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. |