In Minsk, I am a glamorous undercover spy in a 1980s thriller, confused yet enthralled at having inadvertently left the set and emerged into a more western European film set clutching a flat white and a bottle of vodka.
Go to Minsk if you want to:
find out how good your friends’ geography is;
have a cheap-for-Europe holiday;
visit somewhere with very few other tourists;
eat hearty food;
do Christmas/birthday present shopping;
stock up on dried fruit and nuts;
binge on ballet, theatre, circus, opera, concerts;
go somewhere unexpected;
easily walk around;
see a lot of statues, sculptures and memorials;
enjoy the friendliness and warmth of locals;
have a Soviet/Brutalist fix;
take photos that are more interesting than beautiful;
experience new things;
binge-eat potatoes, mushrooms, berries.
Don’t go to Minsk if you like:
being able to read signs and menus in English;
photographing government buildings, men in uniform, Metro stations;
Googling local and national politics;
(NB This is the DON’T GO IF YOU LIKE list)
swearing loudly in public;
freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of internet;
talking to locals about politics and everyday life;
pedestrian crossings that turn green in less than five* minutes;
paying for everything by card;
animal fur to only be seen on frolicking animals whose fur it is.
(*feels like five minutes but that may be an exaggerated time-estimate between green men)