Good afternoon, welcome back to another video! I am currently in the village located outside of Minsk actually.
I have Irina right here. Hello!
Irina and I have met through Couchsurfing, and I thought why not I'll be staying
with her and her family to showcase it to you what does life in a village look like?
Is that right yeah? Yeah, it's right.
Where do you stay? I usually stay in Krupitsa it's about 20 km from Minsk.
The weather has suddenly turned very clear and sunny and it gets warmer.
I think this is a perfect opportunity to showcase to you the surrounding neighbourhood of Krupitsa village.
This is your neighbour? Privet (Hello in Russian) Galina she's very hard working you see.
It's always very, everything is in order in here. Yeah, I saw it this morning she's already working.
She works from morning till night. Wow!
To me, having this kind of experience especially during autumn makes it even more special.
Coming from a tropical country, you don't have the appreciation towards four different seasons
in a sense that because we never experience. It but I personally think that every season tells
different stories and now with the leaves mostly being on the ground makes everything becomes and
looks warmer because of this orange, gold and you know beautiful.
Most of the people who live in this village are either factory workers or workers who actually are working in Minsk
and would commute every day to the city. The land itself that is located that
you know nearby the house is usually only being managed for a family use.
Look at this beautiful house in the sense that they have the garden, all the plants, and everything.
You know it's interesting to just see the neighbourhood around these particular houses
next to one another with this interesting gate I would say.
This sign is something like an announcement and it says that they sell goat milk, goat cottage cheese and butter.
So they put numbers over here? They put numbers of like phone numbers so people can call them and buy from them.
We have entered, sort of, the market area of Krupitsa village and behind me is one of the biggest shops.
Surrounding that particular shop there are many other smaller shops,
and even some probably local who come here on several other days within the week to sell what they have.
Does he live here? Is he from here originally?
He's just visiting his friend here. Ah, I see! How far does he see live?
His friends live here. Ah okay.
First, you have this big shop and over here you have several other shops that are also available.
This is an example of a shop in, you know, a small village or just many shops in Belarus
Lots of alcohol, selections of beer, and fruits, fresh produce a little bit of potato, onion.
A shop like this in a small village like that is essential you know,
especially if you don't want to go so all the way to the main city centre (Minsk)
or the main market to pick up some stuff including knick-knacks of your households.
Babushka (grandma) here has lots of tomatoes, pepper, carrot and this is?
Zucchini. Zucchini? Ah! Zucchini but a little bit bigger. This is hot pepper.
She's from a neighbouring village, Annopol', it's in this direction.
She brought things from her own garden. Oh, that's nice! This is honey I think.
This is a homemade honey.
This is a government shop. They just brought in some new something, some packages.
It's bread, freshly baked. Aah, I see!
When you are traveling with a camera, there is always this, wherever you go,
there's always this sense of apprehensiveness you know.
In a sense that thinking, "Oh, what is this person doing with the camera?"
Because generally when people travel, they stay in the city and then without any of this equipment.
But at the same time, this is a great equipment and tools for me to tell this story
from different places I travel to, so that you can also learn together with me.
Behind me is a monument that usually exists in many different villages showcasing the names
of those who passed away during World War II, but specifically the monument itself
indicates the year 1941 till 1945 because specifically during those years were the time
where the Soviet Union were involved. All of these names are gathered from different villages
to actually be remembered by people who pass by this particular monument.
So they are collecting all of the fallen leaves on the ground and then bring them over to
the nearest farm to make use out of it, to make as a fertilizer.
I'm trying to do their work a little bit if it suits me. Yeah, you're trying to help the Belarusian economy 😂
Help Belarusian economy, that's true!
Wow, good job!
Good job! Good job? Spasibo (thank you in Russian)
This is our centre of culture and so we have different studios, they're like dancing studio,
painting studio. I know that older people they go also to fitness classes here.
There is also a concert hall, I will show you later if it's open.
You used to go there, yeah. I used to go there like for a disco.
Wow, disco?
Once a week, they made something like disco parties here on Saturdays and when I was a teenager.
Wow, that sounds fun! I don't know if it still exists.
Let's go inside, they want to guide us. Ahh, privet (hello)!
*Ira was asking them to show their English language skills*
Hello!
I said to them, "show your English knowledge" and they said, "Oh we don't know anything."
I am in the concert hall. Can you believe that even in a village there is a concert hall?
It's considerably not the most traditional village there is that I am visiting, but still, this is a very magnificent
idea to even know that a concert hall here exists. What Ira just told me the building itself, this
the particular building was built during the Soviet time and probably in all Post-Soviet countries
a theatre like this a concert hall like this pretty much is a great heritage that still exists
indifferent cities or certain main villages like Krupitsa itself.
Suddenly all of these teenagers want to take photos of me and with me and
knowing that I have a Youtube channel, they suddenly like, "Oh I want to show everything!"
A teenager's life hey! They're asking if I do have Instagram and TikTok
I said no, that would be the last thing I would have.
Imagine standing here, dancing around the disco music, it would be so fun!
I personally don't have this experience myself, having this magnificent building with the chandelier,
and all of this like, art! It's incredible!
I mean, for me it is. I'm a bit speechless to be quite honest with you.
I'm currently in the only school in Krupitsa village because usually this particular school
that is considerably a Belarusian school with the curriculum and everything, people around the
neighbourhood and the village have their kids and children of course come to this particular school.
That is the classes if you can see and over here is probably the auditorium.
Over here we do have probably a football field for the kids to play on and many different fields.
Oh, that's lovely! You see there are still kids around playing.
The school here is pretty much free for anyone, I mean for all the students and kids who
are enrolled in this particular school and all over schools in Belarus.
They only need to pay about 20 BYN ($8) per year for books. Basically, the taxpayers are the one
who sort of pay for the school and the tax money goes towards the education, however, the downside of
it all is that of course there is not enough money goes towards this education system or (building) renovation
so when the people want the building to be renewed and renovated, they're asking
for contributions from the parents themselves. The problem with school like this, according to Ira,
there are not many teachers available because of the low salary that is provided by the
government. Henceforth, usually, people don't go or choose teachers as their main vocation or job.
Ira is currently taking me to the older part of Krupitsa because some of the houses and
buildings are still pretty much considered to be traditional. This house reminds me of the one that
we visited at the village of Ira's brother. This is considered to be one of the older
buildings with the colour blue and green.
What Ira just told me, all of these different benches located outside of different houses
used to be used by different babushkas or grandmas basically to come together, have a chat,
probably drink tea, no? No, no. they usually ate these sunflower seeds
or pumpkin seeds that I told you about before.
Unfortunately, the tradition has sort of disappeared now yeah? Yeah maybe only exist in remote villages, they still have it.
*We suddenly stumbled across a grandma*
She told that you are very beautiful. Aaah spasibo (thank you in Russian).
*Ira was telling her that I am originally from Indonesia*
She told that you need to marry a local guy.
So cute!
The lovely babushka that we saw earlier is actually living here by herself, quite sad.
She, I think, got emotional when I was asking her about the house and try to showcase it to you because
probably for her, it's nothing interesting but it's very interesting for me personally.
Babushka here lives alone and she's a bit sad because she doesn't have relatives, all of them
have passed away and I feel a bit sad. It must be difficult to live by herself? Yeah it's difficult
Babushka just got back from the hospital, so she hasn't been in the house for the whole month.
Babushka lives here with lots of cats!
That's her medicine.
So this is where she probably rest/sleep.
Does she use the water to drink? Yes, for drinking and washing.
We can bring water for her.
This reminds me of my Dad's village. First, we take this and drop it here.
and then we do this until it reaches the bottom. And then pick it up.
Wait a bit. You need to just to adjust this thing, this wire or whatever
Yeah, you got water!
Not much water, but not bad!
Spasibo (thank you in Russian)
Oh, she is sweet.
Don't be sad, don't be sad.
Let's close this!
Thank you so much for watching today's episode. I hope you learned something from
this particular video as much as I did. Let me know what you think down in the comment
section below, would you actually travel to different countries or just immerse yourself
in a different culture than your own? Would you actually be interested in learning more about
this different types of cultures from around the world? I just want to know what you think.
Don't forget to like comment subscribe to this channel. See you again next time, bye!