When we arrived in Minsk, Belarus we heard rumors that George Lucas, in an act of international defiance, shipped numerous Star Wars walkers to the Belarussian countryside after the filming of the original trilogy. We were only able to find an AT-AT and and AT-ST as we travelled the country, but came upon them by accident. The strangest things about the placement of these larger than life props is that they are all placed in odd and inconspicuous places.
Driving down the road from Minsk to Ivanova we saw a speck of movement on the horizon of the road. As we continued driving we caught up and started to make out that it was a man in a horse drawn cart. I’m not sure why, but he smiled the second that I snapped the shot with my arms out the window.
This is the Belarussian Parliament, and it is illegal to take pictures of this building. One of my friends went up to the statue of Lenin and and jumped around, he was ready to crawl up the statue when a Belarussian military guard came up and told us that we could not take pictures of this building.
It is hilarious that Lenin, a champion of communism, faces away from the parliament and looks out onto the giant shopping mall that was created underneath the square.
This is the collision of Soviet monolithic identity and a new free generation. This was my introduction to Belarus as we drove into the capital city, Minsk. A handful of Belarussian children used the archaic Soviet tanks as their jungle gym, taking no notice of the obelisk dedicated to great war behind them. Generations bud, bloom and fade as they drop the seeds for next season not knowing where they will land.
