Landlocked but waterlogged

It’s the time of year I’ve been waiting for since I arrived in Minsk in late October. The weather, when it’s not crappy, is brilliant and the sun rises before well 5 a.m. and sets well after 9:30 p.m. (Thank God for blackout curtains.) Long spring days are lovely in Europe. It’s green and beautiful.

There’s a river meandering through Minsk, and I walk up and down it most days. Today’s walk was about 10 kilometers; since it’s Sunday, I had nowhere to be and just listened to podcast after podcast as I walked down one segment, turned around, and then walked back the other direction.

An aside on podcasts: Wow, these are great. I’ve just finished two series from the Washington Post’s Lillian Cunningham, Constitution and the Presidents. I haven’t found anything else intelligent to listen to so I am killing time with a Margaritaville podcast and listened to an hour-long interview with Mr. Utley of the Coral Reefers today.

Through that podcast, I learned that Jimmy Buffett does a European tour and I looked up tour dates on the off-chance he was planning a show in Minsk. (Don’t laugh; Sting is coming in October, or at least is scheduled to come in October.) JB doesn’t have Minsk on the docket, but apparently does shows in Dublin, London and Paris. The ones for 2020 have been pushed back to 2021.

My thought on that was, “Hey, I’ll be in Minsk in September 2021. Why not go see JB?” And, because sometimes I money outweighs sense, I researched it and discovered that London’s original venue still had tickets available. (Since the shows were originally scheduled for 2020, they’ve already sold out and under no circumstances would I pay $400 to any third-party vendor for a single show.) I now have three tickets, plans for September 2021 and a hefty credit card bill.

Meanwhile, back in Minsk, I’m still walking daily, which is keeping me sane. I love water and Belarus is a landlocked country, so there’s no heading to the beach or anything like that for me. However, in my walks both along the river and through town, I have come to realize that, despite its landlocked status, there is a vast amount of water around.

Looking out my window one day, I realized that the little park that runs down my street has fountains. I didn’t know this before because during winter, they shut off the water. (Plus, I am not all that observant.) Now that it’s spring, all of a sudden, there are fountains everywhere. Things I thought were just art have water spraying out of them.

None of the water turns on until 10 a.m., though, which saves me to some degree. At one point in my walk, just past Gorky Park, there is a fountain that doubles as a splashpad. Right now, during the pandemic (52k cases and counting) there are throngs of kids playing every day around 6 p.m. The parents usually lie out on beach towels nearby, so when I hit that point in the walk on weekdays I circle as wide as I can, since my weekday walk happens after work. On weekends, I set out early and there’s no one around. Well, barely anyone. This morning I noticed two middle-aged men there, one watching the other play in the water. It was a bit odd because it wasn’t hot, but I’m tempted sometimes so I won’t throw stones.