Happy 43rd birthday Dad! I tried to ring all day, but couldn’t find a phone let alone one that might take my Visa card. I will try again tomorrow morning.
We left Smolensk this morning, on our way to Minsk. Our first stop was at Glory Mound / Mount of Glory, not long past the Belarus border. The Glory Mound was a man-made hill built by the locals, who bought dirt from regions here soldiers fought and died. On top of this hill, a 240-step climb, is a 70-meter-tall monument symbolizing the four armies that fought in World War II.
Mound of Glory, Belarus
Our next stop was Khatyn. Here there was a park that is also a World War II memorial. It represents the 433 villages that were destroyed. Of these, 186 were not rebuilt. These villages represented by concrete columns that have bells in them and rang every 30 seconds. The main monument in the park was a statue of Yosaf Masolkiv, who was the only resident of Khatyn to survive the massacre of the Nazis, by hiding in the forest.
Khatyn Memorial, Belarus
We arrived in Minsk in the late afternoon and had a quick tour of the city, stopping at Yanka Kupalr Park (a local poet of the 1800’s) and Victory Square – yet another World War II memorial. Another nice motel tonight, with dinner in the restaurant at the motel, before a quiet night in watching USA v Iran in the World Cup, bought on by an early start tomorrow, 6.15am departure, due to a possible delay at the Polish border, an apparently notoriously slow border crossing.
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