Travails of a trainee

Whenever Minsk, the capital of Belarus, figures in the news, I am reminded of my sojourn in that city more than four decades ago, which turned out to be an unforgettable experience in my life. Towards the end of 1978, I was selected by the central government for a short-term UN-sponsored training programme in population studies for statistical officers at the reputed Institute of Economics and Statistics in Minsk.

Being a strict vegetarian, I was concerned after I read an article that the then Soviet regime discouraged vegetarianism as it considered it pseudo-scientific and bourgeois that contravened Soviet ideology. However, I made up my mind to face the situation.

It was a freezing winter evening in mid-December when I disembarked at the Minsk airport. My ordeal began the next morning. As I could not speak Russian, I had to order a vegetarian dish at the attached restaurant with gesticulations. The waitress brought a bowl of soup that had fish in it. When I looked aghast, she took the bowl back and returned, grinning from ear to ear, with the same soup after removing the fish.

Declining it with thanks, I quietly helped myself with the bread and butter that were already laid on the table. The second ordeal was protecting myself from the freezing temperatures, which ranged from -5 degrees C to 3.8 degrees C in a day. It was fine as long as I was cooped up in the hotel, which had central heating. When I ventured out, however, I had to wear a heavy, warm, and waterproof coat; a pair of water-proof boots for walking on icy and snowy streets; leather gloves; thermal leggings; a thermal long-sleeved top; and a scarf around the neck. All these were on top of my regular pants, shirt, and jacket. It was a job to walk to the nearby training venue in heavy attire.

Thanks to the local authorities, the hotel arranged to provide me, as a special case, with cooked rice, boiled potatoes, or cabbage for my lunch and dinner. For breakfast, I had to be content with bread, butter, a cheese called smethana, and chay, as the Russians also referred to tea. In each training class, a lecturer would speak non-stop in Russian for 10 minutes, and in the next five minutes, an interpreter would translate it. The training course was hardly absorbing. I heaved a sigh of relief when I was permitted, on health grounds, to return home a few weeks ahead of my six-month training.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Minsk had developed tremendously as the capital of an independent country. Interest in vegetarianism and the number of vegetarians had started rising. I am told there are quite a few vegan and vegetarian-friendly restaurants in Minsk now. I have assiduously preserved the woollen scarf I used as a memento of my tryst with Minsk.