Belarus: Pt 1
“Updated December 2015, valid until November 2015”
Some people, indeed most people, have asked us why one would visit Belarus. But, one reason why many Europeans might not visit Belarus is that you must obtain a visa. Given that visas are not guaranteed, you will in all likelihood want to apply before planning the finer details of your trip. We, however, did not. Instead, we chose to book a complex itinerary spanning Lithuania, Belarus and Poland and leaving the boring (so boring) visa as a glorious finale. Fortunately for the spontaneous traveller, the application process takes just 8 excruciating steps, each of which requires that you plan your trip in meticulous detail (we used three spreadsheets, though I have heard of people getting by with just two + a stacks of post-it notes, string and scissors for collecting newspaper cuttings). Furthermore, some steps require that you already have a visa (whilst I am given to bouts of wild exaggeration and unprovoked falsehood, this final part was actually the case).
We first attempted to apply for a visa on the 30th November, a full 4 days ahead of our flight on the 3rd December. One immediate challenge was to find the embassy. We followed Google Maps. We approached the front of the building as seemed appropriate and beneath a swirling flag representing the glorious republic of Belarus was a grand door, complete with brass plaque that strongly implied that the building was the embassy of the republic of Belarus.
This was not, despite its appearance, the entrance to the embassy of the Republic of Belarus. We descended some stairs nearby and immediately discovered the actual (secret?) embassy. It was cunningly hidden directly beneath the mock embassy (they had clearly gone underground). I arrived at the entrance which beckoned invitingly, offering all of the amenities of the modern nation:
Sadly I was forced to delete all photographs of the interior of that mysterious room, which was covered with a complex geometric arrangement of mirrors (to give the space an appearance of space and light) as well as smoke from a lighted incense stick (for atmosphere).
The consular representative stood in front of a set of Russian dolls, besides a shield dedicated to “the children of Chernobyl”. Spread in front of her, in front of the bureaucratic apparatus of the modern consular agent, were tourist brochures adorned, without any irony, with the strapline “hospitality without borders”. Her face was stamped with administrative rigour: perfectly still. Any movement would have been like watching porcelain twitch. She had painstaking attention to detail and fastidiousness etched into the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were strangely dull. Our first interview lasted only 3 minutes. Whilst we had already obtained our letter of invitation, we were turned away with errors with respect to the dates.
With these errors corrected (at some minor expense and a Skype date with Minsk’s only hostel) our second attempt to get visas was just 3 days before our flight, causing us some discomfort. However, we were turned away once more, now being told that we needed medical insurance, though we were sure google had told us otherwise. Retreating in anticipation of a third attempt later that day, we checked the internet once more, conscious of their “lifestyle and worker welfare” policy of closing at 12 midday.
As is to be expected, the most useful source of information with respect to visas for British travellers is the website for the Belarusian consular section for Belgium. Whilst, outwardly, diplomatic relations between the the UK and Belarus seem to consist of mutual agnosticism, where the two are forced to engage the conflict is acute, with truly appalling consequences for the casual tourist. We ourselves were caught in the crossfire of a bitter war of misinformation that is waged perpetually between the author of the .gov.uk page on Belaurus and the Belarusian British consular section. They key battleground is medical insurance, with the Belarusian consular section declaring in block capitals and red lettering that medical insurance has been made obligatory since November for British citizens, whilst the UK site (“most recently updated in December” [highlighted in extra large font]) declares medical insurance to be optional. Haunted by visions of the visa bureaucrat’s un-dilating pupils, we tried to buy insurance anyway.
It turns out that if you are to follow Belarusian guidelines, you must buy medical insurance from one of the two state insurance agencies and that this must be completed in advance of your trip. Critically, neither site allows you to buy online. Neither site has a phone number or email address, and optimistically following links for “obligatory insurance” takes the would-be traveller in a perpetual circle, though they helpfully suggest an address at which you might buy the insurance (in Belarus). When we re-entered those smoky depths, a sign had appeared by the service hatch with its block capitals thoughtfully highlighted with red ink, declaring that all visas would require medical insurance (“EVEN BRITISH CITIZENS”). On this occasion they agreed to let us into Belarus with insurance from a non-state supported agency and at 12:29 we had finally submitted our visas (we would find out if they had been approved on the day of our flights).
To Lithuania
On the day of our flights, I ran by the embassy and picked up our passports: we were granted visas. I think by that point, our highly conspicuous incompetence alone was sufficient to disqualify us as potential agents of subterfuge or intrigue.
We arrived at Liverpool St station and immediately got onto the wrong train. While we were still unaware that it was the wrong train we joked about how funny it would be if we had got onto the wrong train. Looking around the train we laughed at how empty it was — and how full the train on the opposite platform was. We were literally the only people in our carriage!
By now, it will also come as no surprise that we did not know the way to Vilnius from Vilnius airport. There was no information booth and the airport did not appear to have any staff, only shops. A small shop selling children’s clothes was opening as we walked past. It was approximately 11pm.
Vilnius airport itself is in fact a large, period villa, the gardens of which were converted into runways, the ballroom divided into departure gates and the pantry converted into a small, late night children’s clothing outlet during Soviet occupation during world war two. The vaulted ceilings, elaborate plasterwork and Gothic chandeliers, juxtaposed with 1960s strip mall décor in the main thoroughfares make for a grand arrival.
In the midst of a WiFi desert, we had few options. Nevertheless, we probably chose the wrong option. We played “bus stop roulette”, picking a bus at random and then a stop at random. It took 4 days and 163 EUR in bus fares to find our hostel, after which point our visas for Belarus had expired and we had to take a coastal bus directly to Warsaw to catch our return flight. On the bus, Fergus was groped quite thoroughly by a very hairy old man.
Key Lithuania facts:
- 3 million (2.9 million) people live there making it the largest of the Baltic states.
- Lithuania is proud to be one of the most progressive amongst its peers, holding up its record as the first Baltic state to receive an IKEA.
- Napoleon hated its churches more than he hated most churches and the Lithuanians have successfully lied to cover up this fact for several hundred years.
- Every occupying force since the birth of Lithuania changed the purpose of its churches, from Catholic to synagogue to Orthodox, to stables and cell phone towers, libraries, meat storage depots, hat factories, clown training camps, transvestite storage units.
- The Lithuanian people too have changed religion repeatedly, from being one of the last remaining pagan countries in Europe they were peer-pressured into Catholicism and bribed into baptism with free commemorative t shirts. This was so effective that the majority of the population was baptised within a year, a large proportion being baptised multiple times.
The capital city, Vilnius was also subject to changing ownership, having been claimed by the Polish until the Lithuanians cunningly traded their entire county to the Soviet Union to have it back.
Given the repeated occupations, divisive religious shifts and general tumult, it is perhaps surprising, therefore, the intense feeling of national identity and solidarity that the Lithuanians have (though their choice of headwear is perhaps less surprising). Their most recent spate of independence (long may it last) means modern Lithuania will turn 25 next year (it feels strange to be slightly older than a sovereign nation).
The diet in Lithuania is so particular as to require a neologism: “potatiated”, the sensation of being full of potato. Lithuania’s trademark meal, “the Zeppelin” is advertised as “gut-stopping” and has the cheerful, abnormally informative tagline “you may never poo again!” Apparently, the ability to cause constipation became a virtuous characteristic of Lithuanian foodstuffs in the 1500s when pooing began to wane in popularity amidst several severe bouts of dysentery.
Lithuanian women are stunning. In a rigorous survey, we deduced that they are among the top three of all countries in terms of beauty. Accentuating this is the prevalence of grossly unequal matches between men and women. The pairings are often so disparate, the injustice so great, many of the tourists in our group unpausingly discarded their belief in God.
For instance, in a nightclub named “Cocaine Nightclub” we saw a woman who could have been the Marilyn Monroe of the Baltics. Blonde, full figured and in a bright red dress. She was dancing with a man who had three stomachs, tiered like a wedding cake. She was simultaneously dancing with a man who was undoubtedly a hitman. From his naked scalp to the jagged scar running down the side of his face, his suspiciously lumpy leather jacket worn despite the satanic heat of the club, he was obviously a killer. A merciless murderer without a conscience. His fingers seemed to twitch for wont of a larynx to squeeze as he jerkily shifted from foot to foot several beats behind the music. We also witnessed an intense friendship between a tall man in a very long hoody in a narcotics induced stupor and a short man with his trousers hiked high up on his hips and a perfectly coiffed moustache.
Our first evening in Lithuania was to prove relatively eventful. We met two Spaniards, one person from Portugal, one Brit, one Canadian and two Lithuanians (though only the existence of the first is generally accepted fact, the second Lithuanian is disputed to be a figment of my imagination). My memory stretches only to the first nightclub we visited. My next memory is of being exceptionally cold and seeking refuge in what appeared to me to be a farmhouse. I would later discover that I was actually some 5km across town in “the ghetto” of Vilnius in which large swathes of the housing stock is made of wood. Given that the nightclub was only 10 minutes’ walk from the hostel, my resurfacing across the river has not yet been explained satisfactorily. Apparently, the owner of the building took issue with my search for shelter. And that’s how I came to be punched repeatedly in the face by a very old man. The police delivered me to my hostel.
The following day was unproductive. We were woken by loud declarations in support of the moonshine that the hostel had obtained “from some dude in the forest.” The moonshine in question smelled as though it could be easily re-created by mixing two parts cat piss with one part petrol smoke.
We used our final hours in Lithuania to exploit the famous baltic liberal attitude towards Segways. We were given two Segways for 1 hour and provided 15 seconds of utterly listless instruction. His contrived disinterest was enough to make the transaction somehow feel seedy: “do what you want with them”. When we returned within 4 minutes because we had already crashed one of them he wordlessly set the Segway back in working order and gestured for us to leave.
Whilst the Segway is definitely one of the most obnoxious vehicles known to man, it is also hilarious. Riding along the river bank, wind whisking our hair, the sun setting, the water scintillant, an angry electronic buzzing heralding our rapid approach. Dogs and babies scattered in every direction, birds (carefully lured with buckets of bread) dispersed unceremoniously. We were the Hell’s Angels of the yuppy demographic.
We had obtained our tickets for transfer to Minsk as soon as we had arrived. For reasons unknown, when we announced to the staff at the station that we wanted to travel to Minsk they displayed signs of intense distress. They proceeded to sell us tickets anyway. We could either leave at 7am or arrive at 11.30pm with no options between. We took the late arrival.
