A Dash to Vitebsk

I’ve gotten to know the principals of a dance school in Vitebsk because they come to Minsk sometimes for our dance events. One of them tracked me down on Facebook and urged me to come to his school’s third-anniversary party. The party looked like fun but I didn’t imagine going because it bumped up against an event in Minsk. Kostya, however, kept giving me gentle nudges about coming.

A few days before the event, he asked me for some help translating some materials related to his program and inquired again about whether I’d come. It really did look like a good party, so I finally mentioned to Alla that I’d been fending off invitations for a few days now. She asked me, “Why don’t you go?” I didn’t need any more encouragement than that, and by the next day I’d found myself an $18 hotel and reserved train tickets, much to Alla’s surprise.

Honestly, I don’t have a lot of experience with hotels that cheap. I think Luci and I stayed in one in a small Mexican town once and we didn’t find it overly alarming, but we didn’t like it either. I actually liked the one in Vitebsk, and I’d even go back. (But I’d ask for a room on the other side of the building, away from the entrance to a popular bowling alley.)

I got a little bored on the train to Vitebsk, though, which is a bad sign because I’m planning a really long train ride with a cousin later this year. But the trip worked out pretty well otherwise because one of the people in my compartment helped me find the trolleybus that would take me to the dance studio and I got there in time for an excellent master class.

I really loved the dance party that evening. They had a good live band, a cozy location and a vibrant atmosphere. The organizers featured at one point a class group of talented beginners doing a show number. As much as I enjoyed the performance itself, I especially enjoyed watching their teacher’s face as her students danced. Christina beamed with joy, pride and love all at once.

I got back to my little hotel rather late, but the floor lady was ready, waiting right by the door. I have to imagine that security for guests at the Golden Calf Hotel meets or exceeds the security at much fancier hotels, thanks to the attentive and professional floor ladies here. I had time to take a shower and sleep a couple of hours before I said goodbye to the floor lady, walked to the train station and returned to Minsk. I still hadn’t slept enough, so I curled up on my upper berth and slept most of the way back.

The whole trip worked out really well.

Slavianski Bazaar

In Chekhov’s time there was a hotel in Moscow called Slavianski Bazaar. Now it’s an annual music and arts festival in Vitebsk, Belarus. Whenever people talk about it they get very enthusiastic, but we’ve never been there because we kept going home in early July before the festival started. Our landlady got all excited for us and sent a friend of hers to buy some tickets to a couple of shows before we even got back from our spring travels. When we got here she informed us that we already had tickets to shows on Friday.

Alla and I didn’t get serious about the festival in time to book a hotel room, so we also had to take this friend’s offer to stay as her houseguests. The hot weather broke just in time, and we enjoyed a very comfortable ride to Vitebsk in a new Mercedes minibus. The air conditioning never gets to the back of those minibuses, so we count ourselves lucky. We enjoyed watching forests and meadows roll by, and finally passed the famous Vitebsk linen fields; pulling into town just as the interior of the bus began to warm up in the noonday sun.
I enjoyed the city itself more than the two shows we attended. I think we could have chosen better if we had done our own planning, but I did enjoy seeing the Igor Moiseev Ballet again. Vitebsk is an extraordinarily beautiful city, anchored by gorgeous churches and broad pedestrian areas built on the banks of a clean-looking river. We walked kilometer after kilometer, exploring the festival vendors’ stalls and the city itself. Remembering the nearby linen mills, we bought lightweight linen shirts for summer. If the weather gets hot again, we’ll be ready. If not, well, we like the shirts anyway.

We came home on the train and enjoyed different scenery. Most spectacularly, the sun set very slowly in a reddened sky over rye fields, streams and golden church domes. I had a hard time getting my homework finished because I kept having to look out the window, but I managed to finish the last paragraph of my Chekhov story just as we arrived in Minsk. I’m chagrined that we didn’t get to know Vitebsk sooner, and glad we finally made a trip. I’d send tourists there for sure, even without the Slavianski Bazaar.