Today was a free day. I used that opportunity for a bit of a sleep-in. After breakfast I left the hotel and made my way through the parks along the banks of the Svislach river. The week leading into this weekend had been a fairly cold one (with night temperatures down to -18°C / 0°F) with the occasional snow shower – so the river was frozen (with the odd ice fisher here and there) and the parks nicely covered by snow.

For me – coming from an area, that does not really get too much snow anymore – a great opportunity for a nice long winter walk – especially as temperatures were on the rise again.

I made my way from the hotel to downtown, where I continued along the main avenue (Prospekt Nezavisimosti) up to what is now called Independence Square. The interesting bit here is the Lenin statue, that is still around. The metro station then gives away the squares old name “Lenin Square”.

I made it by metro to the other side of downtown (no trip to Minsk is complete without a trip on the metro – the layout of the stations is surely from a different time) – to Victory Square, to get a glimpse of the Victory Monument.

From here I made it back into the system of parks around the Svislach river and then along Prospekt Pobediteley back to the hotel. My little walk probably scored somewhere around 15km.

In the evening we were coming together again, as another treat was waiting for us. We had tickets for a ballet performance (Adolphe Adam’s “Giselle, ou les Wilis”). It certainly was an interesting experience sitting in this old, Soviet-style theater and
enjoying the performance.