A distant floodlight palely illuminates the sheen of snow covering Minsk Airport and silhouettes security men with high fur hats watching passengers descend from the plane. The terminal itself is wrapped in gloom, pools of dim light marking the way through passport control and customs. A power shortage, someone answers.
Daylight is no kinder.
It reveals broad highways with divided carriageways running arrow-straight through the flat landscape. A superpower once lived here, capable of sending armies swiftly over these plains towards the Polish frontier. But the roads now are almost empty. Every few kilometers, a figure dark against the snow can be seen walking briskly along the roadside in sub-zero temperature although no village is visible in the vicinity. Generally, it is a woman carrying a bag.