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.

Holidays

Spent a week in Latvia. Had 2 reasons - get a new visa and work on my university. Also got a lucky chance to participate in an exchange evaluation seminar from National Agency of Latvia. Got an impression that Latvia still has small experience in youth exchanges and Non-formal Education. Can't wait to return for good and get to work...

All in all my visa was ready in a day. Looks like a letter from Minsk City Executive Committee cancels all kinds of bureaucracy and stalls. Now I have 90 days during a year to get a temporary living permission. My EVS still counts 9 months.

My university didn't work out that well. I finished the theoretical part of my thesis, but I'll have to write the practical part in Belarus. Didn't write an application to reinstate also. If I don't get it till end of May... There's always next year. :)

It's interesting that in a week I got more calls from friends than in previous half a year. Turns out I've got a lot of them.

Experienced mentors advise not to stall home if the project is not over. So I got some summer clothes, 2 cans of home-made pickles and I'm going back.

In Hrodna

But my visit to Hrodna turned out to be nothing like a business trip.

Hrodna - Landmarks

Hrodna - Streets

For the time of the training course I managed to visit a disco, get very little sleep, get a personal excursion of Hrodna, get to know the organizational culture of the "Third Sector" a little (very pleasant young journalists), try real blackberry jam and hitchhike to Minsk.

Travel

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.

RUSH Boulderfest 2009

On the weekend I took part in Minsk boulderfest RUSH 2009 (bouldering is a kind of rock-climbing on low rocks without safety equipment).
The competition was held all day Saturday (qualification) and Sunday (finals). There were reporters, television and stuff.
Qualification was divided into 3 sets 3 hours long each. With 25 routes and long queues. 5 routes for the finals and one super-hard route for anyone interested with a separate prize.
Altogether there were 182 climbers of different ages from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. And one baltic-latvian-EU-representative. Guess who.

"And where's my flag?"

Even the competitions in climbing have a special atmosphere. It's not a competition between people, but more of a struggle with your own self. This produces respect and understanding which you feel in the mood and attitudes.


After the qualifications we had an afterparty with a free well-deserved pint of beer for every climber.

The finals were a different kind of spectacle. Both mens' and womens'. When you understand how much strength and time these people gave to climb like that, you can't ignore a feeling of great respect.

A guy from Kiev won mens' competition.

From Minsk - RUSH Boulderfest 2009

It felt like he did not compete, nor follow the results, nor count the points for different routes, but he just climbed everything he could. No emotions, calmly and precisely he climbed all 25 qualification routes, all 5 final routes and the super-hard route as well. A machine, not a human.

Anyway, I got great pleasure from climbing, it's not like anything else. Besides I met new and interesting people and even made it onto television.

My photos

Links:
Organizers' photos (club Han Tengri) - qualifications

Organizers' photos - finals

Results

An article on tut.by (belarussian news portal)

And video from ONT channel: