Anton Trafimovich • 10 Reasons to Visit Belarus
THE SWAMPIEST COUNTRY
Belarus is a really flat county. There are several hilly regions
but you’ll be lucky if you find something to climb. The highest
point is just 345 meters and it doesn’t look like a mountain
at all. It takes you 3 seconds to “climb” this hill in summer
and 5 seconds in winter (since it’s slippery). This is why we
call our swamps “mountains”. Around ten percent of the
country is covered with swamps and bogs. It used to be
even more before the Soviets started melioration. Swamps
have a very sacral sense for Belarusians. It was feeding
them (cranberry is one of our national foods) and rescuing
them (when enemies were coming, locals would hide in the
forests and in the swamps.) Now people are returning to the
swamps and organizing hiking and birdwatching tours there.
It’s the greatest feeling you can have when you dive into a
lake located in the middle of a huge swamp. You hike for ten
kilometers, suffer from sunburn and aching feet since every
step is so hard, but once you reach the lake you have the
same feeling as if you’ve reached the top of a mountain.
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March 2015