Birthday

Yesterday Fialta has officially gone a 14 year old teenager.

Only senior members, who know the organisation for some years, remember Fialta's founders. So everyone is sitting quietly listening to great stories.
And watching presentations.

Story of a city (ru)

Fialta's citizens (ru)

The photos are 3 to 14 years old.

Euro<26, mentorship and the market

On Monday I got my special Euro<26 card.









We had a laugh that it is kind of worthless in Belarus, but still Europe remembers and takes care of me.







Then I found this:



http://euro26.by/
Not that bad - I still have 3 places that take the card.

Things are going a bit slow right now, which gives me some time to get used to the city, feel at home, get used to buying food and cooking by myself.

From Minsk - Impressions

Had a first meeting with my mentor and a separate meeting with the EVS project coordinator and Fialta's executive director. I see them every other day, but this time we closely went through my expectations and composed a plan for future doings.
Looks promising.

It's kind of hard to find good vegetables in supermarkets. In open markets on the other hand its a lot better, but... They don't give receipts at the market. It means I can't report to the National Agency about what I bought at the market. We're clarifying the financial report scheme with the Agency, maybe it's not that bad? But for now I collect receipts for every single thing I consume.

First work

On Sunday I had first working experience with local youngsters. There's a problem about participant shortage, the same as in Latvia.

We had youngsters from orphanages (for children and young people), who were a very interesting group. In theory I know that a group with developed relationships is hard to work with in the beginning, but it didn't seem that bad.

Meeting

The event was for 3 hours, in which we gave them different tasks and a little competition.

We didn't expect to get much output from them, but nonetheless some of their conclusions were quite interesting.

First impressions from the other side

Well... I'm getting to know Belarus step by step. Can't say that I understand every detail, but already I think I won't get lost.

From Minsk - Landmarks

I live in a room in a cottage on the outskirts of Minsk. It's a very good place, though the shower is on the floor and there's a common kitchen. The room itself is big and cosy.

From Minsk - Belrad

From Minsk - Belrad

As I understand there's no such thing as unlimited internet in Belarus. Traffic counts, so I use it from time to time from the office.

From Minsk - People

The country has a peculiar feeling about it. Comparing to Riga there's some kind of a spirit of a common ideology. There's lots of social ads in the streets, people address each other respectfully, they use father's names (which in Latvia we don't use at all), there are slogans from the soviet times in the streets.

From Minsk - Landmarks

From Minsk - Landmarks

From Minsk - Landmarks

It may seem strange but the main language in Belarus is russian. Belarussian was pushed away during political processes. And now there's even a whole lot of youngsters born in Belarus who don't speak the language. Which is a shame - it's a very pleasant and interesting language.

I use city transport a lot. There are all kinds of ground transport in Minsk and also two branches of the underground railway (called metro in slavic countries). The transport fees are a lot lower than european or even latvian.

Food costs on the other hand are quite like home, though the price-tags look confusing - 1 lat is around 5000 belarussian roubles, which is about 1.4 euro. So spending 15 000 on groceries is quite ok. Also there are no coins, only paper.

I didn't quite get to my duties yet, but already have some idea of what I can and should be doing. :) We'll see how it turns out.