br23 blog - minsk, belarus

• Contemplating Genocide at a Moscow Opera:
I try very hard not to be Russophobic, and most of the time I succeed. There is one place, however, where I frequently have fantasies of mercilessly hacking to death scores of Russians with a blunt machete — the concert hall. It’s one thing when high-school dropouts and small […]

On Saturday we visited Lobkowicz’s castle near Prague, saw the original paintings of Lucas Cranach, Rubens, Breugel, and many other famous painters, including unique paintings of Spanish artists from 15th and 16th century. Walking through the castle rooms I felt awed and even subdued by the weight of this centuries-old art and European civilization. And […]

Ze Germans are still pressuring Czechs about “bad treatment” of Germans during World War Two and apparently are planning to engage in WWII revisionism:
Even before a new Czech government has been constituted, prominent German politicians are exerting pressure on Prague. They are demanding the indictment of former members of the Czechoslovakian resistance against Nazi-occupation. The […]

Tomasz Wacko (pronounced Vah-ts-koh) died exactly three years ago. Until yesterday I didn’t even know he existed.
He was an opposition (”Solidarnosc”) activist from Poland, who found refuge in Norway and became a prominent human rights activist at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, also devoting a lot of time and effort to the democracy cause in Belarus. […]

A movie about terrorists? A psychological thriller? A political commentary on US-Arab situation? Lawrence Fishburne speaking with Arabic accent and pulling a great performance? A movie that is shot in one room but never gets boring? Is that something that would interest you? Then I highly recommend you a new movie “Five Fingers” (imdb).

Is it just me or geographical mix-ups with Belarus are now happening more and more often? New Dehli TV (India) reports from Paris:
“Bhupathi and Xavier Malisse of Belarus registered an easy 6-2, 6-2 victory over Gilles Muller of Luxemburg and Christophe Rochus of Belarus to move into the second round of the clay court event.” […]

As you can see, Eurosport editors put up the national white-red-white flag (!) next to the name of the Belarusan tennis player Anastassia Yakimova who was playing against Belgian star Henin-Hardenne today on the main court of Roland Garros. The white-red-white flag was banned by Alexander Lukashenka in 1996. Since then he forbid using it […]