Let's continue with Minsk!

Originally, I came hereⁱ to stay "a few days". A coupla days ago I made arrangements to stay a full week, and honestly I'm probably going to add a coupla weeks to that week tomorrow. Minsk is pretty fucking cool, what (not to mention the weather's been a pleasure, as pleasantly cool as Costa Rica, but minus the rainy season).

So... let's see more pictures then, what else are we gonna do.

Yup, this cradle of my extremely happy early sexual life still lives and breathes in its home country! Across the Leninaleeⁱⁱ from my very own luxurious dwelling, as it happens! Yiipee!

Ah, pleasant evenings spent in company, oh delicious discoveries of the world -- as to how three's exactly the opposite of a crowd ; as to how young women can and will do absolutely anything whatsoever, just as long as firmly held in the firm hand of a real man... eh my unforgottenⁱⁱⁱ cousines^iv d'antan!

I do not know.

Does it seem fast to you ?

Daring architecture defying curvature, or something like that.

Before stopping to immortalize that strange mechanical badminton racquet or whatever the hell it is (what do you think the Space Age item is ?), I stopped to have my shoelace retied. A local coming from behind the kneeling slave was so elated he wanted to shake my hand, "this, this is how you treat women, brother!" and such. He went on his way, and then as we were talking about it,
"It helps that your dress is practically see-through when you kneel, or bend over."
"It is ?!" looking at me in despair
"Well..." I add, "it certainly makes it obvious you aren't wearing any underwear."
"Oh my god... this was my decent outfit! For going to the doctor! And..."
"I'm sure doctor's seen plenty of ass before."

I'm sure he has ; though not quite like that. Moving on...

All sorts of things are undead here ; things whose gravestones are long forgotten anywhere else trudge on. Even John Lennon still has a following.

When it comes to parking, what you want is safety first.

I suspect that might be a barrel of fuel.

Intrducing the newlyfound Mr. Owl.

Do you recall how I said, a long, long time ago, that I keep finding ear-rings ? Well... I never stopped doing it, I just stopped mentioning it. There's a literal pile, dozens of items, mostly intended to hang from female ears, that I've collected in the intervening decade ; and now this brooch, elegantly enammeled gold adorned by ten tiny diamonds. Here he is :

And may I wear him happily, and may he feel well on my lapel!

Oh sheeit, it looks like there's gonna be a race! Let the rumbling begin!

Kinda looks like no contest, huh...

Wait... is that ? Could it be ?!

Aaaand... he's gone, ladies and gentlemen! Smokeee!

The porta-potty fucking won, can you believe that shit ?

Anyway, whatever, food's here.

Food in Minsk is mostly liquid, what can I tell you. There depicted, broccoli&spinach, cream of mushroom, three sherrys and three ports. As it turns out, the girls like the reds, sherry particularly.

We also had duck, "Cornish" chicken and beef at this very posh downtown restaurant ; except for the quite excellent filet mignon, everything else was... marginal, at best. But the beef was quite good, so what can you do.

Above : culture palace, right next to the republic palace. It's a whole palatiary complex down here.

Below : street.

In continuing documentary evidence towards the general question of "how does the harem dwell", I give you this very comfortable audition couch with its respective trims and extras. Pro tip : if you're to lose your virginity, there's not likely any better place in all of Minsk. Besides, the welts don't really hurt anymore after the second day.

High sink on a platform, club-style ; washing machine underneath, memento pizdi. I kinda like the eclecticism.

Above : These are a very resourceful and inventive people.

Below : Friendship pectopan in Friendship park. Excellent food, best service I've seen in a long, long time, I most heartily recommend. The food's a little on the beerhouse side, but you'll live.

We had the seating under the "Spanish balcony", with direct underskirt view. There's worse fates.

Ta-da!

1. From Poland, where I was also gonna stay a few days but ended up staying a week. [↩]
2. Here's a little bit of local lulz : the British embassy is lodged at the intersection of Marx and Lenin. So therefore, as we pass by the old KGB building, me seated in the back in my improbable costume, the vest, the silver capped, shiny black walking stick, the driver turns and says, "this is the KGB building".

   "Oh ? Do you work there ?" I ask, with all the nyuk nyuk chidding appearance of a septuagenarian British diplomat seventy years ago, trying his best to show these slick quick youngsters that he's not completely without a clue. Har har, "do you work there ?"

   The poor guy spends the next fifteen minutes trying to get across that these KGB folk aren't pleasant and nobody wants to hang out with them, as best he can. I look at him, through him. The principal advantage to living a long time -- I do not mean vegetating, living a long time -- is that reality perceptible acquires a hue. At first a hue, then many hues, and then, eventually, you look right through it. You walk the narrow alley in the park and it is narrow, an alley, in the park -- another narrow, of another alley, in a great many other parks, stretching out in endless self-reflecting mirrors over vast scapes of mnemonic plains.

   I am happy, you see. It is the I, and it comes from within. [↩]

3. There's a lot more to this, by the way.

   There's a lot more because there's also

   I still remember your dense uneven rumble. You, life of mine back then, set upside down.
   Hello again, the lever of my fate, the pit of uranium mining, Butugychag!

   Just as there's also

   Am avut un copil si-o nevasta acum o suta, o mie de ani.
   Auziti paianjeni ? Auziti sobolani ? Am avut un copil si-o nevasta.

   Some people just don't get any lucky, that's all. It's luck, that's what it is. Right ?

   It's too late for me, you realise. I've already had everything, and I remember it all -- but there's kinds and kinds of memory, you realise. The memory of the regret, and the memory of the surfeit, never together shall be one. [↩]

4. This doesn't really work in Puritanish, but let's nevertheless try : these things generally have a person by the entrance, to keep outsiders out, and nurture the warm, womb-like intimacy of the place inside. Nevertheless, under pressure from the gangster class any semblance of "discipline" was reduced such that it was perfectly acceptable for yours truly to go up to the rooms, and even spend the night, what "meetings in the hall downstairs". Not that I much did spend the night, those cots being exactly as uncomfortable as the unearned bed of the young woman should ever be ; but if anyone ever asked, I'd say "is vara-sa", which works out to "I'm her cousin", except it's also funny because cousin is in the feminine. It makes it all right, see, because boys weren't supposed to go into the girls' buildings anyway. [↩]