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...