We intended to get out around 9. This was delayed until 10 by postcards and tea. Sunny really wanted to see the countryside, so Max got us local train tickets to Dzerzhinsk, about 40 km out of Minsk. The city is named after the founder of the KGB.
On the train, every few minutes a random person would come by and pull out merchandise from shady looking bags and hawk it to the rest of us, including things like toothbrushes and deodorant that I wouldn’t expect on such a short trip. At one of the stops, Sunny noticed that a pregnant lady had boarded and had to stand because there were no seats. Somehow this meant that I got tasked with standing for the rest of the trip :).
Upon arrival in Dzerzhinsk, we spent a lot of time walking along the road to find some food and see the town. Eventually, near the main post office, we found a shady little restaurant selling pizza. It was pretty good! And super cheap - maybe $15 for all of us to eat way too much pizza and Coke. On the way back, we went through a little flea market that had lots of toys, t-shirts, and other junky looking stuff. We went into a house that we thought would have a restaurant, but we were wrong. However, the house did have one redeeming attribute - it looked exactly like my house in Minecraft, where it’s entirely made out of wood with no varnish. Thus pleased, we headed back to Minsk.
We made it back to Max’s aunt’s place and picked up our bags. I left behind some Butterfingers candy as a little gift since I figure people are always interested in treats from far away places. Sunny gave some of her self-made jewelery. Other Max picked us up to take us to dinner.
Other Max turned out to have quite a well-furnished apartment, a couple of cute kids, and a very hospitable wife. His wife did not speak much English, but said she was like a dog in that she could understand but not speak. They served excellent food (including crepes, caviar, birch sap juice and scotch!) and Max’s wife drove us to the train station in her Camry.
The train from Minsk to Moscow was probably the best train of the Russian parts of our trip - they served breakfast, everything worked, and our cabin was cool at night. Also nice was that this time we didn’t have to wake up in the middle of the night for passport inspection - there are no passport controls between Russia and Belarus!