Although we only spent a day trundling through on a train, the story we were told about Belarus seems to ring true: a proper Soviet throwback spot. Minsk looked to have a couple of modern buildings, but that seemed to be pretty much it for the whole country. We had a couple of hours' stopover in a town called Orsha. And the train did literally just stop - not at a platform, but just near the station so we had to clamber down a makeshift ladder and over some railway lines to habe a wander.
To say there was very little there would be overstating the point (although the train station was a fine piece of imposing architecture), but Eve did do very well to buy us two bottles of water with her visa card. Odd that the train should stop there given that it only had about 7 stops in total - including Berlin and St Petersburg, but there you are.
We stayed up for a little bit hoping to reach the Russian border so we wouldn't be woken for it - we needn't have bothered: Russia and Belarus get on so well that once you're in Belarus there are no visa controls until you leave Russia. Good job we went to sleep when we did.
To say there was very little there would be overstating the point (although the train station was a fine piece of imposing architecture), but Eve did do very well to buy us two bottles of water with her visa card. Odd that the train should stop there given that it only had about 7 stops in total - including Berlin and St Petersburg, but there you are.
We stayed up for a little bit hoping to reach the Russian border so we wouldn't be woken for it - we needn't have bothered: Russia and Belarus get on so well that once you're in Belarus there are no visa controls until you leave Russia. Good job we went to sleep when we did.
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