Depressing sights

 

If you squint you can see the reactor. 
View from a fire tower.

A couple weekends ago, I went with a small group to the Belarus Exclusion Zone, a 30-kilometer area that was devastated by the Chernobyl disaster 35 years ago. Belarus suffered far more than Ukraine did; it dealt with 75 percent of the damage and is a much smaller geographical area than Ukraine. Belarus is only 5k from the reactor that caused the damage. I run further than that every morning. (Though not very quickly.)

A Minsk travel company, Walk to Folk, organizes tours and one of my colleagues contacted them about taking just a group from work on a tour. This was in part because we needed an English translator and in part because our boss would only agree to allow a group of us to go if it was only us in a van. (Not many people in Belarus have had the COVID vaccine, so it was a health precaution more than anything.)The company met us at the office at a horrific 5 a.m. and then drove us the four and a half hours down. Since this was a one-day trip, it was a very, very long time in a car – in the end, we got home around 11 p.m.

Once there, we suddenly became a “delegation” when someone from the Ministry of Emergency Services joined us, having come down from Minsk to accompany us on the trip. It was quite a surprise, and very “Big Brother”-ish, although it wasn’t anything nefarious. Just the same as in the Exclusion Zone on the Ukrainian side, the tour company has to apply for permits and needed copies of our passports to get them. The permits come from the ministry, so they saw a bunch of diplomats – and only diplomats – coming, so they decided to give us the quarter tour for the price of a nickel. It was quite nice of them, actually. (The chocolate factory did the same thing.)

At one point, I was talking to the representative and he asked if our trip was a team-building thing of some sort and assured him it was just that we had wanted to come and explained the parameters of our boss allowing us to come and he understood. He was quite nice and he was taking advantage of the opportunity to visit the park (it’s a nature preserve now) without having to be “on” – he took more selfies than the rest of the group combined.

Of the group, I was the only one who had previously been to the other side and the damage entirely paralleled it. One difference, though, was that we were giving much more rein to wander through the decrepit buildings, some of which had rotted and sagging floors. I mean, it’s been 35 years.

As on the Ukrainian side, the visuals are astoundingly depressing, especially considering the Belarusians didn’t know about the disaster immediately and continued to do things like go to school. There are discarded and abandoned items everywhere, and, although I don’t doubt that they’re authentic, it does make you wonder how they’ve survived exactly in the same place for so long. At the very first viewing, the guide pointed to a rusted toy truck lying in the grass -- a very sobering sight – and, after taking several photos at different angles, you realize that wow, how odd that the side of the road has been mowed but some truck (or shoe) isn’t completely overgrown. So there’s got to be a little bit of staging involved, but that doesn’t take away the authentic feel to it.

As a wildlife area, they monitor for forest fires and have about 25 towers around the area. At the one closest to the border – 18 kilometers – the reactor is visible, but only if you climb three of the five flights of stairs up the fire tower. It terrified me, but I did it. No way was I missing that.

Following the visit, because we were a “delegation,” we were shown the monitoring room, where a guy watches video feeds from the towers to monitor from fires. It was quite cool and a bit creepy – their cameras were WAY better than mine; the operator called up a picture of the reactor that looked like the ones I’d taken from the Ukrainian side. And he also called up, while we were watching,  video of us in the tour van!

There’s a river – the Pripyet, same name as one of the larger communities that was devastated (the one that has the Ferris wheel) – and there were several aged boats, which, me being me, loved. I hate to think of how many photos I took. I can’t imagine doing having done that at camp in 1982 with only 24 shots for a whole week! But the river was gorgeous; the tour company also offers a kayaking tour there.

Now that I realize that the tour company is operating again, I will have to look at other weekend trips. I’d been monitoring the site but not seeing any updates. Turns out, they’ve been operating through COVID but just hadn’t gotten a chance to update the English version of the website.

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend and three of us are headed to another city in the direction of Lithuania. Because I’ll be out of commission until Monday, I am having to put together four papers for the two classes I am taking. Needless to say, I had a crappy weekend. ALL I did was coursework.

But that’s better than being on a diverted/hijacked plane and being yanked off. The world is again appalled at what “Europe’s last dictator” has pulled. I cannot imagine what he thought the reaction would be, but it’s not looking good. I will refrain from commentary. 

Here's the State Department statement:

The United States strongly condemns the forced diversion of a flight between two EU member states and the subsequent removal and arrest of journalist Raman Pratasevich in Minsk. We demand his immediate release. This shocking act perpetrated by the Lukashenka regime endangered the lives of more than 120 passengers, including U.S. citizens. Initial reports suggesting the involvement of the Belarusian security services and the use of Belarusian military aircraft to escort the plane are deeply concerning and require full investigation.

We are closely coordinating our response with our partners, including the EU and Lithuanian and Greek officials. Given indications the forced landing was based on false pretenses, we support the earliest possible meeting of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization to review these events.

Independent media are an essential pillar supporting the rule of law and a vital component of a democratic society. The United States once again condemns the Lukashenka regime’s ongoing harassment and arbitrary detention of journalists. We stand with the Belarusian people in their aspirations for a free, democratic, and prosperous future and support their call for the regime to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Saving Soles

 Since I’m down to maybe 3-4 months left in Minsk, I’m trying to wrap my brain around what I need to do, what I should do, what I want to do and what I can do. Stuff starts to get real about this point in a tour, when you scramble to figure what needs to be done before you leave. Places to see, things to do – you know.

Soles like new. Inside, not so much.

And of the random things to do, “get shoes resoled” fell low on the totem pole, but I found a place and had gotten my black shoes redone a bit earlier. The LL Bean shoes were originally around $80 and I bought them when I was in Minot, so they’re almost 9 years old. Here, getting them resoled took two days and only cost around $12! I was thrilled with the black ones and went this week to get the brown ones done. My small little victory. It’s really hard to do with little to no language skills. I know how to say “new” but not “shoes” or “soles.” Fortunately, when I went with the black ones earlier, I went the day after going with someone to scout the place, so the guy had an idea of what I needed. When I went to do the brown ones – at a different place because the original place was closed that particular day – I just showed the bottoms of the black ones and pointed to the brown ones. I guess it makes it easier that the shoes are identical except for the color.

A couple months ago, I finally splurged on some new clothes. Like pretty much the rest of my wardrobe, it all was from LL Bean. When I got the order in, I went to hang up the shirts. I think LL Bean is using different manufacturers now because I am no longer an XL in some of the shirts, but that wasn’t my takeaway. I hung up three new shirts and then counted all my hang-up shirts. I have exactly 26 of them. Sixteen are from LL Bean; all variations of the wrinkle-free oxfords. And the pants I wear to work? Every single day (except Fridays when my boss is working from home), I wear a pair of LL Bean Perfect Fit pants, which I have in a couple of styles and a range of colors. I have 13 of them. So essentially, every day, I wear three catalog items. Well, four, if you count my backpack. I have two of those – a backpack for M and F and then a slingy thing for the rest of the days. On Mondays I bring in my Russian textbook and then I take it home on Fridays; it doesn’t fit into the slingy thing. If I was better looking, I’d apply to be a model. I certainly feel like I should have some street cred with them.

Sums up my closet

Today, though is one of those unicorn days where I’m wearing zero LL Bean – at least now that I’ve warmed up enough to take off the vest. It’s Saturday, so I’m wearing Levi’s and my “Kurdagonia” shirt from Erbil. It’s also the first day of another four-day weekend, so it’s likely I’ll be wearing the same thing tomorrow, too.

No out-of-town plans this weekend. We have a couple of social work events on Monday and Tuesday, so that was reason to stick around. Today, I cooked for the Monday one. Ran myself out of red beans, so that’s something. Tomorrow, I’ll use the second-to-last brownie mix. Tomorrow my big thing is a massage. I’m going to splurge and do an hour and a half.

Still no trips planned to the grocery store. I was going to go this weekend but the one thing I planned on getting was bread to resume PB sandwich lunches and since we only have a three-day work week, I’ll just continue with rice or macaroni like I did this week. Geez, this morning, since I have no potatoes, I decided to eat a side dish of macaroni with my scrambled eggs. It was a bit weird, but I just can’t justify buying carbs when I have so darn many carbs in my pantry. But I’ll cave next weekend. The call of ice cream is strong, and I can justify it because I have a thing of caramel waiting to be ingested.

Next weekend, we have the road trip planned and now there are, I think, eight of us going. It’s only a one-day trip, but it’s a seriously long one day. Hopefully it all works out; I keep having fears something will happen.

I pulled out the Belarus map and realized that the next weekend trip isn’t exactly where I thought, so that will still leave one region unseen. I may try to do another little train trip either later this month or June to see it, especially if the EU hasn’t opened up yet. However, we realize that Ukraine is also open, so that’s a possibility. But I really want to get to Poland before I leave here, so I hope that opens up.

My next classes start on Monday, so I have to work around that as well. Going away for a full weekend isn’t the greatest idea because Sunday night is the day the assignments are due, and I’m doing two classes instead of one this time. It’s probably not the wisest idea, but for some reason it seemed that way at the time. So I’m just going to take it week by week and hope it works.

Eastbound and down

It’s Orthodox Easter Monday and the end of a four-day weekend. Next weekend, there’s another. I just couldn’t stand the thought of being locked up again and I had almost reached full immunity, so I took a train to a city that’s northeast from me (right in the corner near Russia) and then the following day went down to a city that’s pretty much due east of Minsk. I came home yesterday. I’m off today, too, but I have a class and other stuff to do so I came on back. Besides, I was limited to walking around and am pretty sure I saw everything I could see while on foot, including a dead man.

I’d met a friend for dinner on Friday night and, walking back up the pedestrian street to my hotel, saw both a police car and an ambulance. There were two uniformed officers nearby, standing near the corpse of an older man, who was sprawled out on the sidewalk. I guess he had a heart attack. My first thought had been a jumper but it wasn’t messy.

Previously, on the way to work last week, I witnessed the term “falling down drunk” in real life. Not being a drinker myself, it never occurred to me that could be a real thing. On Monday, I walked through “Old Town,” which is a cool area with bars and restaurants by the river. This was on my way into work on a Monday, and I walk out of my house at 7:45 a.m. Apparently Sunday night is a party night because there were people standing around talking or waiting for taxis. On my side of the street as I was walking, I saw a guy facing kind of a half wall, holding himself up on it. I kept walking and put together that he was peeing. Do men (besides Jerry Seinfeld in a parking garage) do this in America and I just never noticed? It sure happens overseas to the point where I just ignore it, which is what I did with this guy. As I got closer, he slowly turned, paused and then completely collapsed on the sidewalk with a smack.

But I don’t think the older man in Vitebsk was drunk. I really think he was dead.

Other than that, though, it was a lovely weekend away and at times I caught myself wondering why I hadn’t done it before. Then I’d realize, duh, COVID, and although at no point has Belarus shut down it wouldn’t have been a good idea. The first city I went to was, early on, Belarus’ early hotspot, too.

In two more weeks, a group of us are headed to the Chernobyl Zone and over Memorial Day weekend there is a smaller group heading another direction. Even though I’d really like to go international, it’s really nice to be able to go somewhere. It’s incredibly cheap, too. I think my three-day trip only came to maybe $100. It wasn’t intentional to scrimp or anything but I certainly don’t need souvenirs. I just took a million photos and walked by rivers.

Back at home, I finished up my first HR course. (Yay! 10 percent complete!) and am trying to figure out how to go through all this food. Today, I used up the rest of my chocolate chips to make cookies (they’re in the freezer), made Jiffy cornbread (which leaves one box) and finished off the chickpeas. I hadn’t intended to do that, but the brown sugar needed to go into an airtight container and I didn’t have one so I cooked the chickpeas. Unfortunately, though, the chickpea-rice-spinach concoction once again stocked my freezer. I really don’t need to cook at all and although I had planned on going to the grocery store, it turned out to be closed so I skipped it. The only thing I really want to get is ice cream (I have two things of caramel waiting to be consumed) but since I made cookies I can’t really justify that.

Next weekend, we’re having a little bike ride get-together so I’m hoping it’s decent weather. There’s been a lot of rain lately and it’s still chilly. I’m over it.