09/01/20 "On a grey Tuesday afternoon in January on the 390 bus towards Camden Town, I did not expect to be on a business phone call with an educational consultant discussing logistics for a tutoring role in Minsk, answering questions like “would you be able to fly out at the end of the week?” But that was exactly what was happening. And my answer was yes."
On Sunday night I barely slept a wink due to my uncontainable excitement for the adventure ahead. I felt like a 9 year old on Christmas Eve and by the time I got to Minsk on Monday night, it felt like Christmas Day. The city was completely covered in multicoloured lights and huge yolki (trees) lined the pavements, along with other illuminated decorations and wooden huts squished together in every other ploshad' (square) selling festive food til late. I even spotted a lady crouched in a wheelbarrow, on top of which were three golden orb-like samovary (traditional tea urns) dispensing chai (tea), insulated from the -2 temperatures, to passers by.
The cab driver, whose name was Pavel - a name which I seem unable to escape any time I travel to Eastern Europe - was friendly and welcoming. He gave me a short history of Belarus, which required a lot of my concentration to understand since it was delivered in Russian. He proudly informed me that Belarus was the last of the former soviet states to have a Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Of Belarus still presiding over the country. I later googled that this was true until 1994, when Myechyslaw Ivanavich Hryb was succeeded by Alexander Lukashenko, who then became and still is the president of Belarus. Pavel praised me for making a small number of grammatical errors for an inostranyets (foreigner) but I still have it in my head that I can't speak Russian. I speak before I think in most languages, so it's no surprise I don't understand myself before other people seem to.
My hotel room is lovely, I'm on the 17th floor looking over an expanse of Soviet era blocks. My favourite. Smokey grey skyscrapers over the Sistine Chapel any day of the week. On my first day I was up before sunrise and getting dressed in time with every Timor, Dmitry and Yuri as they got ready for work in the apartment block facing me, their bedroom lights flicking on window by window. For breakfast I treated myself to eggs benedict, a cinnamon bun, freshly squeezed orange juice and a cappuccino - enough to fuel me for 5 hours of teaching my new student, 13 year old Tanya. I was in the lobby early to meet her and I watched the revolving doors until a slow moving white puffer coat appeared, done up right to the top with some oversized glasses poking out and a fluffy bobble hat hiding any other clues that would help me work out what she looked like. We shook hands and she smiled sweetly then led me through the car park to the smaller adjacent hotel where a conference room was booked for us. Our morning was productive and at 12 we decided to break for lunch in the asian restaurant in the shopping centre next door to the hotel. I ordered a revolting miso soup which I couldn't pretend to enjoy but luckily the delicious sushi saved me from a dreadful first lunch. Tanya was consistently awkward throughout but I'm sure she'll get used to hanging out with this English stranger soon enough.
For dinner, I didn't have my bearings at all and decided to look for a nearby Georgian restaurant. The best option for my low energy levels was a 5 min walk away so off I went with hummus and hachapuri (traditional bread stuffed with melted cheese and a fried egg on top) on the brain. The first thing I noticed about "Tea Bazaar" was the exterior. Most multicoloured. A waitress greeted me on entering and took me up a staircase through to what I would have called a night club except for the tables on the dancefloor, making it either a club with no room for clubbing or a restaurant too dark and loud to eat in.
The only other customers were two women having shisha in full trackies on one table and two men having beer on another, one of whom was well fit. Whether it was the badass buzz cut or the black north face puffer, it’s always nice to have a Slavic sorty to look at rather than a phone screen. I forget how good the genetic makeup and general bone structure of Eastern Europeans are. I proceeded to make a fatal mistake of ordering 4 dishes because I wanted to try them all but after dish number two was positively stuffed. Feeling heavily traumatised and traumatisingly heavy, I took a walk down Pobeditel Prospekt, one of the two biggest streets in Minsk, hoping the fresh air would expel the side effects of my gluttonous ways before bed.
Food... I know it sounds like I've slammed the culinary experience so far, but the food in both restaurants was really good in spite of the dodgy miso soup or having to eat it under a disco ball.
Gan Bei - the sushi is good value for money, 8 pieces of maki was roughly 6 quid. I also tried their chicken gyoza later in the week for 4 pounds and it did not disappoint. The menu is extensive so they also offer Indian cuisine AND the deserts look really good, I'm yet to try them though.
Tea Bazaar - Their hummus was just how I like it: smooth with a few whole chickpeas, a generous sprinkling of coriander and a drizzle of oil on top. I could have lived without their cheese and chive filled bread. Their draniki (potato pancakes - a traditional delicacy) in mushroom cream sauce were excellent but very filling. It was lucky my fourth and final plate, the grilled chicken, was small and came with light, fresh onion and pomegranate seeds. No regrets, even if I did leave the place a dress size bigger.