Monuments in Minsk

Dima and Natasha have both offered to be my guides in Minsk. They are very eager to show me the sites and they seem to argue about where to take me and what to show me.

Dima has studied English for only two months but he has already learned much. He tells me that it's important for him to learn English because he wants to travel and to tell others about Belorus.

He asks me how much I knew about Belorus before I came here and I confess to him that I didn't know much, except that Lukasjenko is the president both for Belorus and for the Belorussian hockey team.

They tell me that it is hard for a student to travel abroad. It is only possible to go to Russia and Ukraine without applying for visa, and visa is both expensive and hard to get.

Belorus has actually it's own language appart from Russian. There aren't many people who speak Belorus but some - mostly younger people - study Belorus at the university.

We stop for a cup of coffee at the central railway station. In the background they are playing old revolutionary marches on the speaker system. A policeman with green uniform and a large hat walks his beat and wakes up a man dozing of in his seat. Everything is very tidy and neat.

The railway station is huge and a fairly new construction. The architecture is symmetrical and based on simple geometric forms. It's bombastic in it's design but I don't think the result is very impressive. It is as if it wants to give an impression of practicality but it actually isn't even very practical.

Minsk was totally destroyed by German bombs during world war two and almost all the buildings are built in the 50's. There is a small Island called old town where there still is some houses from 19th century, but that's all.

Natasja and Dima takes me to the old town and afterwards to the war memorial called the island of tears, in honor of soldiers from Minsk who lost their lives in the war in Afghanistan.

I am repulsed by the monument since it reminds me of one of the most stupid, horrific and illegitimate wars in the history of man kind that has caused political destabilization and cultural regression in a large region.

Why is it, that the history of man kind seems to be written only in the pauses of respite and truce, in a war that never seem to end? Why is it that destruction and destabilization can so easily be justified and accepted amongst common men, while understanding and cooperation is so rare, and often met with grave suspicion?

Natasja tells me that the Island of tears is a very popular monument. There is a tradition in Belorus to put flowers at your favorite monument when you get married, so many newly weds come here and honor the dead soldiers.

I am glad to leave the Island of Tears and as we walk slowly towards the Square of Victory we talk about famous people who we all recognize. Both Dima and Natasja tell me that they have read Selma Lagerlöv and that "Carlsson on the roof" was one of their favorite stories when they were kids. I tell them that Michail Bulgakov is one of my favorite writers and that the "Master and Margarita" is one of my biggest literary experiences.

As we continue speaking about Ingmar Bergman and Fjodor Dostojevskij there is a notion among us three that we grow more familiar because we know the same people. It is as if these famous people we talk about are good old friends that we put trust and faith in, and as being a friend of a friend this trust and friendship is shared also between us three.

And I guess this is why culture is the most efficient weapon to disarm the warmongers, who aim to unite people by pointing towards an alien enemy. Heroes and idols that don't partake in the bloody history of the ever ongoing war against mankind is vital to peace and prosperity. There will never be enough monuments of famous men and women who never fired a bullet or never waged war against his neighbors.

But the monuments of such people aren't built with stone or cast in bronze, they are written in books, performed in theaters and hung in galleries all over the world. Theirs is a living monument of knowledge and of culture rather then one of victory and defeat.