Belarus – East (Homel, Mogilev, Babruysk) June 24, 2019
I entered north of Cheniviv Ukraine and south of Homel, Belarus. I got into the Nothing to Declare line and was at the front, then had to move into the Something to Declare line behind 5 cars – I had to declare my car!! Whodothunkit.
There was a guy ahead with hair below his knees. I thought that was impossible as hair only lives for about 7 years then falls. I thought it must have been an attachment but it has not been cut for 17 years and is dreadlocked (that’s the key, he has a lot of dead hair in the dreadlock)
This was easily the slowest border in Europe. Things I had to do:
Fill out a Passenger Customs Declaration in duplicate. It asked for engine displacement and Chassis # (different than VIN), things I didn’t know. There were so many stupid questions written in stilted English, it was impossible to know what they meant.
Buy insurance: easy 17€. A young officer helped immensely with this. She was a teacher and it paid much better to be a border guard. She also went out of her way to give me some tourist brochures.
Wait in line forever. This is apparently the busiest border in Belarus. The other cars in the customs declaration line were Ukrainian. I opened the back three times.
Toll Roads. Just after the border, register with your credit car for “BelToll” that automatically bills you – I like this. When I arrived to register, she asked for my passport and registration and then gave me a leaflet in English that said all toll roads are free for European registered vehicles from June 10 – July 10 (I assume because of the European Games). Nice
42% of Belarus is covered by forest. In the 35kms from the border to Homel, I drove all the way in a mature mixed forest, birch, pine and many others.
Belarus is neat as a pin. Even though the houses look relatively poor, everything is painted, grass trimmed, no garbage, well-signed roads, LED traffic lights.
Alphabet: Cyrillic. Some road signs are in Latin.
English ability. Very low.
HOMEL World City and Popular Town
Gomel Palace and Park. The park is lovely with nice plantings, flower beds, mature grees, manicured grass. I sat in small circle around a nice fountain writing this. The palace is a large manor house yellow with white trim and columns.
There is a big statue of Lenin on the sidewalk outside the park.
After seeing the Palace and park, I walked the 500m to the pedestrian bridge.
Chapel-Tomb of the Pakervich Princes. In the corner of the park (next to the church and overlooking the river) is this lovely chapel – a small square cream/red brick chapel with decorative brick, mosaics, 4 small gilt onion domes and a central steeple, all topped with crosses. Next to it is an underground crypt/tomb that can be visited.
Pedestrian Bridge across the Sozh. Connecting the high banks on either side of the river, this is a steel arched bridge on 5 piers. On the east side is a “wilderness” park with several beaches on the river. On the west is the town and a large promenade on the banks.
Looking at my time line over the next month, I decided to follow a different path than trying to see almost everything in Nomad Mania. Besides driving all over the place, it is exhausting. So instead of going to the northeast of Belarus to see smaller cities like Mogilev and Vitsyebsk then continuing to Minsk, I decided to go directly to Minsk, a 3½ hour drive via fast toll road.
The part of Belarus I drove through was pancake flat and very rural, a mixture of fields and forest. In the 150kms to Babruysk, I passed one town and two villages. The road was wonderful and I averaged over 140kms/h with a speed limit of 120. There was very little traffic and it was all going much slower, implying that speed limits are actively enforced in Belarus. I passed several overhead camera arrays – certainly for tolls but probably also for speed – I would have gotten at least 5 speeding tickets if that was so. But I don’t believe they have anyway to collect.
The four-lane divided highway (M5) was very well designed but unusual. There were few overpasses or cloverleafs. More often the few side roads came directly onto the highway. There were several bus stops (all in the middle of nowhere) and these had crosswalks with speed limits of 80 that were being obeyed by the locals. I didn’t bother slowing down.
I left Gomel at dusk and drove into a wonderful sunset with several layers of pink clouds all the way.
Baburysk is a very sleepy city with nothing open at 10:15. I finally found the central area but there were no bars. I tried to find wifi with no password but there was none. I wanted to look up Monument to a Beaver as Google Maps could not find it.
I parked next to a park in the centre and stayed the night.
BABRUYSK (pop 215,000) is a city in the Mogilev Region of eastern Belarus on the Berezina river. The name Babruysk (as well as that of the Babruyka River) probably originates from the Belarusian word babyor (бабёр; beaver), many of which used to inhabit the Berezina. However, beavers in the area had been almost eliminated by the end of the 19th century due to hunting and pollution.
Babruysk is located at the intersection of railroads to Asipovichy, Zhlobin, Kastrychnitski and roads to Minsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Kalinkavichy, Slutsk, and Rahachow. It has the biggest timber mill in Belarus, and is also known for its chemical, machine building and metal-working industries.
WW II. In 1941, Hitler’s forces invaded Babruysk. Believing that German troops would not target civilians, many Jews stayed behind. Consequently, 20,000 Babruysk Jews were shot and buried in mass graves. Ghetto and labor camps were established in the southwest part of town. The conditions inside the camps were horrible and involved lack of food, lack of sanitation and perpetual abuse by the Nazi guards. Soon the Nazis began executing the Jews in the ghetto in groups of about 30. By 1943 all labor camps have been liquidated and the remaining Jews killed. The few Jews who escaped joined partisan forces in the surrounding forest and went about attacking enemy railroad lines.
On June 29, 1944, the Red Army liberated Babruysk. The city lay in ruins; while the population had been 84,107 in 1939, it was down to 28,352 following the war. The difficult process of rebuilding was conducted by thousands of workers and war prisoners who labored to clear factories and streets of rubble and filled in craters made by the bombardment.
Monument to a Beaver. In the NM “Bizzarium” series, I had no clue where it was. I woke up at 5 and walked through the main square with its Soviet tank and 1941-45 war memorial. On the south side, in front of the restaurant “l’Historie, is the beaver. Dressed in black suit and bowtie, with a bronze head, hands and watch chain, he is lounging on a park bench.
Babruysk Local History Museum
GO TO BELARUS CENTER
NOMAD MANIA Belarus – East (Homel, Mogilev, Babruysk)
Borders:
Belarus-Russia
Belarus-Ukraine
XL:
Sankovo-Medvezhye (enclaves in Belarus)
Southeastern panhandle (Kamaryn)
Three sisters border (Friendship Monument “Three Sisters”)
Museums: Vetka: Vetka Museum of Old Believers and Belarusian Traditions (Museum of Folk Art)
European Cities
MAHILYOV (MOGILEV)
BABRUYSK
Museums: Babruysk Local History Museum
Bizzarium: Monument to a Beaver
HOMEL World City and Popular Town
Museums: Gomel: Gomel Regional Museum of Military Glory
Castles, Palaces, Forts: Gomel: Gomel Palace and Park
Pedestrian Bridges: Gomel: Pedestrian Bridge across the Sozh
MAZYR
Railway, Metro, Funiculars, Cable Cars: Mazyr Trams
MOGILEV
Museums: Mogilev: Museum of Ethnography
Religious Temples: Co-Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and St. Stanislaus