The New Isolated Blurt BDSM Thread

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[LallyH]

I'm baaa-aack!

Only one brief encounter with the KGB (yes, they still have it there) and being questioned and carry-on rummaged at the border when we were leaving. I think they only stopped me and J at the border because they were bored.

It was definitely a most interesting trip. Not quite sure what to make of it all just yet.

Welcome back! Hope you tell us all about your adventures

 

[seela]

Welcome back! Enjoyment with a hint of danger... sounds perfect!

A very faint hint of danger.

I took a picture of a building and a dude wearing a uniform and a huge cap came to ask who I am and why I'm taking pics of buildings. It was the KGB headquarters and apparently you're not allowed to take pics of it. Did not know that. We had to show our passports and that was the end of our brief encounter with the KGB.

It really was an interesting trip. The city is very grandiose and it's clear it was rebuilt as a model city of social realism. Big buildings with lots of reliefs, wide avenues, a child of its time really. There are lots of enormous parks there, the river was a lot smaller than I expected but it squiggles through the city and large parts of it have nice riverwalks right next to it, and those huge parks of course. It was crazy clean everywhere, lots of police and military presence, lots of workers everywhere. In cafes and restaurants there were often 1:1 ratio of servers to tables to be served at any given time. It was almost freaky.

Practically no tourists at all. We only saw a couple of groups of Russian tourists in the weekend, but during the week it was like we were the only ones. We were stared at a lot in the metro. Even in the souvenir shops the staff didn't speak English, German or Spanish. After suggesting those three languages I usually just bowed my head and went on with Russian.

I got laughed at for my Russian. When I bought us tickets to get to the city from the airport, a bus full of people laughed at me when I spoke Russian. I kid you not. It was bizarre. I even went through the little conversation in my head afterwards and couldn't figure out why they laughed. Oh well. When I tried to buy us tickets for the public transport for 5 days, the lady in the booth got into an argument with another worker about whether or not I speak Russian. We didn't get the tickets, because "tourists don't need those, they always have transportation arranged by the agency". Weeeell, we didn't use an agency.

At the airport some of the staff spoke some English, one person spoke excellent English. In trendy cafes the young worker usually spoke good English too, but in other places Russian was the way to go. Menus usually were in English though, so it was easy to get food even if the people working there didn't speak English at all.

We spent 2 days trying to find the tourist information center, but never found it. Our hotel was out of maps, the little map we had printed beforehand only had a couple of street names on it and those were the old names and in Russian, so that didn't help much. We had an address for the information center but I guess it was wrong. After those two days we gave up, and only then we noticed they sell maps on little kiosks.

Whatelse... Hmm. There were posters and billboards everywhere talking about the importance of military, police and family. Lots of posters with an I Belarus theme. Lots of posters with babies posing with guns or other militia paraphernalia and texts such as "when I grow up, I want to be a hero too".

Yesterday they showed on TV a long ass speech by the President. The camera did an awesome job at showing people in the audience falling asleep and yawning.

Oh, and we met two people from North Korea! They were studying economy in the Belarus State University. We were slightly lost and saw people hanging in front of the university and figured they must speak English. They did.

Getting into the country was interesting too. They checked the passports and visas with a magnifying glass and did a quadruple take on "passport-face-passport-face...". It was kind of unnerving.

Beer was really bad, food was even more beige than in Poland. But all in all I liked the place. The vibe was odd, but interesting. Not a scary place at all.

I guess that about covers our trip. More details available upon request.

 

[seela]

Doesn't it just......real adventure is good .....but home safe important too!

Home safe is the most important bit.

Welcome back! Hope you tell us all about your adventures

Thanks! I promised to give a full report, and I think I already gave a pretty good one above.

A few pics:

That stack of money was a little over 200 euros, btw. It felt like monopoly money. 1 euro = ~16.000 Belarusian rubles.

 

[desertslave]

Seela, your account is fascinating! Thank you for sharing your experiences.

I'm chuckling over the 'she doesn't speak Russian' episode. When I lived in NYC, my same-floor neighbor was Puerto Rican and barely spoke English. My upstairs neighbor's brother came to visit at one point. He had been living in Madrid for the past 3 years and spoke fluent, beautiful Spanish. There was a contretemps at one point, and Craig tried to get Maria (my neighbor) settled down. She stopped her rant, glared at him and said "who do you think you are, you don't even speak good Spanish!" (Mine is pidgin at best, but even I knew what she was saying.) He was dumbfounded.

Yes, my neighbor was rather off her rocker. The stories I could tell.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[seela]

Seela, your account is fascinating! Thank you for sharing your experiences.

I'm chuckling over the 'she doesn't speak Russian' episode. When I lived in NYC, my same-floor neighbor was Puerto Rican and barely spoke English. My upstairs neighbor's brother came to visit at one point. He had been living in Madrid for the past 3 years and spoke fluent, beautiful Spanish. There was a contretemps at one point, and Craig tried to get Maria (my neighbor) settled down. She stopped her rant, glared at him and said "who do you think you are, you don't even speak good Spanish!" (Mine is pidgin at best, but even I knew what she was saying.) He was dumbfounded.

Yes, my neighbor was rather off her rocker. The stories I could tell.

My Russian is very basic, but I understand most of what's spoken to me especially if the person at least tries to speak clearly. It was so funny hearing the ladies argue over my possible knowledge of Russian. It was good it was at the beginning of the trip, too. At the end I probably would have just found it irritating rather than amusing.

Where were those cosmonaughts? The art is very interesting, while not to my personal taste, but nonetheless intriguing, whets the appetite for knowledge and and I'd like to know more about it, and what incredible architecture! A strange combination of feelings about it. None negative.

Those cosmonauts were just a part of a mural on the wall of a building right in the center of the city. They really love their murals and in general facades with little statues or carvings of all things socialist and proletarian there, and not just in Belarus but there are buildings like those in all ex-socialist countries.

Here's another part of the mural:

It shows tanks, some weird hover crafts, guys with guns and has a text "everything for war"

The library reminded me of the weird buildings of Turkmenistan for some reason. Local hate it. There's an observation deck on the roof and the locals say it's the best place, because you can't see the library if you're standing on top of it. The usual social realism looks more like this pic of the main post office:

Big, archy, carvings, there's even hammer and sickle there above the door. The whole center of Minsk is in that style and it's a UNESCO site because it's unique for being such a large area in such a coherent social realist style.

Here are a couple of signs too:

A huge text that lights up saying "Flourish, mothercountry Belarus"

And one version of the omnipresent "I love Belarus" signs.

 

[seela]

Oh....and this food more grey than polish food......not descriptive enough. I have had pleasant enough Polish food. G travelled through Poland alone as a teen because a particular dumpling restaurant was recommended to him when with a parent in Warsaw, so he travelled who knows where to try these famous dumplings hours away. He would have loved going to Minsk!

I'll get back to the food probably tomorrow.

I've lived in Poland and I've had excellent Polish food many times, but it is rather bland and beige. The food in Belarus was even one step further into the greasy, heavy beige-land. Some of it was really good, some of it was so-so, some of it I wouldn't try again.

I did get chłodnik there, which was my goal. Don't remember how it was called in Belarusian. It's beet soup served cold and I love that stuff. They served it with potato croquettes (frozen unfortunately) rather than with draniki (potato pancakes), but the soup itself was excellent.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[LallyH]

There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you would get me on board that glass bottomed plane that Richard Branson is launching...

I don't mind flying but actually seeing miles of fresh air between me and the ground......no, no, no, no. Not for me...

 

[midwestyankee]

There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you would get me on board that glass bottomed plane that Richard Branson is launching...

I don't mind flying but actually seeing miles of fresh air between me and the ground......no, no, no, no. Not for me...

Sounds fascinating. One of my favorite experiences ever was a single flying lesson I took a number of years ago in a small Cessna.

 

[LallyH]

Sounds fascinating. One of my favorite experiences ever was a single flying lesson I took a number of years ago in a small Cessna.

I have a customer who tells me about his flying lessons. I sit there trying to keep the horror off my face....

 

[TheSilverLining]

There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you would get me on board that glass bottomed plane that Richard Branson is launching...

I don't mind flying but actually seeing miles of fresh air between me and the ground......no, no, no, no. Not for me...

I saw that on my Faceache feed yesterday.
Press release dated April 1st.....

 

[BiBunny]

Sometimes, I read works of fiction that other people have written and had published, and I'm like, "Really? Really?"

I can't decide if what I'm reading is really that underwhelming or if I'm just kind of envious. Maybe it's a little of both.

I tell myself I could do better, but somehow I never seem to.

 

[desertslave]

There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY you would get me on board that glass bottomed plane that Richard Branson is launching...

I don't mind flying but actually seeing miles of fresh air between me and the ground......no, no, no, no. Not for me...

I would love it! Aerial views (like Google Maps) fascinate me. I adore small-plane flying. Commercial flight has become horribly tedious. Here's a funny--Mom was afraid of heights, but she was the first person in our family to fly. Airplanes didn't have the same feel that tall buildings, etc, had for her.

I've a friend here who is an instructor. He just 'made' his very first Private Pilot, and I swear he's prouder than his former student. I'm hoping I can free up enough cash in the future so that I can hop in the right seat with him, just for fun. I'm not legal to fly myself anymore, so a ride-along is all I can get.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Awesome account, seela - thank you for sharing! I also especially loved the argument that was held in front of you as to whether or not you spoke Russian. I had a similar encounter in Spain as to whether or not I was understanding two people talking. I understood the whole thing, but managed a blank look so they would keep on talking

As to the library building, if it were here I would absolutely hate it But for some reason I love what it seeks to convey, gradiosity and opulence and power, but it holds more charm in the attempt than it actually pulls off in style. I love it

And you know I will want to hear more about the food when you're ready!!

 

[BiBunny]

I have no idea how I missed seela's account of Belarus the first time, but I'm glad I went back and found it.

I have this strange, inexplicable fascination with the former Soviet Union and Russia and the other post-Soviet countries.

 

[seela]

Oh dear, you may have let yourself in for a polish recipe question from me in the future, . I will let you recover first though,

I'll be glad to answer you questions if I can. I'm not an expert, but I have spent a good chunk of time in Poland and its neighboring countries.

And you know I will want to hear more about the food when you're ready!!

Food stuff is up at the cooking thread!

I have no idea how I missed seela's account of Belarus the first time, but I'm glad I went back and found it.

I have this strange, inexplicable fascination with the former Soviet Union and Russia and the other post-Soviet countries.

I'm glad people like it. I feel like I'm spamming the boards with my Belarus stories and pics, but I'll stop soon.

It was a fascinating place to visit, I've never been to a country like that before, although I've spent a lot of time in that general region and am familiar with the ex-socialist countries.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[BiBunny]

Nonononononononono!

Seela, you are always interesting. This is just something else to enjoy hearing about from you.

^^^^ What she said.

I like living vicariously through other people's travels!

 

[Cumference]

....

It was a fascinating place to visit, I've never been to a country like that before, although I've spent a lot of time in that general region and am familiar with the ex-socialist countries.

Thanks for the story, and please keep 'em coming!

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[desertslave]

Nonononononononono!

Seela, you are always interesting. This is just something else to enjoy hearing about from you.

Thirded! I doubt I'll ever travel there, so it's a treat to live vicarously.

 

[seela]

Since all people aren't yet completely bored with Minsk, I'll share a bit more.

We went to ballet there, it was the opening night of The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. The tickets were crazy cheap. We had really good seats right in the center and only paid about 29 euros for the two tickets. So if you ever find yourself in Minsk, do check out the opera and ballet. I would have liked to go to circus as well, as it's supposed to be really good, but the tickets were sold out.

Anyways, what was interesting about the ballet experience was the building. Or rather the toilets.

As you can see, they were of the squatting type. Now, I have nothing against a squat toilet, actually they're often a lot cleaner and nicer to use than the "normal" ones. In that neck of the woods women often don't sit on the toilet seat, but rather hover over it or some even climb on top of it and squat on the ring. So yeah, the holes in the floors can be a lot cleaner.

What I found odd was the location of it. In opera and ballet women often wear long dresses and heels. Squatting in that ensemble can be somewhat challenging. I'm sure it would be preferable to have a normal toilet seat there.

Luckily I only had a knee length dress. The stiletto heels amped the difficulty level high enough for me...

And another nation building poster. It really was impossible to miss these. The golden things are tiny soldiers, there's a hammer and sickle in the star on the hat and the text says "I'm going to become a hero too, like my great grandfather".