United in Vodka
United in Vodka
Vodka in Minsk
I have spent the last few years frequenting countries of the former Soviet Union. I have also spent the last few years trying to find cordial ways to inform Russians that I do not function well under the influence of vodka. I have been unsuccessful on every single level.
Minsk, Belarus was the host of the 2014 IIHF World Hockey Championships and the Belarusian government opted to allow visitors to enter the country visa-free for the whole month of May. I had visited Belarus the year before and spent my last day in Minsk sitting in a foreign services center dealing with bribes I couldn’t afford to pay. Never in a million years did I think I would be able to return to Belarus, a country full of the most remarkable people, most afraid of mentioning their disdain for the Lukashenko regime and the rampant corruption plaguing the country. However, I somehow managed to get back in without any issues.
Upon arriving in Minsk with an American friend, I knew we had entered a war zone: a war zone of detestable dancing, vodka so cheap that it’s basically free, and nearly 700,000 Russians ready to party. We saw a few Finns, Swedes, and Latvians mixed in with the hoards of Belarusians and Russians. I am confident that one could count the number of Americans in attendance on one hand.
After a night of showing my friend all of my party spots in Minsk, we woke up surprisingly refreshed and planned to head to the hospitality tents adjacent to the arena. Merely ten steps from our apartment, we were stopped by a group of Russian men and asked if they could take a photo with us. We kindly obliged, spoke limited Russian with them, and received shots of vodka in return. Nine o’clock in the morning was turning out to be trouble.
This was no isolated situation and happened countless times on our hour-long walk to the Nemiga area of Minsk. Inebriated and hoping I’d sweat out some of that vodka, I decided to go to the face-painting station and get an American flag plastered across my cheek. I assumed would help us fit in with the crowd, most of whom had already done the same with their own country’s flag.
That flag on my cheek ended up becoming a natural icebreaker for the remainder of the day. We chatted and danced with hundreds of Russians and had the time of our lives. Very few spoke English, but the ones that did wanted to chat about music, my recent trip to Moscow, and alcohol, not politics or our governments. As an American living in Western Europe, this was very foreign territory for me, as I usually have to explain to people that the government is not always a reflection of the people living in a place. Russians get this. Americans get this. We are quite possibly the two most misunderstood nations on the planet. And historically speaking, we are not supposed to be friends.
As I was unenthusiastically poured another shot in a plastic cup, I quickly realized that I had not once had to defend my nationality that day, but rather was given the chance to embrace it. Russians and Americans may not always speak the same language, but we have vodka. And in the rare event that we do speak the same language, we have much better things to talk about than government. Like vodka.