On the Road from Vilnius to Minsk - Eastern Europe Backpacking

The Cold War has long since drawn to an end and many places have opened up to the increasingly adventurous tourism market. Prague , Czech Republic and Budapest , Hungary and Tallinn , Estonia are perhaps three of the mainstream tourist destinations which have become popular since the fall of Communism and although these are indeed fascinating cities, few seem to have noticed some of the lesser known but perhaps more delightful cities of the region.

Vilnius , the capital of Lithuania is a city which I am particularly fond of. It is a city which has been thrown between the Russians and the Poles throughout history and more recently, the Germans; thus creating a relatively cosmopolitan place with a fascinating and dynamic history. In 1991 it regained the independence which, in modern times, it had enjoyed for a brief period of the early twentieth century. Today, Vilnius has risen to be the capital of a very successful Baltic country and without doubt an important up-and-coming tourist destination.

I lived and worked there for several months of last year, enjoying what to me seems to be the perfect compromise between the capitalist west and the old values of the pre-communist era. It has the shops and the supermarkets of Western Europe while at the same time retaining the enjoyable lifestyle of a happy and peaceful place.

Only four hours by bus from Vilnius is another world. Unless one comes from such pinnacles of liberty as Cuba or North Korea etc., all foreign nationals need a visa to enter the Republic of Belarus of which the city of Minsk is the capital. This in itself suggested to me that it would be a unique and secluded place to visit and no doubt relatively tourist free. I was wrong. Minsk proved to be a fascinating place to visit with no tourists whatsoever. Although I went in late November of last year, everyone I met told me that they seldom see foreigners other than the tiny amount of Asian students who study there.

‘The Soviet Vision of a Worker's Utopia' is probably the most accurate way to sum up this impressive place. Virtually obliterated during the Second World War, Minsk was left to Moscow architects to entirely rebuild and they did so in the 1940s Stalinist architecture all of grand buildings, linear architecture, wide streets and grand parks.

After leaving the lively modern international bus station at the edge of Vilnius 's beautiful Old Town , I did not know quite what to expect. The border was only half an hour away, the bureaucracy surprisingly at ease, and within a further half hour, the bus was well on its way to Minsk down a long straight road. I looked around me to see a rolling, heavily forested countryside scattered with what could only be described as wooden huts and shacks where other than electricity laid on, a medieval rural lifestyle still lingered. Unlike the quaint, poor but still recognisably modern country dwellings of rural Lithuania , this place was utterly lost in time. In some areas, there were more horses and carts in a land where motorized transport seems to be only just taking on.

By contrast, the city of Minsk is a modern place in its own way with a population of near two-million, three times that of Vilnius, but as the battered old bus moved up the hill, I was shocked and stunned at what I saw.

Enormous high-rise apartment blocks, huge streets, beaten up old cars and trams suddenly dominated the horizon as though the city had a very definite border. I saw no light or medium residential or commercial areas- just concrete blocks, huge roads, and numerous people, often wearing heavy fur cloaks and Russian hats in the sub-freezing November afternoon.

It was dark by the time I reached the central bus stop in front of Privokzalnaya Square where I had arranged to meet a contact I had been given in Vilnius called Aleksey, a university student in Minsk who spoke only a little English. I got off the bus and looked at the elaborate towers which flanked one of the main streets into the town centre. One of the first things I noticed was the hammer and sickle logo embedded proudly into the top of the tower which looked over the bus stop and the amazingly ultra-modern train station.

During the two hours which followed, I used the metro and the trams to try to find a place to stay. My contact said that he had arranged accommodation in a flat somewhere in town but it seemed from what he said in his broken English that he did not even know quite how to find it himself, so I ended up staying with a friend whose number I had in Minsk . I stayed there for several days in a tiny flat with one main room which would usually be shared by a whole family of six or more. This particular one was owned by a westerner who I met in Vilnius . He works permanently in Minsk for reasons which escape me.

The following day I found myself thinking affectionately of the winding cobbled streets, beautiful churches, brightly coloured buildings and the relatively westernized citizens of Vilnius . It did not take long, however, before I became fascinated by the enormous, overpowering Stalinist architecture and by the time I had walked some five miles to the town centre I was utterly absorbed by the place. I remembered the classical-style Presidential Palace in the middle of Vilnius with its elegant columns and elaborately carved architraves as I looked upon the direct antithesis that was the Parliament Building of Belarus.

Fronted by an intricately carved statue of Lenin in a pose reaching out to the mases, the building was all of symmetrical squares and hundreds large windows. From there I made my way to the six-lane monster that was the main thoroughfare of Minsk; Frantsisk Skorina and the Soviet War memorial in front of which the eternal flame has been burning since the end of World War 2, or what the Byelorussians call ‘The Great Patriotic War' in which some twenty million Soviet citizens died.

There is very little in the way of foreign influence in Belarus at all and even Minsk has only a tiny handful of diverse restaurants, which are unaffordable for the vast majority of the population. It is the capital of a politically and economically isolated country in the heart of the continent, a land which some may describe as the last dictatorship in Europe . Its smaller but far happier and more progressive neighbour, Lithuania is the opposite in every way. Whilst still bearing the marks of a brutal past in some areas, Vilnius is a truly beautiful small city with a prosperous and lively population.

On my return journey, I was somewhat relieved to be freed of the sheer culture shock and return to what had become my home for several months before I was to start heading back to England via Tallinn and Helsinki . However, I returned feeling very satisfied to have visited such an interesting and unique place as Minsk and meeting some interesting local people there.

What the future holds for these two very different countries is uncertain, especially for Belarus . Whereas Lithuania will join the EU in May, 2004, Belarus has about as much chance and desire to join the EU as either Ukraine or Russia . As a country, it distances itself from the west but clearly finds that it no longer has so much in common with its eastern neighbours. Nonetheless, in a world of rapid change, these two countries make a fascinating contrast between old and new, socialist and capitalist, repression and liberty; and of my many months of solo travelling, it has to be the most rewarding experience that I have had so far.