Product Description

Belarus is perhaps the most inaccessible, unknown and misunderstood country in Europe. This new guide - the first to focus on the Republic of Belarus - therefore offers a rare opportunity to study a country and its people as they really are, before the rest of the world catches on. Anyone with an interest in history and sociology will be fascinated by the continuation of traditional rural pastimes and industries; there are also vast areas of marshes, lakes and rivers, which are of particular appeal to ecologists and environmentalists.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #147886 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-15
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Great guide, slips up on one point though.
Excellent guide to the whole of Belarus. Detailed in every way from the best sights to see to which bar to drink in. Many personal stories are included in the book as the author has clearly visited more than once. Good history snippets too such as World war two and Chernobyl. So why not 5/5? Unfortunately all street names and even Metro stations are translated into English. Sadly a bit of schoolboy error and anyone whose been to Belarus will know you have to have maps & street names in Cyrillic. Still the best guide to Belarus though... reprint two will need Cyrillic names though!

There is nothing better to recommend to prospective travellers to Belarus
This is the most comprehensive travel guide to Belarus available in English. It is certainly worth considering if you are about to visit the country or are just interested to know more about it. The book has its strong and weak moments.

It is written by an Englishman who speaks Russian, has spent a lot of time in the country and met diverse kinds of people over the years. This gave him material for the many amusing stories he tells through-out the book which will certainly make an entertaining read for someone coming across Belarus and Belarusians for the first time.

The author has made a good effort to write about history and politics - two extremely contested subjects in that part of the world - with attention and in great detail. The result is rather an eclectic mix which perhaps is not bad for such a publication. With a great degree of certainty one may guess that that is what many Belarusians perceive their history and the present day like: unexpected independence after two centuries of Russian occupation and being part of the Soviet Union.

The author knows a lot about the Chernobyl catastrophe and its legacy; he writes passionately about the efforts of Belarusians and their friends in other countries to minimise the adverse consequences of that tragedy.

Culture is presented in the book rather thinly and with numerous mistakes, misspellings and Russified forms of Belarusian names which are mostly the result of the author's ignorance of Belarusian.

The second part of the book is full of practical information about visiting cities and regions - travel, accommodation, eating and sightseeing. Naturally a large chunk of it is devoted to the capital, Minsk, with its comparatively well developed tourist infrastructure. On many occasions the reader is rightly cautioned that visiting the country on his/her own - especially not speaking Belarusian or Russian - will hardly be wise or even possible on the account of undeveloped tourist industry.

On the other hand, the author is fascinated with the country precisely because it may offer an unexpected experience, totally different than most of us are used to while travelling as tourists. "It is so completely unspoiled by the trappings of modern tourism and Western materialism that it's very easy to feel a sense of having slipped into another time and dimension. In many ways, the country is a living museum of Soviet communism, but to treat it that way would be a gross disservice to the astonishing resilience of its people", he writes. He is fascinated with the unspoiled nature, mysterious Russian Orthodoxy; museums rich of artefacts, but empty of visitors; and most of all - with warm, honest and hospitable people. "But whisper all this softly, for we must guard but not spoil these riches" he concludes.

Despite the author's warmth towards my country and its people, I got a feeling of being treated as furniture in a colonial store - amusing, puzzling, so different. These love and fascination are somehow mixed with paternalism. How else to explain his being able to tell a story of bribing the Passport Control official - without any evident embarrassment in his words?!

Despite its shortcomings (and among them is the poorly built index), this book is a welcome contribution to writings about Belarus. For the present, there is nothing better to recommend to prospective travellers to my country.

A proper travel guide
This informative guide to Belarus is an absolute delight - because the author's love for, and interest in the country (and its people) comes through on every page. The history, geography and traditions of the country are covered in fascinating detail, but in a very easy-to-read style, so that you want to read every word. The author somehow seems to get the reader under the skin of the country. This is just what a travel guide should be like: full of information but with the author's personality and viewpoints shining through. I can't wait to go to Belarus and this guide will be with me every step of the way.