on tour

Day One

Minsk and Paris, 15/7/03

Arrived at the airport pissed, having sat up all night drinking after deciding it would be easier to do that, rather than get up at 4:30 am.

Bad luck struck straight away, when one of our group almost didn’t make it after crashing and writing off his car on the way to the airport. Luckily nobody was hurt and thanks to his brother he made it. With him arriving late, he didn’t realise he was to carry all his baggage on by hand to avoid any delays in Charles De Gaul airport where our connection was pretty tight time-wise. So, unbeknownst he handed over his bag.

The flight to Paris was uneventful but on arriving there he had to try to collect his bag and make his own way to the other terminal while the rest of us hopped on the transfer bus. In the end, he made it, sweating and in a mild state of panic, though he needn’t have rushed as the ‘officials’ at our check-in tried to get more money from us, telling us our visas were non-existent. Eventually we got things sorted and we were off, onto our Faulty Towers type plane. To call the plane old would be an understatement, but this thing should have been in a museum. It was held together with chewing gum. The old carpet was coming up off the floor and two 'escape hatches' were visible on the floor, also one of the travelling party found a piece of the aircraft under their seat! Ryanair wouldn’t even touch the seats and leg room was none existent, as was air conditioning. It was a sweat box, and especially when a certain Irish Daily Star's knees are digging into your back for the three and half hour flight.

Minsk Airport was an overgrown, weed infested graveyard for planes, we were met by a few of the local army and officials and were escorted to immigration where we braced ourselves for the same three hour wait that the players had had the day before. We only had to wait an hour while our passports and visas were examined and, unbelievably, we didn’t have to bribe anyone to get on our way.

After passing on the supplies collected by Bohs fans for the Chernobyl Children’s Project, we hopped onto our (surprisingly modern) bus where our guide, Alexandra, introduced herself to us and proceeded to try to sell us everything from tours of Minsk to sex shows, one of which was of more interest for the travellers.

The bus trip took less than an hour through miles of empty roads and miles of tower blocks and we finally arrived in Minsk. The streets were wide and clean, there were no people begging on them, it certainly wasn't the  backward place with miserable people and huge numbers of police. This place looked like it might have potential.

After finding our rooms, small and basic, but clean (not a cockroach in sight), it was time to explore. We changed our euros and instantly became rich westerners with hundreds of thousands of roubles in our wallets. The street our hotel was on had loads of small bars, with tables outside, perfect for drinking in the warm evening sunshine. Beer was dirt-cheap (40c a pint) and very drinkable so we had several with the contingent before heading off to meet up with Alex, a local who had just returned home to Minsk from working in Ireland. He brought us to several good local bars and restaurants, poured shots of the local, very strong, vodka into us and sent us on our way around midnight to Westworld. Westworld, we were told, is one of the most exclusive clubs in Minsk and cost us 7000 roubles (about €3) to get in. We certainly weren’t disappointed. The drink was ridiculously expensive at about €3-4 a go but the ‘dancers’ made it worth that little bit extra. We settled in quickly and soon realised that there were three four types of people in the place: pimps/bodyguards, prostitutes, tourists and about four or five locals. These women were stunning and they were everywhere. For fear of incriminating people here, I will leave the rest of the night to your imagination, but very few of us had to worry about out chat-up lines working and most of us didn’t get to bed very early or at all. I can’t believe how miserable we thought the place would be and I can’t believe how wrong we were. I think it is safe to say that a good night was had by all.

Day Two

Minsk and Borisov, 16/7/03

Started off pretty much as we intended to go on. Got out of bed about 11.30 after about 5 hours sleep. The heat was unreal in room. Headed off to a local take-away for a breakfast of pizza, before returning to the outdoor bar at the hotel.

Found half a dozen other Bohs fans with the same idea so started into the beer. Some of the less alcoholically inclined decided to do the tourist thing and visit Minsk Stadium, but the rest of us couldn’t be arsed. Much more fun to get pissed.

Not much to report for the rest of the afternoon really. Drank, drank and updated the diary on the site through the Swedish business centre in the hotel, which consisted of one computer, twenty minutes cost me EIGHT fuckin grand! Oh well, headed to the offo to stock up for the long one hour trek to Borisov for the match, couldn’t expect us to go that long without beer, could you? Got loads of bottles (bottles of beer over in Belarus are half a litre!) of 12% beer. One of the lads got champagne instead. Oh yeah beer 50 cent a bottle. Bought some local vodka and it was a whopping €2 a bottle, so bought four bottles. Good stuff too. Real vodka, not your fake Irish stuff.

Bus arrived about 3:30 to take us to Borisov, which was about an hour away.

Our guide gave us plenty of advice on the bus about how we should behave when we got to Borisov. Load of bollix. She must have thought we were English. She warned us not to go to the jacks on our own and not to speak to anyone because we might get attacked by the batty boys! She also sold us match tickets, which had a face value of 3000, for 15000. Transpired later that match tickets had been included in the price of the trip. Fuck it, we had money to burn.

Anyways, we stopped at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Minsk. There was no leaving town tax, as was suggested by D13 Bohs, but the next thing we knew, we are off down the dual carriageway with a police escort clearing the road ahead. Lights flashing, sirens wailing it forced most cars and even a horse and cart nearly off the road, as we drove down the centre of the road. Never mind though, the BIG CLUB was in town. Passed through loads of Ballymun-like towns where the bemused locals stood and stared as the VIPs whizzed through.

So, we arrived in Borisov. Grim looking town to say the least. Didn’t see any pubs or shops. Not that we got to see much of it, as we were driven straight into the ground. The ground itself wasn’t bad: two modern-ish stands facing each other, nothing behind the goals and no cover in the stands. The main stand had what you could call a VIP box and a TV gantry on top. We had time to spare so had a look around. Took photos with the local army and headed up to our section of the stand. Seemed like half the Belarusian army was there to, protect us? 

As is becoming the norm now for away legs in Europe, the skies suddenly turned black and the heavens opened. Some of us legged it back to the bus, hoping the rain would stop, but it didn’t. Ten minutes before kick-off and we had to head back out. Of course, as Irish people, we don’t get much rain, so none of us had even thought of bringing rain gear or umbrellas, bar one, there’s always one! Looked around to see that the locals, obviously having checked the weather reports, had brought theirs. In fact it seemed that every single one of them had brought an umbrella. And every single one of their umbrellas was black. Weird sight to see 3000 black umbrellas and 40 or so Bohs fans in the corner of the stand wearing shorts and jerseys. Needless to say we were pissed on. Really soaked to the skin and then during the game the thunder and lightening came.

The weather was soon to be put to the back of our minds as the teams took to the pitch. No point in boring you with a match report, but we deserved a draw. Crowe missed a sitter near the end and their goal was a combined fuck up between Matt Gregg and Damian Lynch. 1-0 though wasn’t too bad

Anyway, had a bit of craic with the locals who gave a decent support. Some of them came up with presents of badges and stuff like that and did a bit of scarf swapping too. I was fucking soaked though so headed back to the bus for some, now warm, beer.

We ended up having to wait for ages on the bus because the fuckin of journos, who had travelled on the bus with us, were nowhere to be seen. Tempers started to get frayed, we were getting cold at this stage, beer was warm, and the bus was not a pretty sight half full of semi naked blokes. Wouldn’t mind but there are some fat ugly fuckers in our club. You know who you, and things were getting so bad that one member of the travelling party pissed himself

We eventually headed back to Minsk, happy enough with the result. Had a quick shower, left my money out to dry and headed out on the town. Later in the night we pub-crawled around the park that separated our hotel from the teams, towards the team hotel. Bumped into some of the management and, of course, ended up back in Westworld, where the players had been given a couple of hours off. Most of them were behaving themselves (of course they were. Sure aren’t most of them married men). I say most because one player discovered a previously hidden talent…he can do a fair old routine in the pole dancing. A new centre half who is quite small, but can now certainly get up for the headers. He shall remain nameless, but you might hear a new song in F+G soon!!

The night ended up pretty much the same as the previous night.

Our bus to bring us back to the airport was leaving at 6:30 next morning so we just to stayed up all night drinking and headed back to the hotel about 5:30 where the casino was still open, so we drunk some more!

Day Three

Minsk and Shannon, 17/7/03

As I said earlier, we had stayed up all night. I discovered that I was an alcoholic. 45-minute journey to the airport, to be met by the ever-friendly customs/army/KGB officials. Didn’t get delayed quite as long as on the way out. However they weren’t going to let us go without one last attempt to make some money. One of the lads, took a photo of himself and Kevin Hunt. Not missing a trick, a stone-faced check in girl, snapped the camera from him. She then called over her English-speaking assistant, who told us that it was prohibited to take photos in the airport. Of course this was bullshit. Just an attempt to make a few quid. He said that two handbooks (customs documents by the looks of them, also happened to be in Russian) must be purchased at a price of $6 to get the camera back. They were offered first 1500 roubles, then up to 6500 roubles, before they were told to keep the camera, as it was only a disposable one. Anyway, they obviously weren’t getting the satisfaction they were expecting and she eventually snapped, threw the camera back and, more or less, told him to fuck off. She didn’t even take the money. Now where’s the fun in that?

Passed through customs otherwise unhindered. I bought a few pints at the bar, much to the surprise of Glen Crowe, as it was about 7 am. Also one of the lads popped open some champagne in the airport, Robbie Doyle ducked as he thought it was a gun going off! Before boarding the plane I bought cans of ‘Holsten Edel’ for the plane.

I think Des Kelly had been in and done a job on the carpets while we were visiting, cos this time round they were actually attached to the floor. Got back to Shannon safely. One of the lads decided to have pints while we waited two hours for our transfer, I finished my cans and we were off.

Not much else to say really. All in all, a really great trip. Maybe Minsk was great because we expecting a shithole, so our expectations were low. Maybe it is a great place?

E-mail us with your reactions or your own stories from the trip: bohs@dublin.com

Trip pictures available HERE