Pinsk, Belarus (2011)
| Photo below: Lenin Street, looking down from the Hotel Pripyat. |
| Tht view in the photo above is from the
6th floor of the Hotel Pripyat. In the photo, Lenin
Street runs from the lower right corner of the photo
diagonally towards the upper left corner. Photo below: Street sign for Lenin Street. |
| Above, that's "Lenin" in both
Russian and Belarussian. Both languages use the Cyrillic
alphabet. There were no street signs; instead, the name
of the street is attached to whatever building is on the
corner. Photo below: Roman Catholic Church of Assumption of the Blessed Mary Virgin. |
| The above view of the church is from the
bridge across the Pina River, and the lower portion of
the church is not seen in the photo. Photo below: Roman Catholic Church of Assumption of the Blessed Mary Virgin. |
| Above photo shows the entrance to the
compound of the Roman Catholic Church ofAssumption of the
Blessed Mary Virgin in Pinsk. There's a six-foot high
yellow wall that surrounds the compound. Catholics are in
the minority in Pinsk these days. Most people are either
Orthodox or have no religious affiliation (after decades
of Communism). Photo below: Roman Catholic Church of Assumption of the Blessed Mary Virgin. |
| The above photo of the church is from
inside the six-foot high wall. Straight ahead is the
building where the nuns live. The church is perpendicular
to the convent, at the far left. Photo below: The altar at the Roman Catholic Church of Assumption of the Blessed Mary Virgin (Pinsk, Belarus). |
| Photo below: Side altars at Assumption of the Blessed Mary Virgin. |
| The above photos show five of the side
altars at the church. These are not stations of the
cross; rather, these are side altars. Photo below: Pipe organ at Assumption of the Blessed Mary Virgin. |
| Photo below: Plaque inside Assumption of the Blessed Mary Virgin. |
| Regarding the above plaque, I don't know
what it says or what it is about. It is a list of names.
The image is included here to benefit some future
researcher. Photo below: Catholic seminary. |
| Photo below: Catholic seminary. Another view of the Catholic seminary. This view is from the side. |
| Photo below: Businesses on Lenin Street in Pinsk. |
| Above, the business with the name that
looks like "Cnagapo?H?K"
was a restaurant. Dinner for two, including a 15% tip,
was $8.10 U.S. The meals were complete: salad, fish,
potatoes, coleslaw, another side dish, and hot tea. That
was four dollars and five cents per person, for dinner at
a sit-down restaurant with table cloths! One usual thing
about the restaurant: There also was a bar serving
alcohol at the restaurant, not unusual, but men would
come in during the evening, go up the bar and ask for a
shot of vodka. They would down the shot, and leave
immediately. No socializing; no drinking slowly or having
any food. Just walk in, quickly have a shot of vodka, and
leave. Photo below: typical baby stroller in Pinsk. |
| The people in Pinsk are poor; the
economy stinks, and folks do without. But the babies I
saw appear to be well cared for. The protective baby
stroller/carriage pictured above was not untypical for
the babies out and about in Pinsk. Photo below: Statue of Vladimir Lenin, Communist. |
| The Lenin statue is just beyond the
Catholic seminary. To judge the size of the statue,
consider that from Lenin's foot to his knee is about six
feet. Photo below: Stork's nest, on top of large chimney. |
| More interesting than the statue of
Lenin was the stork's nest pictured above. The nest is on
the top of a large chimney behind and to the right of
Lenin's statute. Storks are a common sight in Pinsk. Photo below: Entrance at the old Pinsk Cemetery. |
| The entrance is on Hodoyenko Street, and
the cemetery covers about three acres. It has been closed
to burials for many years. At the far end of the cemetery
is a separate section of burials of German soldiers from
World War I (and one German soldier from World War II, a
lieutenant). I had hoped to find markers for burials that I have been told were in the cemetery: Evdokiya Adamova Anaskewicz, Irena Ivanova Davlud, Ivan Lukin Davlud, Trofem Ivanovich Davlud, Felix Podlewski, and Joseph Matveev Urbanowicz. Despite three hours of looking, no markers were found for those burials. It is a generally well-maintained cemetery, but there were areas with heavy weed overgrowth, and some stones have shifted. Additionally, about half of the markers are in Cyrillic. Many of the graves are marked with only iron crosses, about four feet high. And other graves would have been marked with wooden crosses which would not have survived the decades. My take-away memory of Pinsk is that it was so dark. Hotels, restaurants, stores. All conserve electricity to the maximum. Night comes, and it's dark. There were a few lampposts along the walkway next to the river, and there were street lights in some areas on Lenin Street, but not many. Inside the hotel, the lights in hallways were kept so dim that I almost needed a flashlight some nights to find my way down the long halls. In stores, lights were kept so dim that often I was left wondering whether a store was even open. When I left Pinsk, I traveled by train to Brest. |