time was running short, since we had to get the car back to the dealership by 3.30. Despite our effort to drive quickly, we only made it back to Minsk around 4. I slept for most of the ride back, waking up close to the city limits to describe my impressions to my hosts, who I had gotten to know quite well over the course of our 28 hours of adventures.

"Mother always said to not get into cars with strangers." I don't know if that's actually true, but the thought crossed my mind when I departed on this ridiculous tour on Thursday morning. I even joked about it with Valera and Oleg about five minutes after I got into the car. Although the adventures were absolutely not was I expected and I will probably not be featured on the cover of Yoga+Life magazine, the craziness of the outing perfectly satisfied my need to see some more of Belarus before I left. Seeing some of these sites gave me a more complete image of this country, especially because I shared it with locals who were, more or less, able to explain to me what I was seeing. On top of that, it was also a rewarding experience to test my Russian once again. So, while I was a bit shocked and bored by some of the adventures, when my hosts asked me at our departure if I had a good time, I think I can honestly say I did.

 

Crazy, random adventures in Belarus? Worth it.

the better way to be back in the USSR

Somebody caught me on their blog! Let it Belarus!

"Let it Belarus" started off as a silly pun for a blog title back in August of last year, when I was counting down the days before my departure. It seemed like a stretch, and some people still don't get it, but that doesn't make it any less important for me. Last Friday I scribbled the words across the front of a white tank top in Sharpie and packed my duffel bag for an overnight camping trip at the 2013 Beatles Shabli Music Festival. Letting It Belarus had never felt so real.

Leah and I met Kristin at the Hotel Minsk on Saturday morning to pick up the rental car before hitting the road. Our first stop of the morning was not, however, the concert, rather, the QSI Summer Kickoff Picnic, where we were treated to a delicious spread of shashlik and international expatriate socialization. It was strange yet fun to encounter some of our acquaintances and have them ask, simply, "what are you doing here?" since we really have no connection with the international school at all.

 

 Testing the water and finding broken glass at the Minsk Sea during the school picnic. 

At around 2 o'clock we, Leah, Kristin, Sarah and I, hit the road for Shabli. We had a vague idea of what to expect, since, on the one hand, most hippie music festivals are the same, but, on the other, Belarus is a pretty weird place. We set the radio to a random station and I sat shotgun, navigating our way on Kristin's tablet. We stopped at a gas station on the way to stock up on overnight refreshments and arrived at the field in the middle of nowhere not too long after the festival had begun.

One-liter Tuborg Green to celebrate our arrival and the establishment of the only 100% English-language campsite at Битлз Шабли.

The hillside was packed with tents and blankets; Belarusian "hippies" lounging and listening to a mix of Beatles covers, ranging from the early, classic 2 guitars, a bass and a drum set tracks to more creative, eclectic versions with accordions and no vocals. We set up camp on the hillside and settled on our "front porch" to enjoy a victory "we made it" beer and people-watch.

 Lovely ladies after a day of random road-tripping.

I never expected that I would attend a Beatles festival in Belarus, but I'm so glad I did. All of my previous music festival experiences have been rewarding and this one did not disappoint. The music was loud, the people friendly, and I was happy to dance around barefoot in the soggy grass, not giving a damn about anything. When the main stage shut down for the night the concert continued in karaoke and campsite concerts surrounding barbecue pits accompanied by assorted refreshments, ranging from whiskey to late-night shashlik, while the sky maintained a warm glow well into the small hours of the morning.

Beatles Shabli Fields forever.

We met the morning not much differently than we would have in the states. Groggily, people emerged from their tents, wondering exactly where they were and how they had gotten there, while the sun shone warm and bright down on the festival grounds. People packed up their belongings with sad and tired expressions, a markedly different emotion from the end of any music festival I have been to before, where people leave all smiles. Perhaps the experience of such an event is just too good to be happy to say goodbye to.

Kristin grabs a nice shot of this cookie-cutter church in middle-of-nowhere Belarus.

As for me, I found the experience to be so much more genuine and positive than anything that happens in the U.S. Disregarding the strangely strict police presence, the fields were a place of genuine shared love, where people respected each other and celebrated a sort of peaceful anti-establishment that, for me, recalled what might I imagined 1960s America was like. In the U.S. music festivals have developed an element of hippie-pretentiousness; in Belarus, the emotion seems much more new and genuine.

Random road-tripping included my second-ever-manual-driving-lesson! Kristin called me her most successful student ever.

Sunday was a day of adventures as we took advantage of the freedom our rental car allotted us, driving around the Belarusian countryside, stopping wherever we felt like. The day was warm, summer was finally upon us; it barely crossed my mind that I had only two weeks left in this beautiful country.

to make an accident...

Last year, when the first stills were released from Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby film, I couldn't decide if I was excited or appalled. I even blogged about it, commenting on the fact that Baz Luhrmann completely stole my idea of Leo playing Gatsby.

Last week, when the film came out to mixed reviews, I was reluctant to see it. On the one hand, I was risking the destruction of all my imagined dreamlike images of what happened in the book by watching the film dubbed in Russian. On the other, by not seeing it, I was passing up the chance to witness the pure spectacle of 3D Leonardo DiCaprio and the flashiness of 1920s New York.... in Russian.

Deciding that the sheer spectacle of seeing this production on the big screen was worth it, I decided to go for it, and found myself in the movie theater this afternoon, 3D glasses on, waiting for the show to begin. I braced myself for the worst and distracted myself by wondering when it was that Leo realized he would be playing Gatsby, and whether this came before or after I read the book in 2007.

Overall, I was impressed. From what I gathered in the Russian dialogue, the film was more or less faithful to Fitzgerald's text. The costumes were flashy and fabulous; the parties were extravagant and sexy; the people, beautiful caricatures of 1920s indulgence. It was exactly this flashy, fabulous, extravagant, sexy caricature of indulgence, though, that drew me into the book and the film to begin with.

I did not, however, leave the theater without a few gripes. First of all, the 3D was distracting, essentially adding an extra dimension to a film that could have been made just as fabulously without it. 

Second, my favorite line from the film was completely ignored; this conversation between Nick and Jordan:

"You're a rotten driver," I protested. "Either you ought to be more careful, or you oughtn't drive at all."
"I am careful."
"No, you’re not."
"Well, other people are," she said lightly.
"What’s that got to do with it?"
"They'll keep out of my way," she insisted. "It takes two to make an accident."

Essentially, all of Fitzgerald's wonderfully composed foreshadowing was shattered by ignoring this line. Part of this may have been due to the fact that Jordan's role in the film was minimal in comparison to the book. It was not that I missed her very much, considering I really hate all of the characters; I suppose I simply missed the interconnectedness of the story.

Finally, I must say that the Leonardo DiCaprio in my mind's eye is so, SO much better as Gatsby than the one on the big screen. This film framed Gatsby to be an aloof creeper from the beginning, where as the novel presents him as a friendly and debonair debutant whose facade fades as Daisy enters his proximity. I suppose there's something to be said for directors' liberties, or the idea that a film adaptation should not, necessarily, be a word-for-word projection of a book onto a screen; however, it it was partially Gatsby's dashing nature that made me fall in love with the book to begin with. Since in the film he was a creeper from the get-go, I was much less involved with the story.

I think I'm glad that I took the time to see the movie, language barrier aside. Just as with Django Unchained, I'm looking forward to seeing this one in English. In any case, I can't argue with a movie ticket for $3.45. That's one thing I'll definitely miss when I'm back in the States.

Glimpses of Inspiration

About a week ago, while watching a performance by three American jazz musicians who came to Minsk on a State Department tour, I felt a sensation that I hadn't felt for quite some time. As the flutist jammed out and beat-boxed through his embouchure, I felt admiration for his innovation and inspiration to create something new myself.

For the past two weeks I've been grasping at new opportunities, filling up my time before I depart Belarus in just a few weeks, and finding in these new experiences new inspiration to share what I find with everyone else.

Perhaps it was the visit to the cultural city of Vitebsk, or the realization that my time in Belarus was coming to so fast an end. Perhaps it was simply that spring had finally sprung and I was thrown into the new sensational activities, alerting me to the creativity that this city and country has to offer.

Project Trio, an American jazz group, performed at Graffiti Club and the Philharmonic last week. I was at both shows.

The Kaunas Chamber Theater Troupe came to perform the Lithuanian play "Day and Night," which told a Romeo and Juliet story of a Jewish girl and her Lithuanian love during World War II. Following the play, I got to attend a reception with the actors and some other members of the Lithuanian community, which was quite a treat!

Saturday was Night of the Museums and two of my students invited me to join them. I chose the event at the workshop-gallery of Azgura, a Soviet Era sculptor who was well known around the Soviet Union for his sculptures of the great leaders. Behind the museum was an all-night concert, at which I only managed to stay until 1.00 because I was tired.

Sunday two of my students took me on an outing to Loshitsky Park, a huge estate just south of the city center. After walking through the main sites, we settled down in the amphitheater for a small picnic, during which we used colored pencils to draw out our impressions.

 

 

Thunderstorms rocked the city on and off for most of the week. I decided to go out for a walk on Monday evening and nearly got caught in one as I sat mesmerized by the lightening over the city center.

 

Lithuanian culture month continued with the opening of an exhibition of Lithuanian photographs at my favorite gallery in the city, Gallery Y. Twenty photographs stylized to look like movie posters were on display, with the curator there to talk about it. After a few glasses of champagne I even had the courage to go chat in Lithuanian with him about his favorite work in the collection, a poster based on some 2001 Fluxus works that discusses what it means to be an artist. He told me I speak Lithuanian like Adamkus, the former president of Lithuania who was born in the U.S.

Last night I attended a masterclass in making "queer dolls" at LaMora, a youth education center in Minsk. I didn't get the whole concept, but, as usual, enjoyed the environment and the opportunity to play around with craft supplies while chatting with Belarusians and drinking tea. We were supposed to make two dolls, one that represented us and one that was the opposite. Both of me are sitting on the shelf at LaMora, watching over the future visitors.

Tonight I went to the theater for free, or something like that.

With all of these creative experiences from the past week, I have breathed in a new appreciation for art. I felt at first regret for not creating, but I realized that my creative energy has just been rerouted to writing. These moments have inspired me to find a new way to perform my discoveries. Life is too short to leave these words unspoken, and I'm glad I figured that out before I left this country.

Not that being Lithuanian didn't already have its perks...

 One of the few, the proud, the freaks who feel prettiest when wearing traditional costumes.

I made another appearance on Belarusian television a few weeks ago! The Lithuanian Railroad Corporation opened a new office in Minsk in order to improve the connection between Lithuanian and Belarusian railroad networks. As one of the few young Lithuanians in Minsk, I was invited to stand and look pretty and the ribbon-cutting ceremony, wearing some borrowed tautiniai rubai.

Check out the video! (In Russian)

http://www.tvr.by/rus/news.asp?id=3903&cid=16

When this is all over and I'm back in the vast United States, I am going to miss being a local celebrity. The Lithuanian and the expat communities in Minsk are so small, that I feel like I am known and recognized by so many of these people. Reaching back to my high school theater days, being noticed is fun. I may as well enjoy it while it lasts, and see what happens if I manage to stick around this part of the world.

It didn't hurt that my appearance was paid and I was treated to a three-course dinner afterwards. Cheers!

Viva Vitebsk & Gazprazdnik

A merry company of musicians

On Sunday I checked my vkontakte (the Russian version of facebook) to find a message from a friend inviting me to visit her in Vitebsk. Surprisingly, with yet another holiday on Tuesday, I had plenty of free time, so not 36 hours after the Baku Boys had left, I was on my way to yet another city of Belarus, filling up the last of my weeks left in this country. Rather than give a blow-by-blow account of what we did, here is a top-ten list of awesome encounters and events:

As soon as Anya picked me up from the train station, we walked right across the city to a public swimming pool not far from the apartment where we were staying. She had told me to bring a bathing suit, so I thought I was ready, but it was impossible to be truly prepared for the genuine Soviet experience of visiting a public swimming pool of this sort. Bathing caps were required, as was showering twice before entering the indoor pool area, which was small, warm, and fairly shallow (probably around 4 feet deep). We were allotted exactly one hour to swim for about $1.50, during which time we danced around the pool and made a bit too much ruckus for the other babushkas who were using the pool to cool off from the heat outside.

Later in the afternoon we embarked on a crazy walk around the whole city. On the day I arrived in Vitebsk, we did not use public transport at all, despite the fact that the city has the oldest tramway system in Europe. Our walk first took us out to the technical university, where Anya is a student of graphic design. We visited with some of her friends who live in the university dormitory, who asked if I was a visiting prospective student, and invited us in for tea in their quite comfortable yet standard Eastern European dorm room.

Our next stop on our walk took us one of several high-rise apartment buildings just east of the city center. We went to the door and Anya rang a random number, pleading with the resident to open the door because she forgot her key. Likely seeing through the blatant lie, the resident obliged and we took the lift up to the top floor to view the sun setting over the city from the west-facing balcony.

Brightly lit boulevards.

We spent the next hour or so wandering toward the city center, walking with no real purpose through the more sleepy neighborhoods, down wide prospects, past large concrete blocks. On the way, Anya pointed out the places that she used to hang out at when she was a student and living in Vitebsk. Passing through courtyards, the smell of lilacs was overwhelmingly delicious, and we couldn't help but stop to sniff and smile. I love lilac.

 Ubiquity.

Eventually, we made it to the city center, to one of the city's only pedestrian underpasses. The sound of guitars and clapping caught our attention, so we joined a crowd of people and a handful of street musicians for a midnight concert. There were two guitars, five people able to play them, and an enthusiastic group of people, young and old, dancing, drinking beer, and throwing ruble notes into the a guitar case. I didn't know all of the songs, but I lit up to hear Viktor Tsoi's "Последний Герой" and a few songs that I knew from the film "Стиляги." It's generally prohibited for street musicians to perform, but the camaraderie was addictive. Eventually, the cops did come, but Anya explained that the same group has been doing the same thing for years, and they would be back again soon enough.

One passerby stopped with his wife and daughter to listen, then asked to borrow the guitar for one song. His daughter had a blast jamming to her dad's tunes.

When we at last made it across the street (we had spent at least an hour listening to music) we made it to the city's central park, where the ubiquitous monuments to the Great Patriotic War stood. Right next to these monuments were a small parade of army tanks and helicopters on display. If it had been daylight, I would have been thrilled to take lots of pictures and thus elaborate a series of photographs I would like to entitle "Monika Riding on Antiquated Machinery" (tractors, tanks and trains), alas, it was very dark, and the park was filled with less-than-pleasant company.

At this time, around 1 o'clock, we decided we wanted to take a break for a beer and a snack, so we continued further into the city center. Since the weather has been so nice, all of the sidewalk cafes and terraces were officially opened a few weeks ago. We managed to find two places to stop; one, a tent on the edge of a park, selling beer and chips and blasting Russian pop music karaoke. Our next stop was a night club disguised as a cafe by the city's theater, where we ate french fries and were treated to champagne by a visitor from Moscow.

In between those two cafe stops, we visited a few smaller parks in the city center. One in particular was isolated from the rest of the bustle of the cafes on the main drag. We settled down on a park bench and split a grapefruit while listening to the birds singing at 2 am, trying not to notice that we were being watched by the officers on duty in the KGB office behind us.

The next morning we wandered outside the city center a bit. Across the train tracks was a great market and a beautiful brick Catholic church nestled in a little neighborhood of quaintly painted wooden houses. We stopped in the market for a cup of cold kvass and continued our walk.

Catholic Church, Purple House, and Lilacs.

Part of my reason for wanting to visit Vitebsk to begin with was the fact that it is the hometown of world renowned artist, Marc Chagall, whose childhood home is now a museum of his life's story. Anya had warned me that it might not be open, because she had once tried to visit on a Tuesday and it was closed. I was shocked at our luck that the museum was, in fact, open! We arrived at the same time as another visiting group, and we all chipped in for a guided tour of the small brick house, filled with trinkets from the early 20th century, photos of the artist, and reproductions of his works (since none of them actually exist on the territory of Belarus).

Anya is a moody artist outside Marc Chagall's house.

When we finished the museum tour, we were told that there would be a short presentation in the backyard on the occasion of a very important guest's trip to Vitebsk and visit to the museum. I was simply excited just to see something out of the ordinary at the museum; a poetic presentation of Chagall's life by two actors and a little girl playing violin. We decided to stick around, only to find out exactly who this important visitor was: Aleksey Borisovich Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer. Man. Legend. Energy royalty. Oligarch extraordinaire. Although I didn't actually meet or even make eyecontact with him, I felt richer simply being in his fancy-blue-sweatered presence. The reason for the visit was Vitebsk's hosting of the Gazprom-sponsored cultural festival Fakel, but I like to think he was there to see me.

Legendary oligarch.

I had a quest at the beginning of this year to visit all of the regional capitals of Belarus. Considering I only actually started to chip away at this quest starting in March, and I've visited three out of five with one month left, I'm feeling like I may actually be able to accomplish this goal! Of the cities I've visited so far, I have favored Vitebsk. The city has a very unique and artistic energy that doesn't try as hard as Brest and Grodno to be "European." I admit, that this could have been the spontaneous company I kept or the lovely weather that I enjoyed while visiting the city, but I can say for sure that I am glad I made it out to visit Vitebsk.

Спасибо Аня!

Sharing Belarus with the Baku Boys

 A Vileika veteran on Victory day.

There are a lot of ways to gain perspective on the place you are living. It might be talking with people in similar life situations as you, visiting a new culture, or inviting guests to come see the place that you call home. After living in Minsk for over eight months, I can finally say that I've experienced each of these three options, and I finally have a good understanding about my situation here. 

Last week Leah and I welcomed our first guests to Minsk. Max and Mike are two of the Fulbright ETAs in Azerbaijan, and served as our hosts when we visited Baku in January. Passing through each level of perspective with them has been neat, first discussing our respective situations in Kiev in November, seeing their lives first-hand in Azerbaijan, and now sharing with them a taste of our every-day life in Minsk... or something like it.

 

No, everyday life does not include playing Kings and winking, but it was part of our vacation.

Just having guests was out of the ordinary enough that what we shared with them was hardly every day life. Their visit came right in the middle of a string of state holidays, which meant that the city was completely decked out with rainbows of flags for Victory Day on May 9th, as well as plenty of Easter trimmings, since Orthodox Easter was on May 5th. The holiday spirit was further boosted by the seemingly instantaneous transition from winter to summer, with high temperatures and sun every single day they were here. The energy was so high and the weather so nice that neither of them believed our stories about the horribly long winter that we somehow had managed to struggle through this year.

In any case, life in Minsk is never ordinary, so they saw what we showed them and we otherwise enjoyed each others' company. Some of the highlights included long walks around the city and along the river bank, Max leading a guest activity at my university, and a visit to the Minsk Tractor Factory and Museum of Belarusian History.

 

 Tractor Factory. I'm not sure I'm allowed to be riding on that, but now that I have photographic evidence, I will use it. 

The centerpiece of their visit was an overnight trip to the town of Vileika, which is located just about two hours from Minsk. Several years ago, on one of her first trips to Belarus, Leah had spent some time restoring a Jewish cemetery in one of the neighboring towns, so part of the visit included a pilgrimage back to the site. The rest of the time was spent lounging around at a homestead owned by a man named Evgeny. The house is split into two levels; Evgeny and his family live upstairs, and the downstairs is open for guests to stay in, relax, and experience some real Belarusian pasttimes: banya and shashlik. The Slavic banya tradition is not unfamiliar to me, since we have one at Giraite, but the experience is always a pleasant one. Who doesn't love getting nearly naked, sitting around in extreme heat and wacking your friends with birch branches? I know I do. Our banya experience was followed by an evening of sitting around a table eating shashlik and drinking vodka with our host, who insisted on running around, wearing his banya suit (tight black underwear) well into the night.

Banya-ing. Post-banya feast. Max and a banya viking. Leah and Masha (Evgeny's precious daughter).

 

Aside from the visit to the country, our time in Minsk was more American than Belarusian. Having American company and lots of free time meant that we spent a good bit of time reminiscing about things we miss at home, discussing our upcoming plans, and doing things that we can't do in other parts of the world, like sitting on the riverbank late in the evening drinking beer. The nice weather also encouraged us to spend a good amount of time sitting around in the sun, which was great, except for the time it led to an encounter with a Belarusian police officer because we had, apparently, been laying out in an off-limits area. Luckily, it was no trouble at all for us to act like we didn't understand what he was saying, pick up our stuff, and relocate to a paved area where we laughed off the fact that he didn't bother to check our documents or comment on our drinking in public.

Is it even possible to resist the temptation of laying out to tan on such lovely grass?

 

All in all, it was a nice break from the normal grind of work and life in Belarus that came only a few weeks before the end of our time here as Fulbrights. A surprising aspect of this, though, was their commentary on how "European" Belarus is compared to the rest of the "Eastern European" Fulbright ETA region, which, aside from our host countries, includes Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Latvia. Although all of the countries share their Soviet past, they have all developed in different ways over the past twenty or so years. Belarus is one of the closest to the rest of Europe, and, while the political situation here is intensely isolated and the bureaucratic red tape is over-the-top, one hardly notices such things when the sun is shining and a few liters of beer costs no more than five dollars. After they guys jumped through all the hoops to get to Belarus (approximately 10 trips to the embassy in Baku) the time they spent pushing paper amounted to about two hours when they went to register at the police station, and was followed directly by a very pleasant evening out with their official Belarusian host.

"This Marsrutka isn't even that old! The ones in Azerbaijan are probably bought 10 years used from these guys here in Belarus." Overheard on the bus to Vileika.

As for me, this was among the last of my Belarusian adventures. Now that the Baku Boys have left, I have just about one month left in this country. I am busy flitting around from task to task, writing materials for my university, finishing up lesson plans, making plans for the summer, and wrapping up all of my work and adventures in Belarus. As I cross things off my to-do list, I'm feeling fairly satisfied with what I've managed to accomplish here. More than anything, I'm satisfied with what I've managed to understand about Belarus. Having friends visit for a week, and observing the arduous process of their getting here, gave me the chance to realize just how uniquely isolated this place is, despite its proximity to what we know as "Europe." I will certainly have more time to reflect on this over the next few months, but I have to thank Max and Mike for helping me gain that bit of perspective.

 

Me, Max, Leah and Mike on October Square in front of one of the Victory Day posters. Thanks, guys!