Goal lines, groceries and goatees

 Happy post-Belarusian Freedom Day, which is an unofficial holiday that marks the declaration of independence from the Belarusian Democratic Republic, which lasted a year after WWI. The unofficial holiday is a big one for the opposition, and the opposition’s leader, who is still exiled in Lithuania, called for renewed protests following the fraudulent (legit fraudulent, not Trump-fraudulent) summer elections. People have still been protesting, but this past winter was super cold, with more freezing temperatures and snow than in the last 25 or so years.

Museum of Culture

 Now that the weather has improved (it’s about 40 and sunny today), some people are trying to get the protests going again, but Europe’s Last Dictator isn’t letting go. People are protesting on smaller scales, with basically people walking in small groups (think like 3-6 people) being considered a protest. And yes, these people are being rounded up.

 This weekend I have the duty phone and I’ve already had one call from the relative of American citizen who apparently didn’t know that taking pictures of what’s going on is a bad thing and got detained for a couple of hours. Hopefully there aren’t any more calls.

 To stay out of trouble on protest days, it’s best to not wear white and red, as these are the colors of the opposition. I have a Red Wings knit hat that Dana gave me (Hockey is for Everyone-themed) and people here love it, but I can’t wear it on Sundays. That’s been the main protest day.

 

The hat is a nice conversation piece, although my Russian stinks. (And always will, a fact I’m coming to terms with.) One of the groundskeepers at work and I have a friendly attempt at a Russian/English lesson whenever we meet. He knows I’m awful in Russian and we’ll stay “good morning” and try to do short conversation or something. I’m terrible. I can’t even say “have a nice day correctly.”

Anyway, he noticed my hat one morning and asked me something about Detroit. Although I wasn’t sure what he meant, I said yes and asked, “And you?” He said yes. Then I tried to asked if he played and thought he said yes, so I tried to ask what position. Well, I can’t remember the words for “forward” and “defence” (they’re in a script I’m trying to memorize), so I said “Sergei Fedorov, Igor Larionov” and then “Slava Fetisov.” Didn’t work. He said, “Russian.” Not what I was trying to convey. Undaunted, I tried again and I first mimed puckhandling towards the goal line while saying “Sergei,” And then did the same thing going backwards and said “Fetisov.” It worked! Turns out, he doesn’t play. He’s a fan and sits in the stands.

Museum of Culture

It looks like I might be able to put the hat away soon. We’re finally warming up, and that means my time is winding down. I expect to be out of here around September or so, though that’s not nailed down. It’s not like I’m counting down, but I have come to realize that I have way too much stockpiled food and need to start eating. Somehow, I have maybe four more bags of grits and I have only been eating them maybe once a week. I don’t think I’ll have to buy juice again, either. Some stuff I need on a regular basis, like fresh veggies. But what I have I am loading up with spices, because I overestimated the amount of this and that I’d be using. Some stuff I’ve been saving, like Jiffy cornbread. I bought a six-pack and have eaten three but since I’m down to three, it doesn’t seem like much so I haven’t touched them in a couple months. Same with the brownie mixes. I haven’t used a brownie mix since before Christmas, but the minute I make a batch, I’ll only have one left! It probably sounds very silly to people who can run to Publix anytime they want but it seems risky to me.

Also risky: COVID here. Belarus will start manufacturing the Russian vaccine soon and its residents will have options but right now, only medical personnel have been vaccinated. I think they’re starting another tranche. The virus just isn’t being treated like a serious thing here. We do finally have mandates to wear masks indoors and on mass transit, but when I go into stores, maybe 50-60 percent of people are wearing masks (not necessarily properly) and as I walk, I can see inside the city busses and trams with unmasked people inside. No one trusts the numbers here so I don’t even track them, but basically I wash my hands every time I arrive home or to the office.

Work is different, of course. We wear them indoors for the most part. I hate it and wish I could open a window, but it’s still pretty cold most of the day. My boss is a double masker and I rarely see him without one, although I’ve noticed a lot of people are closing their office doors lately because we’re allowed to remove masks if our doors are shut. (I had a door but it went away in an office re-do.)

A couple days ago, his door was open and I needed something, so I went in – and caught him without a mask. Not like I cared or anything, but what blew me away was that sometime in the past, oh, year since I’ve seen his face, he grew a goatee! I was utterly stunned. I had no idea.

I can’t imagine what the look on my face must have been, but he would not have seen it because I was wearing a mask.

 

Exploring the city, at least a little.

 Despite COVID, I’m trying to get out a little bit. Looking at the calendar, I could be down to my last six months here and I’d like to get into some of the nooks and crannies before I head off to the sandbox again.

The Prophet - what do you see first?

I’ve checked a few boxes, such as Stalin Line (the tank place), a couple outdoor museums and the biggie museum, the one of The Great Patriotic War.

But Minsk is a European capital, so there’s so much more to explore. My apartment is so centrally located that it’s a shame not to check out the neighborhood, which includes two museums less than two blocks from me.

On Saturday, I headed to the national art museum, which is literally on the next block. I went with a colleague, who parked in my parking lot and we just walked from there.

The place is huge! It’s actually in two buildings, but there was no map or anything so we wandered; we were in there about three hours and didn’t quite finish it but hunger wins. There were some really nice pieces in there, and most of it was paintings and such. I very much appreciated there wasn’t a trash can roped off in the middle pretending to be some kind of art installation; I just don’t get that at all.

But a lot of it was fairly freaky, and there was, as one may imagine, a very large and mostly depressing post-war contingency of art, plus a lot of soviet-influenced pieces. There were several oil paintings done on cardboard, which I have never seen before and more wood carvings that I would have expected. I couldn’t tell what kind of tree had been used; we tried to ask and it came back “clay,” so I think there was a miscommunication.

Son of Bitch. (I don't get it.)

One of the funky pieces was an optical illusion-type by an artist who had several colorful “landscapes” of what he called Saturn, including some kind of fair ride with “warning signs” (skull and crossbones) and some bizarrely-shaped women’s heads he called “Women of Saturn.” The piece I liked was called “The Prophet,” and at first glance, I thought it was of a natural window in a rock. When I looked again, I realized the opening was in the shape of a man. Cool.

Had a Ferris Bueller (or was it Cameron?) moment when I saw a joltingly real picture of a wooded area with lots of fallen leaves. It looked to real, it could have been a photo – but only at a distance. As I got closer and closer, I saw that the leaves were merely blurs of paint, scattered at random across the bottom but creating an amazing beauty. There were also several artists who had illustrated books and stories, and one that I wish I could have read was an illustration that translated to “Son of Bitch.” I have no idea what that was about.

On Monday – a holiday for us – I risked it and headed to the circus. They’re big in the Former Soviet Union (FSU!), but they’re not the big three-ring ones from my childhood. It’s a small venue with one ring, and it’s a permanent venue. The Minsk circus is, I saw online, the first permanent building to house a winter circus. AFAIK, there are two performances a day, and it was pretty packed. I’m sure I was the only adult there without a small child and most people wore masks, including the circus workers, but not the performers.

Fortunately, it was more of an athletic circus with no abused animals like bears riding motorcycles. They did have some animals, but it was limited to two chickens, two ferrets, about six dogs, six ponies and five or six horses.

The acts weren’t out of this world, but the amount of athleticism to do them is pretty incredible. After reading “The Orphan’s Tale,” I felt I was a little more aware of the work the trapeze artists put in, for one. Some of it hurt just watching. My favorite was some kind of 70s music going on with three guys jumping on a trampoline, as random as that sounds. But it was a nice way to kill an hour and a half on a holiday afternoon.

Next up in my museum exploration was to be the history and culture museum, which is a block the other direction from my house and I intended to go on Sunday. However, Saturday evening, a colleague and his wife had three of us over and we had such a good time that I didn’t leave until 11:30. I had an appointment at 10 a.m. on Sunday (getting my permanent eyeliner redone) and, following that, it started snowing really hard again. These little pellets about half the size of BBs came at me on the three-mile walk home from the eye place and at that point, I just wanted chocolate and a nap, so I did that instead. I considered it a good use of time.