Years ago, I was pretty fluent in Russian. These days, the only Russian I remember is that I used to know Russian. I DO remember the alphabet though and if you know the Cyrillic alphabet, you can sound out any word in Russian. This made walking around Minsk a blast. Just walking down the street sounding out every word I saw… This skill is especially fun for the people accompanying you. In my case it was my girlfriend - whose Russian skills are leagues ahead of mine. She didn’t really show it but I know that deep down, she appreciated me reading every sign we passed.

Belarus was very interesting. Most ex-Soviet republics are glad to have their independence - but Belarus seems to miss the good old days. (Their dictator has supposedly raised the issue with Putin.) A few years ago I tried to get a transit visa to visit for a few days with the intention of continuing on from Lithuania to Ukraine. They laughed me out of their embassy. This time, we were allowed a 7 day visit but only to Minsk and only if we flew in and out of the Minsk airport (even though in Vilnius, Lithuania, we were a short 45minute drive away.) We stayed on Lenin avenue which is near Trotsky avenue - where the McDonalds is - and Stalin avenue - with the KFC.

I found Hot Fun in the bar district and was delighted. They also had an Escobar and a Calvin Coolidge bar. I think Erika would agree (but I’m afraid to ask because it’s a bit of a sore subject,) that gems like this make sounding out everything in sight worth it. Totally worth it.