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Belarus
Russian forces are conducting military operations from Belarus in connection to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Foreign nationals still in Belarus should depart as the resulting military activity could disrupt essential services and departure options.
Long regarded by travellers as little more than a curiosity, Belarus has suddenly emerged as one of Europe’s ‘it’ destinations. Fuelling that rise are relaxed visa requirements, a sneaky-good art and cafe scene, and hospitable locals. While political dissent remains muted, the country seems to be having fun again.
Minsk is where you must arrive and depart to take advantage of a new 30-day visa-free regime. The capital has a pulsing nightlife, excellent museums and an impressive ensemble of Stalin-era architecture. Minsk has also become a hub for global summits and sporting events such as the 2019 European Games. Elsewhere, the western cities of Brest and Hrodna are Europeanised nooks, while around the Belarusian heartland you’ll turn up ancient castles and national parks where rare zubr (European bison) roam.
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Top attractions
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Belarus.
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Museum of the Great Patriotic War
Housed in a garish new building, Minsk's best museum houses an excellent display detailing Belarus' suffering and heroism during the Nazi occupation. With English explanations throughout, atmospheric dioramas and a range of real tanks, airplanes and artillery from WWII, it's one of the capital's few must-see attractions. Its section on concentration camps is particularly disturbing: an incredible 2.3 million people in Belarus were killed during the war, including 1.5 million civilians. Audioguides give much-needed context to the collection; for greater depth, book an English-language tour (in advance). Take bus number 1 from pl Svabody to get here.
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Museum of Railway Technology
The outdoor Museum of Railway Technology has a superb collection of locomotives and carriages dating from 1903 (eg the Moscow–Brest Express, with shower rooms and a very comfy main bedroom) to 1988 (far more proletarian Soviet passenger carriages). You can go inside many of them, so train enthusiasts and children tend to love it here.
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Vul Kastrychnitskaya
Vul Kastrychnitskaya – still known by its Soviet name, ulitsa Oktyabrskaya – has blossomed into Minsk's unofficial arts district. Brazilian street artists have spray-painted brilliant murals on the giant facades of the street's apartment blocks, warehouses and factories, many of which now house event spaces, galleries and hipster cafes. President Lukashenko has allowed creative expression to flourish here with the expectation that it not spread to other parts of the capital, which remain sanitised and generally free of street art. The district exudes a refreshing counterculture spirit and is one of the few places where you'll hear locals speaking Belarusian and/or talking about politics. Food-truck culture has taken root here and drinking on the street on any given evening is de rigueur.
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Brest Fortress
During Operation Barbarossa in the early days of the Great Patriotic War (WWII), a small band of soldiers gallantly held off a superior Nazi force at Brest Fortress and became Soviet legends. Today the fortress is a rambling complex of museums and Soviet memorials dedicated to that siege. It occupies a beautiful spot at the confluence of the Bug and Mukhavets rivers, about a 25-minute walk from central vul Savetskaya. The fortress was built between 1833 and 1842, but by WWII it was being used mainly as a barracks. The two regiments bunking here when German troops launched a surprise attack in 1941 defended the fort for an astounding month. Under Stalin's propaganda machine, the siege of Brest fortress attained mythical status – a Soviet version of the Alamo or the Charge of the Light Brigade. Entrance to the grounds is free but you'll have to pay a separate admission price to visit each museum. There are souvenir shops at the entrance, near the tanks and in some of the museums. Bicycles are a good way to explore the complex and can be hired near the entrance for BYN2 per hour. To get to the fortress from the centre take infrequent buses 17 or 41 from pl Lenina or from any bus stop along vul Hoholya. Enter the Brest Fortress complex through an iconic tunnel in the shape of a huge socialist star, where sombre music accompanies your passage. Then, on the left, you'll see tanks, often with kids clambering over them. Keep walking straight, cross a small bridge, and you'll see the stone Thirst Statue on your left, a classic piece of socialist realism depicting a water-starved soldier crawling for a drink. On the opposite (northwest) side of the path from the Thirst Statue are the brick ruins of the White Palace, where the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, marking Russia's exit from WWI. Next to this is the Defence of Brest Hero-Fortress Museum, a more than comprehensive look at every minute detail of the fortress's long history and the siege for which it is known. Most placards are in Russian, although there are a few English descriptions. Heading to the main monuments – among which is Courage, a large stone soldier's head projecting from a massive rock, and a skyscraping obelisk – you'll see an eternal flame and marble plaques bearing the names of those who died (several are marked 'unknown'). CNN once put Courage on a list of the world’s ugliest monuments; you’ll either strongly agree or strongly disagree. Behind Courage is the attractive, recently renovated Byzantine St Nicholas Garrison Church, the oldest church in the city, which dates from when the town centre occupied the fortress site. Once part of a large monastery before being turned into a soldier's garrison club, it was gutted during the 1941 siege but has been restored and now holds regular services. Inside are some interesting photos of the church's reconstruction, which was completed in 2013. If you haven't had enough war history, the Museum of War, Territory of Peace is inside the fortress's southern bastion. A newer museum focusing on WWII, it's more modern and more visual than the other museums within the fortress, and most descriptions are in English. The 'battle room' does a good job of recreating the scene of an aerial bombardment, complete with sound effects, and there are interesting multimedia displays mapping German concentration camps throughout Europe. Next to this is the Kholmskie Gate, its bricks decorated with crenellated turrets and its outer face riddled with hundreds of bullet and shrapnel holes. Pass through the gate, cross a bridge and you'll spot the Bereste Archaeological Museum on the right. It's a large covered archaeological site where peasant and artisan huts from the 12th to 14th centuries have been uncovered.
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Pr Nezalezhnastsi
The capital's main thoroughfare impresses with its sheer size. Formerly pr Francyska Skaryny, it runs from what travel writer Colin Thubron dubbed the 'ferroconcrete tundra' of outer Minsk to the modern (read: Soviet) city centre, terminating just northeast of the train station at the stubbornly austere and expansive pl Nezalezhnastsi. The avenue is the world's premier embodiment of the post-WWII Stalinist Empire style, marked by expansive squares, utopian parks and palatial architectural gems like the Central Post Office. At pl Nezalezhnastsi you can't miss the imposing Belarusian Government Building, fronted by a Lenin Statue. It is one of several fine examples of pre-WWII constructivist architecture in Minsk. Next to it is the 1910 red-brick Church of Sts Simon & Helena, with its tall, gabled bell tower. Heading northeast, you'll pass the iconic, Stalinist Minsk Hotel and then come to the ominous KGB headquarters between vul Haradsky Val and vul Kamsamolskaya. Roughly opposite the KGB building is a long narrow park with a bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka (the KGB's predecessor) and a native of Belarus. A couple blocks further northeast is sweeping Kastrychnitskaya pl, and opposite this is Tsentralny skver, a leafy park on the site of a 19th-century marketplace. The dark-grey building to the northeast of Tsentralny sq is Dom Ofitserov (Officer's Building), which has a tank memorial at the front, devoted to the soldiers who freed Minsk from the Nazis. Southeast of the square, along vul Karla Marksa, is the seemingly lifeless, seriously guarded presidential residence. As pr Nezalezhnastsi crosses the Svislach River, it passes two of the city's main parks: Park Yanki Kupaly on the southwestern bank opposite the circus and the larger Gorky Central Children's Park, where there's a section with rides, attractions and fast-food kiosks. Just across the bridge, in a green wooden house by the banks of the river, is the House Museum of the First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party, where the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party – Russia's original Marxist party – held its illegal founding congress in 1898. Diagonally opposite the museum is the former residence of Lee Harvey Oswald. Just 100m northeast of here, pl Peramohi (ploshchad Pobedy in Russian) is marked by a giant Victory Obelisk and its eternal flame, which is directly beneath the obelisk underground. Further north is pl Jakuba Kolasa, another expansive square, this one softened by pleasant parkland and a sitting area near the elephantine monument to the Belarusian writer. A few metro stops northeast of there the National Library of Belarus, a ghastly piece of Lukashenko-approved hubris in the shape of a giant rhombicuboctahedron (look it up!).
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Museum of Folk Architecture & Rural Lifestyle
Several dozen traditional wood houses, a school, a church and an old windmill have been transplanted to this open-air folk museum in Azyartso, 15km southwest of central Minsk. While not as developed as the similarly themed Dudutki museum nearby, this is a more authentic experience and a must for 19th-century rural-architecture buffs. Enjoy the rich scent of pinewood in the houses and the ripe smell of loam in the work sheds as you take in the complex, which is peppered with maple and apple trees. Festivals such as Kupalle (summer solstice festival) are a good time to visit, as the museum stays open late for dancing, singing and merrymaking. A 100-year-old tavern serves lunch. To get here take a Dubyantsy-bound bus from the Southwest Bus Station (BYN0.60, every 90 minutes). Ask your driver to let you off at the Azyartso (Ozertso) ' muzey ' (museum).
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Belarusian State Art Museum
This excellent museum in one of Minsk's iconic buildings (built in 1939) includes definitive works by Soviet social realists and Russian masters, including Valentin Volkov's social realist Minsk on July 3, 1944 (1944–5), depicting the Red Army's arrival in the ruined city. Several works by Yudel Pen, Chagall's teacher, are here, including his 1914 portrait of Chagall, and Chagall exhibitions often rotate through here. There's also an impressive collection of icons, some great realist depictions of late 19th-century life in the Russian Empire and several works by Nikolai Ge, Ilya Repin, Isaak Levitan, Isaak Brodsky, Ivan Aivazovsky, Mikhail Nesterov and Konstantin Makovsky. Out back a light-bathed extension features local art from the 1940s to the 1970s. Order excursions in English in advance.
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Ў Gallery of Contemporary Art
This well-established gallery and cultural centre heralded a shift in the artistic landscape when it relocated to vul Kastrychnitskaya in 2018. It is named after a letter unique to the Belarusian language called ' u nieskladovaye ', a symbol of sorts of the Belarusian national identity. This is one of the rare places where you'll hear some Belarusian being spoken. It lures the very best local contemporary visual and multimedia artists to two cavernous post-industrial exhibition spaces. Attached is a great wine bar.
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St Nicholas Garrison Church
Behind the Courage monument in the Brest Fortress complex is this attractive Byzantine church, which dates from when the town centre occupied the fortress site, making it the oldest church in the city. Once part of a large monastery before being turned into a soldier's garrison club, it was gutted during the 1941 siege but has been restored and now holds regular services. Inside are some interesting photos of the church's reconstruction, which was completed in 2013.