Блакітныя Азёры (The Blue Lakes)

Retrospective, episode 2. Still in May.

This story set off with a swiss Andy, whom I met on the study visit. And a guide.

There's a guide - Lonely Planet - with advice for travelers to different parts of the world. So Andreas, a traveler with experience, came to Belarus with this exact guide, which contained 2 sentences about Blue Lakes. 2 whole sentences.

So, after 6 days of the study visit, he rented a car and set off, taking with him Sophie from France and Sania from Latvia.


The puzzling fact is that these lakes, a jewel of Belarus landmarks, a marvelous product of mother nature's doings, is not marked on any maps. We had to improvise. Asked a few friends, got a direction and set off. To Miadzieł.


On the way a water basin caught our attention.




Miadzieł is a sweet little city near Naroch. Of course it has its own Lenin...


... a stage...


... and a castle! As we found out from man informational billboard. So there went. To the castle.


Coming up to a lake, we almost decided we got lost.


However, a passing fisherman dissolved our fears, with a wide gesture showing us the "castle".


As we were quietly endorsing the development of belarusian rural p.r., the man added:
-If you walk a bit further, there's also a beach.
We didn't bother to explore "the beach" and headed north.





We discovered the way via a couple of construction workers, gifted a piece of swiss chocolate with pistachios to a citizen of Konstantinovo (to fight his alcohol breath) and finally made it to Grumbinenty. Don't bother looking at the map. It's not there.


The owner of this, and a handful of other artworks-out-of-anything, made it clear, that it wasn't possible to get closer than 2km to the lakes by car. So we walked.


Describing what we say has little sense, have a look for yourself. We passed Glubelka, Glubla and Mertvoe.

Belarus - Travel

The place is very clean, ready for tourists. Just that it's all in russian.

The entrance turned out to be on the opposite side of the area, but we didn't have the day to see all of the place. We saw what we could and set out back on P95.


The road back was no less scenic.


Tired of the road we had dinner in Smorgon. The cuisine was twice cheaper than in the capital.



And on to Minsk, without incident.

That's it, thank you for your attention.

A word on the photos

Before my departure from Latvia my dad gave me his camera. Which came kind of handy - I stuck to a schedule of 3 photos a day for a month. And I don't think I'm still behind it.
My photos, after some tweaking and editing, make it to the internet. I use Picasa Web Albums as a host and divide my photos in a few main albums, which I update on a regular basis.
Captions mainly in russian, sorry (untranslatable play on words, some realities, which I can't find a synonym to and so on).
Here they are:

Belarus - Impressions

My impressions collected all over Belarus. Things which mean something to me personally (and often only to me personally).

Belrad

From my apartment in Belrad - an institute of radiation protection.

Peculiar

Things I find funny, peculiar or just plain interesting for the major public.

Minsk - Streets

More usual things I see in the streets.

Minsk - Landmarks

Photos of famous sites, monuments or other objects of historical or cultural value.

Fialta

Photos connected with my hosting organization Fialta.

Belarus - Travel

Photos from my travels in Belarus. Yet to come. ;)

Occasionally I make albums dedicated to a single event, like Zubrenok or Minsk Boulderfest, which are available in my public photos.

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.