MMAP - Second Quest of Belarus, October 2010 - Sianno again

When we were registering our foreign participants in Talachyn during our first quest, it was a nightmare. We had to wait for several hours, no place to sit down...

This time it was very different. It took less than 30 minutes, and the police official lady was very friendly.

MMAP - Second Quest of Belarus, October 2010 - Kokhanava again

Jess Kuntz is a Fulbright scholar now doing her research in Political Studies in Zagreb, Croatia. She ventured to come to Belarus to boldly go where few (if any) Westerners have gone before, and her boldness made our second quest possible, thus continuing the glorious voyage in August 2010.

Belarus. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the MMAP Biking Project, which continuing mission is to explore the new world, to seek out new lives and old civilizations...

From our previous visit to Kokhanava in August I learned that somewhere between Talachyn and Kokhanava where Napoleon stayed overnight. So the girls agreed to take a detour, and before that we had a snack.

We saw the oak grove, and then we got lost. We kept going through thick forest, then through some marshes, then along a rail road... Luckily enough, my stubbornness was not so stupid (or my stupidity was not so stubborn?), and we decided to go back to the highway.

So when we finally came to Kokhanava, we were about two hours late. But at least we made it before the dark.


Then we got to the house of Nikolai Petroushenko, 'the Colonel', where we were treated with a nice family dinner, and met many social activists from the town.

Again we stayed at the studio of Vasili the artist. In August it was cool and comfortable, now it was warm and cozy.

Being the honorable foreign guest, Jessica was offered the sleeping place on top of the stove, the warmest one. However, it was also the darkest, and there were Belarusan spiders :)...

 Thanks to the contacts provided to us by the Mayor of Kokhanava during our first quest, we established semi-official relations with one of the two local schools.

At first the administration were very cautious about letting some unauthorized American into the classes, but finally common sense and desire to help the kids to learn English better prevailed.

Again we talked about the Pilgrims and life in the first colonies, about the Declaration of Independence and 'taxation without representation', a very timely topic in the contemporary Belarus :).

 Here is Jessica playing soccer (not football!) after very successful diplomatic negotiations about a whole range of issues within mutual interests of high negotiating parties. The parties consisted of us and the school administration, and we were negotiating about our future visit to the same school in April or May.

 Then we biked to a village nearby, with a picturesque lake, a stone cross, ruins of an old manor, and many legends about a young daughter of the landlord, an old castle and unhappy love.

 

 The next morning we were getting ready to go to Sianno, where we were in August, to meet Anna and her family, Vasil Bandarevich and his students, and Olga the reporter, and the medical workers from the Red Cross again.

When we came to Sianno...

MMAP - First Quest of Belarus, August 2010 - Sianno

We arrived at Sianno from Kokhanava just in time for our next presentation. Lilya, the librarian, was already waiting for us.

 In Sianno our key contact was Anna Borodina, a music teacher at the local art school. She spread a word, and our presentation enjoyed a good audience of local intellectuals. Those were not kids like in Kokhanava, but it did not make the communication less interesting. The audience included the reporter from the only local newspaper and an official from the local authorities.

The official was very friendly and also made a presentation about developing tour/recreation in the region.

However, when one of the participants from the audience suddenly suggested 'Let's compare the Independence Day in Belarus and the US', the official felt uneasy and said that we would better keep away from such comparisons :). It was very revealing :). But we did not insist. We did this comparison during a less formal talk after.

 A bike tour around a small town. Definitely we were pioneers in this. Dmitri did it in spite of a broken finger (see the plaster bandage).

 That was the first of the three punctures we had during the whole quest.

 About 20 years ago Vasil Bandarevich started his own unique teaching project which combined Visual Arts and the History of Sianno. 90-s was an excellent time for educational innovations like that. His students are recreating the history of their ancestors since.

Now such courses are much more difficult to implement.

I would have never believed that another tour around Sianno could take half a day. Vasil Bandarevich was telling us about his native town's history since pre-historic times, and always had an illustration for every event. I learned a lot about my own country, in full accordance with the MMAP project mission.

Olga the reporter prepared an article about our visit to be published in the local newspaper. However, the chief editor banned it from publication. 'Not in my term of office!' he said. No wonder, as he is totally dependent on the local authorities, who are also totally dependent on the group of power in Minsk...

Still, when next time we will be seeing Vasil Bandarevich again in October and would meet with his students, we will get the access to school teachers and kids. When official people see 'those Americans' in person, their hostile attitudes often melt :).

MMAP - First Quest of Belarus, August 2010 - Kokhanava

Starting from the capital

The very first international participants were a family of Polish Americans (or American Poles) who now live in the south of Poland and travel to the US extensively.

Delia Walbridge-Gosik and her sons Stefan (the taller) and Robert. The guy in the orange shirt is me, Alex Skrebniow, the project key instigator bearing most of the responsibility for the failures (luckily, insignificant ones by now).

Here united we stand near the National Library building in Minsk.

3 days in the town of Kokhanava, near Orsha

Frankly speaking, in our first quest we did not do long distances by bikes. It was an unusually hot August, and besides, the Walbridge-Gosik family came to Belarus by a mini-van. However, we did bike quite some.

Kokhanava has about 5,000 inhabitants. We could not have a chance to meet all of, of course. Our most important contact here was Nikolai Petroushenko, whom we soon began calling 'the Colonel'. He is indeed a retired Colonel, a very active social volunteer and a real getter.

The Colonel made sure that our visit had an official part. We were received by the town Mayor, Mr. Baryshnikov. Contrary to our expectations, he was very open and told us a lot of interesting fact about Kokhanava's past and present, and its prospects for the future. He also helped us to establish contacts with local schools.

Thanks to Nikolai Petroushenko, we got acquainted with the local environment protection club. We made a presentation on American history for them, and both school kids and adults asked interesting questions. In exchange they told us about their activities, and showed them knowledge of American literature.

After the presentation our communication got even more informal. here the kids from the environment protection club are doing their best to remember the English they studied at school. Reciprocally, Stefan is trying his best to remember the Russian he learned while staying in Kyiv.

The first day was over, and we stayed for the night at the studio of Vasily, the local artist and a teacher of arts.

It was cool and pleasant inside, there were a lot of paintings around, and this whole place smelled oil and canvas.

The next day we were making another presentation, this time for the Readers Club in the local library. The Chief Librarian was making excuses for the repairing going on. Actually, we thought this is a thing to be proud of, when renovation is taking place in summer, so the library is fully ready for the new school year.

 After the presentation for the Readers Club we decided to have a swim. It was the hottest August, remember?

 The main goal of the MMAP project is meeting real people in person, learning from them and about them, and telling them about ourselves. We were reminded of that goal quite unexpectedly.

When we got out of water, we saw two local guys, noticeably drunk, heading in our direction. When they came closer to us, they roared something like "Hey, you guys, you can swim here as much as you can, and if anyone gonna cause any  f***ing trouble to you, just tell us. We will be hanging near, and we will beat f***ing **it out of any jerk if he just thinks of causing you any f***ing troubles, you just tell us!" The contrast between their aggressive outlook/speech and their caring words was very touching.

In the picture one of the guys (the less drunk) stands with Robert holding a pocket Bible Robert presented him. Apparently they managed to find a common language :). The other much heavier drunk guy politely stayed far.

 Nikolai Petroushenko showed us a place which was very likely used by Vikings to draw their ships across ground when they were traveling from their Sweden, or Norway, or Denmark to Byzantium.

The name of the village can be loosely translated as 'Capstan-Hill', so he suggested that there was a capstan on top of the hill ahead, and there was time when the main business for the village was to draw ships up and then down to a rive flowing to the Baltic Sea, just about 3 miles from here.

 Now nobody lives in that 'Capstan-Hill' village, but back before World War II there were some families. Here we are together with Nikolai Petroushenko at the plate commemorating a war hero who lived in this house.

 After going up a gentle slope and then going steep downhill we reached the Baltic Sea basin. We could go to Sweden or Norway or Denmark from here, but we are not Vikings, so we decided to postpone the journey.

Another idea of the MMAP Project is that every place, no matter how small, has its own unique history, its places of interest, and outstanding people.

Here we stand near a windmill which was build about 5 years ago all by one man, in a village not far from Kokhanava. Not only it makes flour, it also saws wooden logs.

This is just one of many historical treasures hidden in the land of new Belarus/old Litwa...

After the Russian take-over at the end of the 19th century the cemetery was forgotten, and during Soviet times it was levelled off. We found several tombstones with Polish inscriptions.

The next day we were going to Sianno, our next point of operation :)

Mapping Myself And Planet - an unknown country turns close, not closed

MMAP Project mission

We started this project to help people open up their countries to the world, to know more about their own country, and to find our where we stand in our country, on our continent, and on our planet.

Groups of international mountain bikers go around Belarus, an unknown country in the middle of Europe, and find links to the their histories and cultures.

We realize this project with the organizational support of Adventure Racing Federation (Belarus).

Everybody benefits

This is the complicated diagram we devised for the project. Impressive, eh? Actually, the idea is simple--all groups involved give and get.

Bicyclists, both local and foreign, interact and learn more about other countries and about their own as well. Jointly they make presentations and talks for school kids of in small towns and villages. In exchange, local people tell the bicyclists about their life, interesting places, events, and people of their town.

For the first set of quests we chose the topic full of social, political, cultural, and religious aspects: "The Beginning of the American Nation, The War of Independence, and the American Constitution".

Surprisingly enough, during our trips we found quite a few connections between provincial towns in Belarus (Kokhanava, Sianno, Viciebsk), and this very international topic...

Our first route for three quests

We started with the part of Belarus least represented in tour guides. A small town of Kokhanava, a slightly bigger administrative center the city of Sianno, and Viciebsk, the administrative center of one of the six provinces. North-Eastern Belarus (old Litwa), where none of Western tour guide books indicate any significant historical places.

Though located in the geographical center of Europe, Belarus in general is a very unknown country. For many centuries it was a supplier if 'raw demography material' for the rest of the world. Indeed, the most important resources here are its people and its geographic location.

Our first quest along this route was in August 2010, the second was in October 2010. We plan to organize yet another one in late April-early May 2011, meet the same school kids and social activists. Then we plan to go to Mahilyow, an equally underrepresented region.

Our first quest along this route in August 2010
Our second quest along this route in October 2010
Our third quest along this route is planned to be in April-May 2011

A new set of quests, to Mahilyow region, is planned to be in summer 2011