Cue the Brady Bunch: We had a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day!

Amidst the dark cold that is Minsk in winter, somehow, a perfect Saturday appeared. Oh, the joy of sunshine! Real sunshine, not a random glimpse through clouds. And it was above freezing to boot – I think we hit 40F, even.

Everyone and their brother took the opportunity to go outside, I am pretty sure. My venture out was productive: I went to the big market, which is about two miles away. I braved the wet walk in tennis shoes and hoped I didn’t crash. More concerning, I knew, would be the way back, since I’d be loaded down with eggs, but I made it.

The weather was beautiful but oh, man, it’s a mess out there. We’ve had so much snow that the sidewalks are packed ice and the roofs are just loaded down. With some of it melting so quickly, there were city avalanches coming off the roofs to the sidewalks. Fortunately, Belarusians are pros at this and know to rope off the sidewalk close to the buildings so people don’t walk there. (Note: in the subtleties of the opposition’s white-red-white, I was amused/inspired the plastic rope used is red and white.)

The melting snow has no place to go. I mean, there are drains but there’s just so much melting and it’s really only borderline over freezing, so it’s not like it’s all going to go away with one glorious 40-degree day. It’s back down to 30 now and may hover at freezing today, but it’ll nosedive again soon. There’s no way it all – or even the bulk of it – will suddenly go away. I’m more than a little terrified of tomorrow’s walk to work. They do a really good job of clearing it off in most places, but there’s always some spot where I feel like I tempt fate a little too much.

The river, by which I love walking, is one spot. As I walk to work, I have to pass over it and there’s a stretch where one of the roads I also have to cross has a walkway under it, by the river. Because it’s water, this is my preferred crossing but holy cow, the stairs. They are not first on the list to be cleaned off and have been covered in ice more than once.

Close to the office, there’s also one spot that has two steps, and, even during the summer, these steps are a little iffy. Minsk also has a lot of bikers (not during winter) and, on quite a few of the stairs, they also have two little ramps to ride your bike up and down. (It’s not really handicap accessible, but it’s a start, I guess.) Those two stairs in that one place have those, so the step-down part is miniscule and broken -  in the summer. Now, the non-ramp part is essentially an ice ramp, and I have been known to step off in the street to avoid that short little trek. It doesn’t help that once you get down those two stairs, you’re basically on a mini ice rink, because there’s some kind of driveway that goes underground and there are pools of standing H2O all year round, and in winter, basically these are just huge, unavoidable ice slicks.

So far I’ve been lucky this year, though, and, after next week, we just have one more horribly brutal month left. March is still bad, I know, but at least it’s light out.

It’s been noticeably brighter when I leave the office, though. If I leave on time, I have five whole minutes to walk before the sun sets, and it’s not pitch black by the time I arrive. Mornings are still bleak, though, because in addition to the ice, it’s going to be dark upon departure for awhile. Since I walk to work, I tend to leave before 8 a.m. and the sun isn’t rising until after 9 a.m. still.

There is always the promise of summer, I know, but at the rate I am going, I don’t know how long I will be here. My intent was always to stay for my entire tour – October – and I put in for my next assignment with that in mind. However, I am learning that the person who’s in the job I am taking plans on leaving early so it might be that I’m expected to depart here early. I’ve come to terms with likely having to leave in September but really don’t want to and really don’t want to leave earlier than that, but it’s not looking good. In the end, I’m not sure how much say I have in it.

I just want to travel. It’s really going to kill me if I’m this close and can’t get to Poland and Slovakia. I mean, I was on my way to Slovakia when COVID started. Well, technically, I guess I was in Antarctica when COVID started, but I was on my way to Slovakia when all the shutdowns happened and I had to turn around and go home.

Just over it, but no one sees the end. I’m hopeful for the vaccine, but there’s no telling when it will get here. There are a couple of Americans who live in my building and they are headed to Florida next month specifically to get it. Me, no clue but I sure have a lot of masks to ward off anything. I hope it works.  

New Year, Same Old

I’m really glad to be posted overseas right now.  Yeah, Belarus has protesters resulting from the presidential election but here, there’s widespread evidence that the election wasn’t free or fair and the protestors entail people walking around with flowers. I’ll take this over Washington any day.

But man, it is really cold here right now. Last winter, it was warm and didn’t snow much. So far this winter, we’ve already more snow, ice and ridiculously cold temperatures than we had all of last year. This is what I expected during the winter but was spared in 2020; now I am just so very cold.

Today, I think the high was something like 3, but that’s better than it will be tomorrow. The good thing about the Hoth-type weather is that it’s too cold to snow. I’ve gotten a glimpse for the sun for the first time in weeks, but I did it from inside my fairly warm apartment.

We have a long weekend, but of course there’s no travel. I’m doing the same thing I did at Christmas – lining up a massage. There’s just not a lot else to do. At the moment, there is a project ongoing at the office and I’ve been able to get some OT but it’s really kinda sad when that’s what you’re looking forward to in order to pass the time.

The vaccine hasn’t made its way to us; last I heard it probably wouldn’t be earlier than March. Just trying to stay out of the way when it’s raging all around. Seems it’s getting closer; we’ve had a few cases at the office now, though, as far as I know, no one in my building.

Not that there is anyone in my building most of the time. I’m in the office most days but I’m pretty much the only one who’s in the office most days. I can do a lot from home, but it seems like the few days I work from home, there’s something right off the bat that I can only do from the office. And honestly don’t mind. It’s better than staying in the house all day.

The one plus of working from home is that I can go out to lunch once in awhile, but right now it’s so cold, I am not at all motivated to go outside. Too much Florida in me.

At some point this year, we’re supposed to get an ambassador. It’s gone through the Senate and I don’t know what steps come next, but at some point my life is going to shift into overdrive as far as work goes.  It’s fine – it’s why I took this job – but at some point it’s going to get real and my head is going to start spinning.

All downhill after this

Even more than Christmas, this is the day I dream about: once we’re past it, there’s promise of longer days. It was like this in North Dakota, and I’m not sure if it was better or worse there, but it’s just super bleak when you can get up, hit the treadmill for a solid hour, shower, eat breakfast and check email – and it’s still not even close to sunrise.

Today, the sun rose at 9:26 and will set at 4:49. I can’t confirm that because it’s also 30 and cloudy all day, but that’s a step up from the last day I checked, when it was 28 and cloudy all day.  And what’s really sad to a native Floridian is that at this point, 30 – or even 28 – as downright balmy, at least if it’s not humid and snowing.

At the chocolate factory store

 So, like when I lived in Minot, I view it as once I make it through the winter solstice, I can make it through winter. Yeah, it only gets more and more cold after this, but at least the days get longer. Right now, I commute to work in the dark both ways. It’s just bleak.

 I’m intent on getting my steps in and an easy, but sometimes bitterly cold, way to do this is by walking home by the river, which I love. I normally take a one-hour walk home if it’s not too bad, but one day recently I took the really long way, which is an hour and a half. That was a mistake because not only was it extremely dark and cold but also because the stretch after Gorky park had a layer of ice on the walkway. This is not a detriment to Belarusians; they hustle right by me. But I am terrified of slipping and falling, and both my lack of balance and the residual knot on my head from last year’s fall and subsequent concussion remind me I am not as sure-footed as everyone else.

October Square near my house.
This was at 7:45 a.m. on my way to work.

This December 21 feels like more of a milestone than the last one because it’ll be my last one in Minsk. I love Minsk but man, it’s dark in the fall. I cannot understand how people in Scandinavia, Alaska and Siberia must feel. So far this year, I haven’t had to drag out my happy lamp – starting the day with 2 miles on the treadmill gets the endorphins going – but as lovely as sundown at 10 p.m. is in June, it is not worth the tradeoff. I wake up in the middle of the night and have absolutely no feel as to what time it is. Could be 1 a.m.; could be 5 a.m. This morning, I managed to sleep late and woke up at 7:50 a.m. but I seriously thought it was the middle of the night. Nope. By that time in summer, I would have 7k steps and would still be walking.

But I’m doing the best I can still. Last week, even after doing four miles on the treadmill, I walked down to the chocolate factory to buy my Secret Santa gift. There’s a store essentially right across the street from my apartment, but I like the factory store better because I can just reach in and get how much I want instead of trying to explain to someone what I need – my Russian is terrible. Plus, I don’t want half a kilo of any given candy; I want two pieces of this, two pieces of that, etc. And man, it was the place to be, which make me want to speed through there. I’d been there a couple times before but there were quite a few people in there. Everyone was wearing masks – they’re finally enforcing that here – but basically it was just people on top of people and I hate that. Plus, I bought these awesome overpants that I wear outside – gamechanger! – and although they make walking even an hour and a half by the river totally bearable, they turn into thigh saunas when I am inside. I went to the big market a few weekends ago and couldn’t have been inside 10 minutes but I felt sweat running down my legs as I crammed my cartons of eggs into my bag. Great for the outdoors, but miserable indoors.

I'm a cliché

After spending my R&R in America, I came back to COVID raging and a required-for-work two-week self-quarantine. I wasn’t forbidden to go to the store or anything but couldn’t go into the office. For me, this may have well of meant no human contact because I can’t communicate with anyone else. 

To counter it and to do something productive, I signed up for an online class, and in participating in it, became a cliché. Yes, I gave a presentation while wearing a bathrobe.

The first week of working from home was brutal due to the class, which was 5 p.m. to midnight my time, which fell, theoretically, 7.5 hours into my normal workday. This was especially nightmarish on Tuesday when, due to local time zones elsewhere, I also had a 4:30 a.m. webinar.

These are the times when I am really glad I don’t use the camera on my laptop, because no one needs to see me straight out of bed (or even in bed) while wearing a “Peace Corps – We Run the World” jogging tank top.

Since the class was a solid eight hours, I didn’t mind if I took it easy during the day’s work, so suffering from both jet lag and something I’m fairly confident was(/is) a cold, I alternated checking emails with crashing on the sofa and watching “Schitt’s Creek.”

This, as many now know, is an awesome show that ran on the CBC in Canada, home of Hockey Night in Canada. (It never occurred to me they did other programming.) The episodes during its six-season run were under 25 minutes each, so it was fairly easy to crash and watch one and somehow, a mere two hours later, have completed half a season’s worth.

“Schitt’s Creek,” for those who don’t know, is the story of a family that loses its money and relocates into a small town the patriarch bought as a gag gift for his adult son. The actors who portray the father and son are real-life father and son and the mom is the Beetlejuice/Home Alone mom. There’s also a daughter and several other main characters. It’s all Canada nice; I was struck that the socialite daughter, who’s probably in her 20s, said please and thank you – something that would not ordinarily be written into most shows. Mostly I liked the fact that it went somewhere – there was a definite progression and growth of the characters. You don’t see that much in TV, and that made it a reason show. (Looking at you, Conners.) The son, who was pretty flamboyant, reminded me very much of a roommate I had in Detroit, who was one of the best roommates I’ve ever had.

Even including work and the class, completing that show was probably the most productive part of that first week back. I was just exhausted, even though I still walked every day. I just couldn’t get out of bed.

We’re in the crappy part of the year where the sun doesn’t show itself much. If it comes out at all, it’s not until after 9 a.m. and then it is gone by 5 p.m. It’s just bleak, but at least as of today I tell myself the days will start getting longer soon. (Countdown: 20 days!)

By the weekend of week 1, I decided that I could leave the house and took a long walk on Saturday, I think it was. Even hit a grocery store, but I had previously decided to do most shopping on Thanksgiving, after my massage. (Remember: it was self-quarantine, and I wore a mask the whole time.)

Shopping on Thanksgiving was fine here; obviously it’s not a holiday. But I was struck by two things: there appears to be no spinach in Minsk right now and, for some reason, there were Black Friday sales. Really? Black Friday is an American thing. How have we infected other countries with our commercialism?

Thanksgiving itself, the food part, as a sad little affair. I had decided to splurge and go to TGI Friday’s to get American food, but when I looked online at the menu, I saw that Tuesday is 2-for-1 burger day, so it seemed like if I got a burger it should be that day, and I saw the chicken – the closest I can get to turkey right now – came with sides of mashed potatoes and broccoli. Well, I make good mashed potatoes and have broccoli (but no spinach), so I just couldn’t justify an overpriced meal, especially at a dine-in restaurant during COVID. And why would I take chicken, broccoli and mashed potatoes home when I had chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli at home?

In the end, it was tasty but still quite sad. I miss people. I can’t say I miss wearing a bra, but I miss people.

Belarus tractors ... so sexy!

Couple of weeks ago, I was out walking and passed by a display of a tractor show. I had been on my way to an event when I passed it and was running late, so I couldn’t stop and get photos, but after the event ended, I went back again for a closer look. Why, well, like #PaulOverstreet points out, tractors are sexy!

Tractors are a big deal in Minsk and Belarus; there’s a factory here: Minsk Tractor Works.  As my Russian skills are … lacking, I don’t really know if the exhibition was specifically for that factory or not, but I was totally sucked into the show, which, fortunately, was outside so I could wander around without feeling like I was risking COVID, although I did wear a mask.

Here’s a bit from their site:

Minsk tractor works was founded on May 29, 1946. Today the works, which employs more than 16000 people, has turned into one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural machinery not only in CIS countries, but also worldwide. And the famous trademark “Belarus” is of great value to us — not only commercial, but also to a certain extent patriotic.

Unfortunately for my photo ops, I wasn’t the only one sucked into it I think every little boy under the age of 5 was there with his mom or dad. I saw a few little girls, but it there were mostly boys interfering cheerfully with my attempts to take pictures without anyone in them. (And yes, I would have totally taken a turn at the wheel myself had I had the chance, but it seemed kinda mean to shove the little boys out of my way.)

According to the one tractor’s paint job, it was the 75^th anniversary of something, but I’m not entirely sure of what since the company was founded in 1946. But it was really cook to browse around and see the old-timey farm equipment, which went beyond just tractors. 

Although Minsk is a European capital, the tractors are prominent here. The actual factory is in the area somewhere – the workers went on strike in protest of the elections at one point – and tractors are seen frequently on the streets. I can’t help but wonder if once in awhile in Paris or Madrid people see tractors in the middle of town, but we sure do here.

I see them outside my window. The photo of the orange one was taken outside my window, and today another one chugged by. At this point, I’m getting used to it but the first time it happened, I had been on the phone and was so surprised I think I broke my friend’s eardrum. I’m not sure how often people get a view of a KGB building and a tractor in one glance.

White, red, white

Today’s the day that the Belarus opposition, whom all but the current president recognize as having won the August 9 elections by collecting at least 60 percent of the vote, set as the day the current president resign from office. The current president, who is no longer considered president by the overwhelming majority of Belarusians and … well, pretty much most people, didn’t resign. No surprise there. He’s held onto power for 26 years – “Europe’s Last Dictator”—and claims to have won 80 percent of the vote.

Deadline time has come and gone, so we’ll see what happens next. The opposition leader, who is exiled in Lithuania, has called for strikes. What that means, I don’t know, but I’m staying by my phone in case we have any alerts of anything.

 here’s no expectation of violence, but it could be that people don’t go into work tomorrow and continue to protest. (NOTE: reiterating again that “protests” here equate people walking along the sidewalks with flowers. These are not violent protests whatsoever.) I may not have internet and there could be police standing around tomorrow.

They do that every weekend and today I realized I’ve become somewhat immune to it. I walk early on the weekends to be in by the 2 p.m. protest start – Saturdays there are women’s marches and then the general ones are on Sunday – to walk. This morning I’d walked by several of the pro-government trucks that carry the enforcers before realizing they were there. I guess it’s just a given that the squares will be blocked off and there will be uniformed thugs every so many meters. I just walk right by them.

The pro-government buses are distinguished by the Belarusian flags. The pro-opposition protestors have adopted the “white, red, white” flag. It was the official flag when Belarus was declared a republic in 1918. The whole republic thing didn’t last long, but the flag re-emerged after the fall of the USSR. At this point, it basically means “not Lukashenka.”

It’s everywhere, too. Once you realize what to look for, you see white-red-white all over. People very subtle intertwine it sometimes, but often it’s boldly displayed. In those cases, the pro-government gets out really quick to paint it over or remove it.

Still, white-red-white persists. I have no idea where people buy red and white umbrellas, but I see people using them every day. (It rains here as much as it does in London.) The funny thing is, once you start looking you can find the pattern in lots of weird places. You know the road barricades that normally come in orange in America? They come in both red and white here, and normally they alternate colors. I found it funny that in the construction across from the sitting president’s palace, there is a half-kilometer stretch of white-red-white-red-white barricades.

Red and white ribbons hang from trees; rogue graffiti artists spray paint red stripes on the signs featuring white-painted silhouettes that mark which sidewalk lane is for walking and which is for bikers. (The school crossing sign, which has a big person walking a little person, can be found with a police stick added to the big person, giving the illusion of that one beating down the little one. I haven’t seen one of those but have seen them in the press.)

 I snap photos of all I run into and am constantly surprised by the creativity – and the ballsiness. Of the three pictures in this post, the flag – I couldn’t rotate it on the blogspot software – was on a walk by the river and was painted over fairly quickly.

The series of planters have been covered up as well; they are off the beaten path and lasted a little longer. They’re in the courtyard area of my apartment building.

The big-ass flag wasn’t near my house; a colleague saw it as he set out on a bike ride; it was gone by the time he came back. Word had it that firemen were dispatched to take it down; the fireman who wound up with it tossed it off to a protester, who ran off with it. Maybe we’ll see it again. If not that, I’m sure there will be plenty more.

No idea how this is going to turn out, but it really is fascinating witnessing a revolution.

Up, up and away

Weekends have been fairly boring for awhile. The days are getting a lot shorter, the sun goes missing, rain threatens and it’s normally bleak looking outside. Summer is definitely gone and the prelude to winter that’s fall is kind of depressing.

And then there are still protests, meaning I really can’t exit my apartment courtyard after, say 1 p.m. The protests are peaceful but I never know where they are going to be. Saturday’s protests are women’s marches, which means today I can peek out the window and see women wearing white-red-white scarves or carrying white-red-white umbrellas out for a walk. Occasionally, a driver will go by and lay on the horn, but for the most part, I see women carrying flowers, which are a symbol of protest.

There’s no telling when – or how – this is going to end, but it seems like it’s going to go on for awhile. The president here inaugurated himself a couple of weeks ago, prompting weekday protests in addition to the weekend ones, but nothing is resolved. Belarus un-invited several EU countries’ ambassadors, leading a couple of others to depart in solidarity.

Meanwhile, we’re still without an ambassador. There’s one lined up but still has to be confirmed by the Senate, and, let’s face it, as much as we need an ambassador here, there are more pressing domestic issues. At this point, no one expects her to arrive until mid-November at the earliest.

That thwarted my hopes of taking off the first two weeks in December. I had no place to go, but if I don’t use just over a week of annual leave, I will lose it and I don’t want to that happen. Considering we’re supposed to “quarantine” where we go, I figured I’d just have to be gone two weeks. I have a virtual class planned for the third week in December, so taking off the first two seemed reasonable.

Now, though, knowing we *might* get an ambassador soon after, I can’t count on that. My additional wrinkle is that so long as the ambassador doesn’t have an assistant, I will fill in. Essentially, I’m pretty much counting on not going anywhere from the time she arrives – whenever that might be – for at least a month after and possibly longer. I’m perfectly fine with that; it’s just that I don’t want to lose my week of vacation.

Still, knowing I’m trapped here makes me kind of want to get out, so it was a relief when we got a TDYer who came to post by car. She hoped to explore a bit on weekends and I offered to tag along. (So considerate, I know.)

We’re limited in range because of the time; she needed to be back by 2 p.m. or something, so I got on Viator and poked around for a place to go and came up with a little outdoor museum that’s only a half-hour from the central part of the city, if that. IT’s called the Belarusian State Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural life, and it mainly consisted of wood buildings depicting life in the late 1800s in Belarus. I love stuff like that, and it was a non-crowded area in which to walk around.

They had little homes and buildings set up to show what life was like throughout the country during the late 19^th and early 20^th century, including a little tavern, a couple windmills, a church and a school.

Just as we were getting ready to turn into the place, Colleague saw an ultralight flying around, and we thought, wow, that’s pretty cool; I wonder where they take off from. Immediately upon entering the museum, we discovered it: right there.

My Russian isn’t good enough to query about it, but Colleague discovered it only cost about $20 for a 10-minute ride and asked if I wanted to do it. She said she didn’t because she’d been up in a little plane and had gotten sick.

Me? YES. Absolutely.

My only hesitation is that it was chilly and a bit overcast, but the place had this giant jacket for me to borrow so I tossed it on over my LL Bean barn coat. (Upon return, I learned I could have borrowed snow pants, too, and should have – it was COLD.)

Oh, it was so much fun. All we did was a giant circle but it was beautiful. I thought I’d be able to take photos, but they – fortunately – also loaned me some gloves in Shaquille O’Neal’s size. Trying to take a photo would have put either the phone at risk due to clumsiness or my fingers from frostbite, so I just took it in. There was one shot I regretted missing – an overhead (obviously) view Belarusian tractor working a field – but other than that, it was mostly just pretty landscape. Seeing the little open-air museum from the air gave me a good perspective of how big it was, too.

If you’d have asked me on Friday what I would do this morning, that would have been a blip on the conscious-o-meter, but boy, it was fun.