Going to Belarus coming from Lithuania isn’t easy, especially not in a West-European Truck. First you have to go to the custom house documents get punches from the Lithuanian custom house, the land you’re leaving. When you found this man, you’ll have to try to explain (while you don’t speak any common language) where you want which punches and autographs. You’ll get a lot of punches on a thin little gray paper. After that you’ll go to the Belarusian border with your international passport. You’ll get 2 immigration documents. Then we had trouble because they said that we didn’t have any medical insurance, while we did. A lot of talking with different people ended up in buying the right documents for 6 dollars. When we had that, we had to go back to the office where we were before. They didn’t recognize the (new!) passport of Johnny so they wouldn’t let us through. At last we heard that we couldn’t pass before 00.00h. because our visa started on Monday, while, when we’re writing this, it’s 19.00h. So, now we’re waiting. No problem!
 
At 00.00 we could pass and go to the next office with our passports, visa and documents. Now we had to let them check by the custom house of Belarus. The customs officer doesn’t understand our passport and the reason of our trip, which results in a wrong punch, we find out later. The next office. A colleague-chauffeur helps us: subscribe, pay, wait, go to the next officer, wait again. Two hours later the last (7th) customs officer wishes us a pleasant trip and we’re about to got the final office…But, it seems that we don’t have punch nr. 5. So we have to go back! We will have to wait again while they’re checking our papers and making photocopies. At 4.00h we have our punch and drive pass the border!
 
The whole ‘passing the border’ took us from 15.30 till 4.00h. The difficulty was that we didn’t speak a common language, but luckily, sign-language is universal! Despite everything, the officers were very friendly and correct and the colleague-chauffeur was very attentive!
 
In short: a real experience! In a couple of days we will probably have a similar ritual around the border of Belarus-Ukraine…. We’re curious how that’s going to be..!
 

The Experience Truck in the middle of nowhere
 
 
Going to Belarus      Buying food at the border from this nice lady
 

Our dinner at the border of Belarus
 

Forum in Minsk
 

Forum in Minsk, having a drink
 

The forum
 

Jan Kriekels explains...
 

Jaga radiators
 

Minsk the city at night
 

the city by day
 
  
Local music  
 

 

Host Andrey Petrovski (Ecotermotecnia, Belarus),
with Jan Kriekels (Jaga, Belgium) and some visitors of the Forum