Minsk really surprised me. I was expecting this grey city with grumpy people, you know? What they show you as a city stuck in time, a communist city, a Soviet city and it didn’t look like that, at least not to me.
I arrived to the main Train/Coach Station, everything was in Belarusian and English, first thing I wasn’t expecting. Finding the metro was easy, they’re at set price so I paid and before getting in I had to put my big backpack through an x-ray machine, nothing special, just standard control for any big packages, it took 2 minutes.
Then I got on the metro, I didn’t find it hard to use, two lines (North to South, and East to West) and every station has a number so it is easy to understand, the only problem is that you need to know the Belarusian name or at least how to write it in our alphabet. I had to go to the last station, once I got there, I got out and that’s when it happened, I didn’t know where to go. The directions from the hostel were really vague. I asked a taxi driver and he confirmed that I was on the right street but I didn’t know if I was going the right direction, I couldn’t find a building with a number on it, it was just parks on both side of the road for the first 100 meters. I later found that I was going the right way, just lucky I guess. Then with some help I found the building but I couldn’t find the hostel. I walked up and down the block but no luck. I was tired, hot and hungry, haven’t eaten anything in almost 24hrs, my backpack was heavy, I kept walking up and down the block and I couldn’t seem to find it, all I wanted was to sit on the floor and cry. But before giving up, I stopped in a hair salon and they said that there was a hotel. So I walked to the back of the building and nothing. An hour had passed since I got out of the metro. Once I walked past the hair salon, one of the girls saw me, so she came out and pointed downstairs at the back. So I follow her instructions and at the end of the building, there it was, my hostel. Hard to find really, the name was in Belarusian so I wasn’t going to be able to find it without help.
Got in, checked in, the receptionist didn’t speak English but she showed me my room, the toilets, the showers and, most important, how to use the Wi-Fi. I just needed to tell my mum that I was alive and that I wasn’t kept in the border.
After that, I couldn’t move for 3 hours, I was so tired, I just had no energy left. As soon as I could stand up again, I went to the supermarket that was just next door to buy some snacks. I decided to have a little picnic in the park across the road. It was a lovely sunny day, all the families were out and playing with their kids, and it was really nice. Everybody was having fun.
I stayed out there for about an hour and then headed back to the hostel to take a shower and sleep. I wanted to enjoy my day in Minsk to the max.
After a good night sleep I woke up, repacked and organised everything, and checked what to do in Minsk for the day. I took the metro back to the train station, left my backpack in the luggage room, they give you like a token for you to keep, again is just standard price per suitcase, well or so I think. I then went to discover the city.
Because I checked the night before, I knew I needed to go down one of the main avenues to find everything. Just 5 minutes after I started walking I arrived to Lenin Square Metro Station (even though it’s called the Independence Square), and guess what, there is a big statue of Lenin there in front of the House of Government. There you can also find Minsk City Council and the State University. Underground the Square there is a shopping centre which I found kind of odd.
I kept walking down the street and I walked passed a McDonald’s and a TGI Friday’s. Very western, very American. I was definitely not expecting to find a TGI’s here.
I like the avenues here, they are big, just some beautiful streets to go for a stroll. Something that caught my attention were the traffic lights for pedestrians. Normally, in some countries, when the little man turns GREEN there is another box that tells you how many seconds you have to cross the road. Well, here they have that but they also have that when the little man is RED it tells you how many seconds you have until you can cross. I know its something small, but I thought it was cool.
The National Opera and Ballet Theatre was on my list of things to check, it is located next to a really nice park and in front of it you have a massive fountain that makes a perfect picture.
During the few hours of my walk I came across a lot of parks around the city and almost everywhere you can find benches, which I love. Because you can just sit down and enjoy the day, take a break and just look around. It was also very nice to walk along the Svisloch River.
It seems that there is part of the city where all the main attractions are. There you can find a map that indicates where everything is and how long it would take you to get there walking. Almost everything is 5minutes distance from each other. In some of the maps you also have on the other side pictures of some of the important buildings and a brief description of them in English.
I visited some great churches (they have a lot), monuments and fountains, everything really close to each other.
After checking almost everything on my list, I had to leave the Library out, I made my way back to the station. I ended up staying on the 3rd floor in the waiting room, you can see that the building is quite new, its a really lovely building. In that waiting room, you have a board with arrivals and departures is in English ;).
In 2014 the Ice Hockey World Championship was held in Belarus. I think that this helped a lot when it comes to tourism in the country. It is a hard country to travel around but not because they don’t have the structure, the trains are nice and they are on time, they city is well kept, is just the language barrier that makes it complicated.
People need to stop being scared and go visit this city, you just need to go there and be patient, people are kind and they will help you in whatever way they can. Go with time and enjoy this place, it really is worth it.