Brest, Belarus- July 2011

On our drive to Warsaw we stopped off at a little town by the name of Brest. Being told on the bus that we were stopping off here I came to the conclusion just by hearing the name of the place that I was going to like it. In the town of Brest there is a huge historical landmark called the Brest Fortress. t is one of the most important Soviet World War II monuments commemorating the Soviet resistance against the German invasion on June 22, 1941 (Operation Barbarossa). As you walk thru the huge star entrance you see plaques dedicated to the soviet resistance during the German-Soviet War. The greenery around this place is beautiful. A little pond is found walking over one of the bridge heads. All of a sudden you see this huge statue of a man's head looking down in despair. This statue commemorate's the heroic defence of the frontier stronghold during the very first weeks of the German-Soviet War.

To the left of the head statue is remnants of blown up buildings that were attacked during the war. Going down and picturing what they would of been like before the attack was a cool feeling. Walking up and down the cellars of these old buildings, now nothing but old bricks. After taking a good look at that we made our way to the center of the statue where there was a flame going in respect to the monument. Plaques of words in cyrillic writing probably noted the people killed in this town's tragedy. Row's of flowers help add a sense of peace in the surrounding area. A monument this big made me feel like I was at Mt. Rushmore. Circling around it showed us other buildings that got destroyed during the German-Soviet War days.

The Brest Fortress is a breath taking historical site that anyone in Belarus must check out. With it's dedication to such a sad incident it's monumental statue really does it justice. Stopping off here was fun while it lasted but we couldn't forget about that long 7 hour drive to Warsaw, Poland. While finally getting to the border of Belarus and Poland the Belarus border patrol kept us waiting. They complained that some people's visa's didn't have a receipt or a date to show when they became active. I ordered my visa months before the trip. We ended up sitting there for 3 1/2 hours. Especially with the cloudy weather and lightning the humidity began to come onto our bus. Leaving us there sweating watching the movie Grownup's. At that moment I wanted to be back at Brest monument. Finally the guards let us thru and we were on our way to a whole new country. Poland.