November 9 - MINSK

We arrived in Minsk the evening of November 9th.  Although the flight is only 55 minutes, there is a 2 hour time difference and it is already about 8:00 p.m.  Vlad (Tamara's nephew) meets us at the airport.  What a wonderful man.  He and his friend drive us to the Hotel Belarus, probably an old soviet style hotel that has been remodeled.  It is late and we opt for supper at the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel.

View of Minsk from our hotel room

November 10, 2015  - Minsk
We have breakfast - another big buffet, but not as sumptuous as the Polonia.  It does, however, have kasha.  Minsk is quite a beautiful city - very European looking.

 Vlad has arranged to have Alex give us a tour of Minsk.  Oksana (Vlad's wife and Tamara's niece) drives us.  Wow - she can put Mario Andretti to shame.

We head to the small old town. Most of the city of Minsk was destroyed during World War II so the old town is relatively small.  In the town square, we can see the Town Hall,  Near the Town Hall is a sculpture of horses and a cart, Cathedal of Saint Virgin Mary, a sculpture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with a lucky key (rubbing it is supposed to bring one luck).  Off the square is a monument representing trade in Belarus.

Check out this bike rack.   Minsk has dedicated bike lanes and bicycling facilities, including a 40 Km bike path along the river running through Minsk.   

Monument to Trade

Ken and Oksanya rubbing the lucky key 

Town Hall

 We head towards Independence Square, with a wonderful fountain, (Fountain of Independence) and the obligatory statue of Lenin. Around the area are a number of monuments dedicated to architects and writers.

Ken and Alex in Independence Square

Victory Square

Fountain of Independence

Statue of Lenin at Independence Square

We go to the Church of Saints Simon and Helena, also known as the Red Church, which was opened in 1910.  The bronze statue in front of the church represents Archangel Michael slaying the Devil, represented as a dragon.  There is also the Nagasaki Bell, a replica of the one that used to hang in Nagasaki’s Urakami Cathedral before it was destroyed in the nuclear attack on August 9, 1945. The bell rings simultaneously in Nagasaki and Minsk.

"Red Church"

We visit the old Jewish ghetto in Minsk.  .Before World War II, Jews were  third among the ethnic groups in Belarus and comprised more than 40% of the population in cities and towns. The population of cities such as Minsk, Pinsk, Mahiliou, Babrujsk, Viciebsk, and Homiel was more than 50% Jewish. In 1897 there were 724,548 Jews in Belarus, i.e. 13.6% of the total population.  Yiddish was one of the four official languages of Belarus.   More than  800,000 Jews—90% of the Jewish population—were killed in Belarus during the Holocaust. It is hard to say what the Jewish population of  Minsk is today; it is estimated to be about 20,000 to 40,000.

The ghetto was established in 1941, and had over 80,000 inhabitants.  In the fall of 1943 the ghetto was destroyed and the remaining Jews were sent to the death camps.

One of the brick buildings in the ghetto  was a former bakery.  It is difficult to get a feel for the ghetto itself as many of the buildings were destroyed and have been rebuilt.

Brick building in the ghetto.  

We go to a  memorial to the massacre that is in a park.  There  are some plaques a well as tombstones from the cemetery. In addition there is a memorial that has a broken table and broken chairs with the inscriptions in Yiddish, Russian and German.

Tombstones from the cemetery

Monument to the victims of the Holocaust

The monument is very moving. We next go to what is one of the most moving and famous memorials to the Holocaust, the "Pit" a monument devoted to the victims of the Holocaust in Minsk, Belarus. It is on the site where, on March 2, 1942, the Nazi forces shot about 5000 prisoners of the nearby Minsk Ghetto.

The obelisk was created in 1947 and in 2000 a bronze sculpture entitled "The Last Way" was added. It represents a group of doomed martyrs, walking down the steps of the pit. On the obelisk is written in Russian and Yiddish "The bright memory of five times the light of thousands of Jews who perished at the hands of sworn enemies of humanity - German-fascist monsters"
Every year on March 2  memorial rallies occur.

After seeing the "Pit," Alex takes us to a small synagogue in Minsk.  It is unclear the population of Jews in the City and the size of the synagogue indicates that the number of practicing Jews is quite small.  The synagogue offers three meals a day to whoever comes in (usually elderly Jews) and offers other services to those in the City.

 
Alex drops us off for lunch in the City Center.  We eat at "Vasilki" restaurant for some good mushroom soup and pancakes (aka blintzes) with chicken and mushrooms.  Across the street from the restaurant is the KGB building.  Ken snaps a picture of that, surreptitiously of course.

KGB Building

 We now have to get back to the hotel.  It is raining and we have a difficult time figuring out how to take the metro or catch a taxi.  We end up walking back to the hotel.  We go to dinner with Oksana and Vlad to Restaurant Druzya.  A mere 1,222,000 Belarussian rubles. Yes that is over one million which when converted to US dollars is about $70.   Food is plentiful and cheap in Belarus.

Oksana and Vlad.  So much food!