Hello all! Today it is Saturday, 25th of October 2003, and the temperature in Athens, Greece is 29 degrees at the celsius scale. I understand that i am a terribly lousy blogger since this update (which is apparently the last..) should take place..months ago! However, the truth is that Minsk is such a wonderful place, after all, that you barely have the time and the mood to start updating blogs – you always have something better to do! I could be writing pages and pages about my last 10 days in Minsk, but i really doubt it would be any use to anybody – other than reminding to me every single detail of my 4-week-stay in the Belarusian capital. Every day was a new experience, indeed. From the live concert of Robert Plant to the Tractor Stadium, that was so sadly filled with military forces that were there obviously to preserve law and order – President Lukashenko has every reason not to like big masses of population together, especially in rock concerts, to the underground bars with live piano music. From the friendliest people that i have met in my life so far, that are really thirsty for communication, that adore meeting foreigners to discuss, to exchange ideas, to express their deep sorrow and their hope to be able to flee the country, because Belarusians have learnt to be very proud, very democratical hearts, and just can not stand seeing their country becoming a cruel dictatorship with a liberal cloak, to the Belarusians that love to study, to socialize, to listen to music, to meet people from abroad, to travel when they can overcome the insurmountable difficulties that the regime has established for issuing a visa. People that love their country, but can not stand current situation. People that don’t care spending money so as to have a good time over a bottle of Vodka, especially when they do it for their guests from abroad, even though we are supposed to be the “rich europeans”. Pride is pride. When they buy vodka, there are no economic differences. It pleases them to show their superb hospitality, the warmth of their hearts.

What have we gained in the so-called developed west? How would i react if people like Dima and Slava, the great Belarusian guys that Nicolas and i met in Patio Pizza 2 days before my departure started buying vodka for me in Athens? What would i think? That they would probably want to abuse us. And sure not that they just wanted to make new friends, they just wanted to grab the chance to socialize with non-Belarusians…

We may have gained financial wealth. We lost our humanity in a big degree…

I wish i could stay more in Minsk. After all, exams in Athens never took place, because of a strike of our professors in the University. Nicolas was informing me of the great time he had in September, with the new trainees that arrived in Minsk after my departure. Bygones are bygones, though. I do not complain at all. Minsk was a true revelation to me. I could never expect how many things i would learn, how many wonderful experiences i would have there, if somebody asked me a few days before i went there.

Last, but not least, i would like to thank from the very depth of my heart, professor Nikolai Petrovich Migoun, my supervisor, for the true interest that has shown during my practical training, and especially for his words : “always believe in your potential and in yourself”. Even though my training did not go as well as i would like, for some reasons. Also, Mrs. Migoun and their son Alex, for the wonderful dinner and the hospitality that they have shown to me when i visited their place… It has surely been one of the most interesting nights of my life, we discussed numerous things over a vodka or two. (or three, whatever!)

If you ever have the chance to visit Minsk, do it with no second thoughts. The result will sure reward you. Belarus is a true revelation.

Na zdarovie!

Nikolaos A. Vergos

Oi oi oi! What a hard-working man i have become! No time for updating my blog, my god… Well, i think now it’s time to write some things about the last days! Thursday was really the beginning of hard work..experiments, theoretical work etc, etc… Not to mention that just before i was ready to leave the lab, Prof. Migoun asked me to go to his office for a ten-minute-talk that lasted.. 2 and a half hours! As a consequence, i missed the evening meeting with the girls, so Baris went alone – poor guy Whatever, Friday wasn’tthat interesting either, so i managed to escape the lab at about.. 14:00 with Baris (after coming here at 10:00, and having an one-hour-lunch break at 12:00, i do not count Friday as my most productive day here). It was fairly nice though. The weather was pretty ok, so a walk by the Svisloch in Janki Kupala Park (next to the Gorky park) for an ice cream (and a second..and a third…) was the best thing that we could do. Friday evening we met Rita in Vostok station and had a nice and long walk through some fields. Before that, though, we had a strange taste coffee in a cafe near Vostok. Everybody loved its taste. I detested it. It tasted like one of the things that i hate most – the Greco-turkish coffee – but with a bigger concentration of the lower part than the one that i expected. Anyway, i didn’t say anything, coz already everybody here considers me to be some kind of weirdo, because wherever we go i ask for ice-coffee, something that simply does not even EXIST!!!! My GOD! When all of these people come to Greece, though, the first thing that they learn is how to drink three frappes a day! Whatever.
Saturday was quite interesting. In the morning i visited the open-air clothes market in the stadium of Dynamo Minsk, where i actually bought a cool CCCP t-shirt. Soon after, the time had come for our excursion… Baris, Rita, Nastya and me went to the village of Khatyn with Nastya’s father – too bad the kind man did not speak any English, so the girls had to translate everything.
Khatyn is a place similar to Kalavryta in Greece. It was burnt down during WWII by the Nazis and never reconstructed since. Its entire population was slaughtered except from one man that survived the terror. In total, 2,5 million Belarusians were killed from 1941 to 1945 during the war, whereas the total death toll for Europe was about 10 million. more than 500 villages had the same fate as Khatyn, so the Belarusian state has established Khatyn as a macabre “Villages’ Graveyard” The whole field on which Khatyn was once built is now full of tombs made of black cement, each village’s name engraved on one tomb. In every tomb there is soil from every village. The feeling of terror and grief can not be put into words.. I just copy from the inscriptions in the martyric place :

“Good Folk, remember: we have loved life, and our homeland, and you. We have burned alive in flames. We plead to you: let our cries and grief turn into courage and strength, so that you can establish Peace and Rest on this Earth. So that nowhere and never life had disappeared again in a tornado of fire!”

March 22 1943 – 60 years ago – 26 houses with their inhabitants (149 people, including 75 children) were burned by the German punishment battalion in Belarusian village of Khatyn. The tragic fate of the burned villages is commemorated in a vast, spreading over 50 hectars, Khatyn’ WWII Memorial, which was opened near Minsk in 1969. Khatyn’ was not the only village with such a horrible fate. Population of 618 Belarusian villages was burned ALIVE by nazi during WWII in SS punishment operations against guerilla troops. 185 of burned Belarusian villages were never re- established after war – they have disappeared from the face of the Earth.”

And from a website for Khatyn by some Belarusian :

“A handful of soil was brought from each of 618 burned alive villages and a symbolic Graveyard of Villages was founded in Khatyn’.

The memorial has 26 of symbolic chimneys with bells – creating an image of a burned village. Only brick chimneys were left standing when Nazis were burning log houses of Belarusian villages. Every hour the bells of Khatyn’ are ringing to remind us about the horrible crimes that a human nature is capable off. Today the younger and happier generation prefers not to think about our history and look to the future, not to the past. But the safe future could only be built with a good memory of our past.

The sculpture at the top is that of the only survivor of Khatyn – Josef Kaminski. He was away from the village and when he returned all his village was burned. Entire population of the village – 149 people, including 75 children- was gathered in a single wooden barn. First people didn’t understood the design of Germans. But when they smelled kerosene and saw the flames total panic broke out inside the barn. People were throwing children into the tall windows of the barn in a hope that they will have at least some chance at escape. Germans have surrounded the barn in a ring and were spraying out of machine guns everyone jumping out of the windows of the burning barn. Kaminski’s son was shot this way too. Kaminski is shown in the sculpture in an ultimate grief of a father holding the lifeless body of his son amidst the bare chimneys of his burned village, his burned family, neighbors and entire life. Kaminski stayed in Khatyn for the rest of his life. When I visited Khatyn around 1974 the guide has respectfully shown him to us in the distance. He was cutting grass at the memorial alone away from tourists.

Overall every forth Belarusian has perished during WWII – 2.2 million people, including 380,000 deported to Germany as laborers. 209 cities and townships and 9,200 villages had been destroyed in Belarus during WWII. The pre-WWII population of Belarus was only re-established in 1971. Every tourist in Belarus is striken by a number of WWII memorials. Peace is the highest and the most prescious quality of life that Belarusians cherrish. Not a single ethnical conflict has broken out in Belarus during the volatile post-USSR years. It is because Belarusians KNOW that any solution is better than the horror of war.”

This is the little homage i can pay to the village of Khatyn. I am sorry for darkening anyone’s mood, but this is a part of the history we don’t know – as winners are writing History their way, nobody ever learns in detail about the 25 million of war victims in the Soviet Union. For more references you can see http://www.belarusguide.com/travel1/Khatyn.html . I am sure i am going to upload the photos i made there too, after i return in Athens.

Saturday evening was finally the time for another visit to the most renowned West-World Club!!! After my experience last time in westworld club, i wasn’t in the mood for Vodka – i did not intend to return in the hostel drunk and passed-out, so i kept myself away from alcohol. The truth is that except from a live strip lesbian-sex show (which seems to be pretty ok for this city’s nightlife) the club was rather boring on Saturday night, so Baris and I returned at the hostel at about 4 o’clock, and after a few injuries and lots of marines maneuvres we managed to climb into the kitchen from an open window. Too bad that the chair that we had used was stolen – let’s hope that the hostel will not accuse us for that too.
Sunday was pretty boring, since i woke up at about 17:00, just to find out that the hostel accuses us of stealing blankets, returning drunk every night, being criminals and i do not even know what more their imagination has created.
After these accusations, all of us went for dinner in Maxi-Bis the wonderful restaurant in Nyamiga, and after that we found a very cozy underground beer place with live music – did i mention that we were desperately looking for a warm place to go to, since the weather here is like November in Greece now? I strongly believe that in a few days they are going to put a big Christmas tree in Oktyabrskaja Square and Children Choirs will be singing Adeste Fideles and Silent Night in Russian… Even now that i am writing this blog from the lab, it is chilling outside. Dark grey cloudy sky, ice-cold breeze, rain intervals… pretty depressive, i have to admit. Anyway, i am slipping off my story.
After the nice time we had in the beer place with some Baltika-7 beer of course, we started returning to the hostel by foot – it’s not that far from the centre, even though one might think that it is situated in the other end of the city if he/she takes the metro, that sometimes takes annoyingly long time to cover the distance between two stations. Somewhere in the middle of our way back, we found two girls sitting on a bench drinking beer. Most probably they had met us before two weeks ago, and they recognized us. Do i have to mention that it took us something like FIVE minutes to persuade them to follow us in the hostel? And because it is forbidden for non-residents to enter the hostel, the girls had to enter it the tarzan-way, the same way Baris and I climbed in last day. Well, nothing happened with the girls, except from the fact that they consumed all of Nicolas’ Vodka, all of his cigarettes, and also found a warm place to sleep. Bad luck for the tramps – they were kicked out early in the morning while distracting the administration ladies at the reception.
After all of these facts i finally came to work at about 13:00 (since i had to buy a ticket for the Robert Plant concert for tomorrow, too) where i do NOTHING at all (except from updating that blog) since my only duty now is to translate a scientific paper from German to English. Let’s count once more my skills as an applied Physics student: Adobe Photoshop, Use of Microscopes, Translations from German to English…seems quite close to my profession, right?
Anyway, i feel that i have written too much today. Not to mention that there is that Professor Nikolai (the bearded guy, not Migoun) that insisits on increasing the zoom of the camera by adding a..magnifying lens in front of it. Then he is disappointed because he takes terrile quality images, but what can i do? He is convinced that he knows better…

I know i am becoming lazier and lazier..i should have updated that blog ages ago! Not that there occured that many things that i will be filling pages, but still, it’s nice to keep track of what i’ve been doing to spend my time in that strange and far country i’m in…
The weekend wasn’t that special, i have to say. Other than the visit to the museum of the Great Patriotic War, we didn’t do anything that interesting. Maybe it was still because of the conversations and counter-conversations concerning the task i referred to in my previous post. Typical stuff…walks around, breakfasts-lunches-dinners for those funny prices to various places of the city, a beer by the Svisloch (the city river) now and then.
Monday wasn’t that special either, at least in the morning. In the afternoon Baris, Kyril and I went for dinner in a very nice Fast Food/Restaurant near Nyamiga Station, and after that (when Kyril left to meet the German teacher and Nicolas came) we went for a walk with Rita and Nastya to the park at Nyamiga and the island of tears.
On Tuesday i was supposed to start working finally, since my supervisor found his way back to the Institute, but since he was very busy he couldn’t sacrifice any of his valuable time to meet me. After work, being rather pissed off with that situation, i went for a nice dinner-walk-ice cream with Rita and Nastya. At night we had a small Goodbye-party for Natalie and Mark that departed for Poland-Germany-Holland today in the morning over a nice bottle of “Kagor” Moldovian wine, very similar to our Mavrodaphne of Patras, even though i think that Kagor is much stronger (16% of alcohol. Not that Mavrodaphne isn’t strong, but that was really something!)
Tada! Finally Wednesday came! All my beloved friends, please try to imagine me waking up at 07:30 in the morning! That was the reason that i actually moved in with Baris, not having to wake up Nicolas and Kyril every day since i’m going at work that early…So, after arriving here at 09:05 (DAWN!) and doing nothing for a few hours, i finally met my supervisor… Professor Nikolai Petrovich Migoun, assistant director of the Institute. He looks extremely nice, not to mention that he can speak very good and fluent English. The tasks he gave me are not THAT interesting, but still i hope that things will get better. It is certainly not my field, and i do not remember mentioning anywhere in my CV that i am good at using Photoshop or.. Microscopes!!! Especially that Microscope is playing with my nerves, so if i keep on not seeing that #%@$^& developer layer under the lens, i swear to God i will throw it to the road from the third floor!!!
Now i am messing with photoshop, Windows..paint (that it is easier for my standards ) and the home-made image editor they have here… I hope things get clear pretty soon, coz i feel bad saying “no” to whatever they ask me if i know to do. They might be thinking i am pretty dumb by now… I’ll update again if something really interesting happens!

Somebody is simply laughing behind my back. This is the only way i can explain what just happened. I had been typing at this stupid machine the update to my blog for 2 hours or so, and then our wonderful windows decided to close all of the explorer windows just like this, no reason! Not even a General Protection Fault, a missing .dll, NOTHING at all! I guess that means that i will have to be writing all of it again, from scratch!

Anyway…I guess there’s nothing better for me to do, so I will try writing all of this stuff again.. where did I stop the last time? Was it the celebration of Nicolas’s birthday at west world club? Yeap…Oh, I forgot to mention that before the club, all of us where at a pizza place near Lenin Square (Plosya Lenina) where we gave Nicolas his birthday presents : a very nice wooden thing in which there was a bottle of pure Belarusian vodka and some sheets on which some symbols were sewed (a Belarusian tradition is to put bread and salt on these sheets when someone is getting married, and it symbolizes happiness – or so I guess!) The funny event of the night ws that we actually got served by the restaurant TWO hours after ordering, and the most bizarre thing is that they also insisted on us paying even for things we have not eaten, since there where some of us that decided to cancel their orders when they saw that they wouldn’t be eating anyway…you bet we wrote some really nasty stuff in the restaurant’s diary before fleeing the place furiously! Anyway, let me go back to the WestWorld Club incidents!

After finally escaping the Russian “kidnappers”, we (Baris and I) returned to the upper bar for some dancing and drinking…and that was it! I have to admit openly now, that I ended up completely and totally drunk, throwing up ON THE BAR of the club and passing out! Janina really insisted that I should go to the hospital – thank God Baris and Nicolas carried me home (It mustn’t have been easy carrying me I think…) after managing to find a taxi, since no taxi driver whatsoever wanted to have me in his car and waking up the lady at the hostel by banging the doors, I got home…that’s the only thing I can tell by the descriptions by the other guys, because I really was totally unconscious when all of these things happened…I also have a big bruise on my arm – it must be from the time when I fell on the stairs and Baris couldn’t keep me anymore! It must have been the worst time in my life being drunk – and I hope it is the last one that it is so bad… Oyvind threatens me that he has some photos from the whole incident – I really hope he won’t publish them on the web!

Next day (Saturday) I had a terrible hangover…thank God Janina insisted on giving me SIX pills of Vitamin C and Glucose, which eased my pain, along with the pain killers I have swallowed too.. being also very hungry, since I had only some fried bananas with vodka sauce (!) that Nicolas prepared – a Caribbean dish… (he is a hell of a cook, did I mention that?) Anyhow, Baris and I, accompanied by Rita and Nastja, two girls, friends of Janina’s, went for lunch at a wonderful small restaurant near Jacuba Kolaca having Ravioli and ice creams – not to mention the divine chocolate in the end! After that we went for a big walk to Gorky park, where I couldn’t help tasting some beer, even though I was still pretty dizzy! However, something should still be done for Nicolas’s birthday – I spoiled it for him by getting drunk and having him carry me home – so we went to another club! “Tunnel” club near Puskinskaya metro station…that wasn’t the best club I’ve been to, since the music was too techno for my tastes, but I really enjoyed a long walk I had with Baris during the night talking, while Janina and Nicolas where dancing non-stop and Kyril was with a girl he found there…. Adstodarforsetin min! Kyril is the savourogamis of Minsk 2003 J pretty reminds me of someone we know…let me remind of a saying! “A hole is a hole and the dick has no eyes!” (Now try it with a french accent..isn’t it funny?) We returned in the hostel at 6 o’clock (of course) and had a good day’s sleep after that!

Sunday wasn’t that special… when I woke up it was already afternoon (I cherish some wonderful twelve-hour-sleep!), Baris and I went for a pretty late lunch in a nice Self Service Restaurant in the center, near the gigantic building of the KGB – the secret service! (which is one of the two places in Minsk that are by all means forbidden to take pictures of. The other is president Alexander Lukashenko’s residence. Rumors say that last year an IAESTE student made a photo of the Presidential Residence, and all of a sudden a bunch of secret agents jumped on him and destroyed his camera into pieces.) After that lunch, I decided to follow my wild touristic instincts – I got my camera and started walking alone all over the city (the center, at least) making photos of everything I found interesting! And believe me, I did find many many interesting things in the center of Minsk. After that I returned home to have an early (?) sleep, because Monday was supposed to be my first day at work!!!

Imagine me waking up at 08:30 in the morning! WHO? ME! I have been considering every time of the day till 13:00 as DAWN for God’s sake! Still, after a fairly good breakfast – not something that I am used to have back home – Baris and I came here, to the Institute of Applied Physics (or Institut Prikladon Fiziki, if you prefer it in Russian) of the Akademia Navuk (Academy of Sciences)… I am supposed to be working with Sasha, a PhD student in the lab of Liquid Penetrant Testing (which is a non-destructive testing method, I will try to explain some more when I get a better grasp of it!) and a professor, my supervisor, who is out of town till next Monday on a business trip…so officially till next Monday I am doing NOTHING here! Sasha is leaving for vacations too, so he barely steps foot on the lab either…I have the keys, so the only thing I am doing is checking mail, chatting with friends and updating blogs like this! On the long run, it gets pretty boring and annoying though, having absolutely nothing to do…Still, Monday was quite interesting, because Sasha has been showing me all the experimental procedure of Liquid Penetrant testing in the lab before leaving, so at least I learnt something useful that day… After some dinner, Baris and I went for a walk to Gorky Park, and we also sat for a beer (Pivo in Russian) in a very nice and cozy place that looked just like a Bavarian Biergarten into the woods! After that, on our way home, a military police officer that started saying something to us in Russian stopped us – we were ARRESTED! (Almost). He asked for our passports – Baris didn’t have his with him, and mine was at the registration office and the papers IAESTE Belarus provided me for the time that they would keep my passport were pretty invalid, so the guy (that was accompanied by two more military men) insisted on taking us to the police station! The threats were as follows: “you will stay to the police station till 3 o’clock” (with all of the locked-hostel-consequences), “100 dollars” etc… finally, Baris managed to talk us out of the situation, since the cops just had a bad day and found a perfect opportunity to exploit two stupid non-russian-speaking-foreign-students! They really were ding their best to make us to bribe them, but finally they let us go, saying that they would meet us the following day in the same place of the park at 20:00, and we should bring some vodka to them! We didn’t; so now perhaps they’re mad at us and they will arrest us for good if they find us!

Tuesday morning Janina visited us in the institute, and all of us, including Alexander and Sasha (another Sasha), two colleagues of Baris, went for lunch in a canteen situated in another building of the Akademia Navuk…well, after that lunch with the purple cold soup with Smetana (a local sweet cheese that people here consume like water!) and the “meat” with potatoes, I really start missing the exquisite elegant delicious meals I had in the University restaurant of the NTUA, back home… Anyway, after satisfying the human need for feeding (that meal had nothing to do with pleasure, I reassure you) and spending some more hours doing nothing (perhaps writing the previous version of my blog) finally we returned at home, where Nicolas cooked some wonderful Ravioli with tomato sauce! After that, Kyril went to meet some girl (Again. Hereafter, when I do not mention what Kyril is doing, feel free to suppose he is with some girl – most probably your wild guess is correct) and Nicolas, Baris and I went for some Pivo in a nice café downtown. After some more Pivo at the hostel we finally fell asleep…

And so we come to Wednesday! Today! At 9 o’clock in the morning Natalie BARGED into our rooms questioning us on whether we would join the IAESTE weekend excursion to Grodno, another Belarusian town with a castle. To be honest, nobody is interested in that excursion – we will most probably rent a car and drive around the country. Rent price is the same here as in Greece (30 euro per day) but Unleaded Petrol costs something like 40 cents per liter, or even less! Today was a rather boring day other than this, and the only interesting thing that happened was the lunch with the guys from Baris’s lab again… I will be leaving for the hostel soon, and there we will cook the chicken we bought yesterday… if we survive, I will be updating that blog tomorrow!

Well, I finally managed! After spending something like 5 days here, i finally got stable (although not so fast) internet access, so now i can start writing my blog! Of course everyone has to admit that writing a blog while on training abroad is my original idea, so please i don’t want anybody mumbling and whispering “psss psss he is doing the same thing as Raggi did!” Raggi was writing in Icelandic, right? Not that it would be easy for me to find a Greek language pack here, especially with this Russian keyboard…

Where should i start? From the very beginning, i think… Well, let’s go back to last Wednesday night! Oh, what a wonderful last night for a poor IAESTE member down there in Athens… having to deal with an Arda-wanting-to-go-to-the-hospital-because-he-thought-he-was-very-ill, and all this just a few hours before my flight…did i mention that i did not have time even to prepare my luggage? Cm’on i’m just leaving for one month, why should i have prepared luggage earlier? Thank God things got solved pretty soon (Thanks to Yorgos and his fast and sharp decisions!) and we managed to have our small good-bye taverna dinner in Exarchia…Now that Raggi and Lauri had left, it was only Yorgos, Sophia,Kristina, Steven, Wendelien, Ali and I (Hope i didn’t forget anyone!) Ah, what a wonderful experience it was, especially when the waiter spilled half a liter of wine on Kristina’s pants!!!

Anyway, things didn’t get too emotional that night (which i am really thankful of…people know that i’m not that good in goodbyes!) so then at about 2 o clock in the morning i returned at home to make my luggage (God only knows how many things i forgot to take with me!) and then strolling to the airport (since Yorgos INSISTED on giving me a ride…) After not too much goodbye stuff, a sleepy flight from Athens to Frankfurt and a flight from Frankfurt to Minsk (in which i didn’t sleep coz i was getting pretty anxious)..i am stepping foot in the Republic of Belarus!!!!

Well…that place is so..SOVIET! A very friendly and hospitable airport (Raggi would understand these terms i think) covered with marble, full of military etc…after something like two hours of waiting and trying to communicate (since NOONE speaks english here), I managed to get my visa, pass through passport control, get my luggage, and meet Alina, the IAESTE girl here..after changing money (giving 250 euros and getting a BUNCH of almost 600 thousand Belarussian Rubles – imagine that the biggest bill here is the ten thousand one…) we got a taxi from the airport to my hostel – situated in the center of Minsk, near Persamanskaya metro station – meaning “1st of May”…

Driving from the airport to Minsk center, one easily understands that mountains simply do not exist in Belarus. The whole country is annoyingly flat (and annoyingly green, i would add a few days later!)…well…for a guy that was born and raised in a mountainous country like me (especially on mount Pelion) that’s pretty odd! I was sure that somebody was hiding the mountains away from me – soon after i found out that the tallest spot of the country is a 300-m hill somewhere!

Whatever…arriving at the hostel! First of all i have to mention that in comparison with my hostel, Omega is a 50-star Luxurious AAA Class summer resort! The whole place STINKS, the WCs are common and stink, the showers are common and they STINK, and not to mention that there is a significant population of flies and other insects with which we share accomodation… what’s worst? The hostel gets LOCKED every day at midnight and STAYS locked till 6 o’clock in the morning…we should implement these methods in our Athenian hotels, don’t you think? Holding the trainees as prisoners! Imagine a Friday or a Saturday night, oing to a club KNOWING that you have to return after 6 o’clock! Whatever…my roommates are a French guy, Nicolas (who also thinks that Minsk is OT, and what’s more, he is like seeing Harry Potter on the mirror!) and Kyril, a guy from FYROM (who really wants to get into a fight with me for the whole FYROM stuff, but i won’t let this happen!). In the room near us there is Baris, the Turkish guy that lives in Sweden (and is really WONDERFUL), and until yesterday he was with Oyvind from Norway, who just left..pretty bad, because for the few fays i had met him, he was a COOL guy What else? hmmm… oh yeah, Natalie and Mark from the Netherlands, as well as Janina, the Belarussian girl that was also living in our floor and we spent lots of time together – too bad she’s living for her home town in the weekend. So, that’s all… and concerning that Natalie finished working (she’s on vacations now, that’s why she invited her boyfriend Mark here) we are FOUR trainees in Minsk! Some people back in Athens should really start admiring the hard work i had to do this summer, right?

So…strolling in the city! Minsk is FAR different from what i expected to be honest! It is a very beautiful city of almost two million inhabitants, suffocating from… parks and greenery! It has lots of enormous parks (like the national garden back in Athens) and people seem to do nothing else than walking around, consuming ice-creams (i found out that Russians and Belarussians adore ice-creams, even in polar temperatures!) Even though Communism isn’t any more the official regime here, there are HUGE Lenin statues in the center, as well as the hammer-and-sickle everywhere! In obelisks in the parks, in the metro stations… and of course one can see everywhere the CCCP sign (USSR in the Cyrillic Alphabet). Except from the Buildings that are on the main avenue (Skorina prospect) – which are quite impressive and beautiful – the mainly urban populated area of the city is full with monuments of soviet architecture : Straight, efficient, no curves, tall and dominant blocks of flats – even the flats of Athens would look like masterpieces of art compared to these… still you can see some pretty images of Minsk in http://homepages.nsys.by/minsk/

Thursday we didn’t do anything in particular…just going for some junk food with the guys in a place called Byblos in Oktobrskaya Square and had something like Gyros – a far heavier one though!
Friday was the interesting day! After walking around the city, going to the IAESTE office to leave my passport there for all necessary registration procedures, we went to Westworld Club at night with the other guys, to do the traditional celebration here – every new trainee that arrives needs to get celebrated with Vodka! The club was fabulous, it even had…stripshow! We started drinking vodka shots from the bottle we bought for 10 euros or something (in a club!)…at some point, Baris and I were “abducted” by two fat drunk Russian guys (in the beginning i have to admit that i was afraid that they were going to rape us, kill us, burn us etc) that just bought something like three glasses of Vodka for us in another bar – not to mention that one of them was wearing an unbuttoned shirt and we were staring at his hairy chest…of course our conversation was wonderful, all in Russian!

Anyway….best things still to come… i will continue tomorrow – since i don’t get anything better to do here… Enjoy!