Boli goes Belarus: From Mogilev to Vitebsk and a bit of Chagall

The weather changed over night as predicted and it was close to raining when I left Mogilev in the morning on the 189 km ride to Vitebsk. I planned two stops in on the way - one was in Sklou- with a nice town hall dating from 1772 in the centre

And the unchanged supermarket from Russian times - highly uninviting but praising the local history

St. Peter and Paul's cathedral

I continued my way up to Orsa and the first stop was at the Kazjuscha monument - this tool of distribution in the Second World War was developed just here - was also called "Stalin Orgeln" or stalin bagpipes due to their look - crazy monument still...

The collegium of the Jesuit dominates the town

And the red old mill now the city museum

Now it really started to rain so I continued my way to Vitebsk and after some troubles also found the lady that rented my the apartment there. Normally you should register every day according to the rules so I asked her if we could go to the police and do this - we did - there a female police officer was speaking perfect Cambridge English and explained that since January this year you need to register only every fifth day so I did not had to do anything - she also omitted that the whole stuff is a bit complicated - anyhow another great experience with the local authorities ...

Below all the papers I have produced so far to document that I was there where is was - .....

So now I could start the visiting Programm of Vitebsk - it was still raining so an espresso and a small cake to go and the I went to the museum. Well this trip closed another gap in my knowledge about Belarusian history - actually Chagall was born in Vitebsk - I though he was Russian but actually he was a Belarussian citizen and lived in a small house here until he was 31 years and never returned to his hometown, claiming he did not want to spoil his memories - I can understand his point ...

So there is a museum but there is not a single piece of work left in Belarus from him - a real shame - so the museum is now built up of 130 donations from all over the world that Chalgall has at least some pictures in his birth town.

The museum is housed in a red brick building and the works consist mostly of lithographs.

The rain faded away and even the sun started to break through the clouds so I continued exploring - on the main steeet the Suvorava

Fruits blocking the cars

The philharmonic hall of Vitebsk

Monument of Karatkewitsch

I took a stroll to the outskirts of Vitebsk and only 600 meters from the centre the city changes the face looking more like a village than a city, streets starting to get unpaved and water needs to picked up from wells ....

The aim of this detour was the Jewish cemetery one of the biggest in the country - Vitebks had a big Jewish community that did not survive the Second World War - the cementery is a peaceful palace with lots of history ...

On my way back I passed again the rural parts of Vitebsk

Back into the green city centre with an Obelisk remembering the war of 1812.

Back to Suvorava street

Churches is a hot topic in Vitebsk - basically there are all new - why, because the communist have blown up all of them so the once seen now are rebuilds in the old style - new but still impressive - this is kind of a repeated tragedy in Belarus - so many old buildings and original history has been lost and destroyed during the many wars - a truly sad story...

Below the view to the Holy Resurrection Church