Minsk

Minsk, Belarus - A Visit in the Capital of Europe's Last Dictatorship

Minsk, Belarus - A Visit in the Capital of Europe's Last Dictatorship

Minsk is one of those European cities that are usually unheard of both by Western Europeans and tourists visiting Europe. Tourist guides dedicated to Europe rarely mention anything about Belarus. Some people are even surprised it exists at all. 
It seemed to me that Minsk was one of the most unknown among all the capitals on the old continent (although later, it turned out that there's another - even less popular - Chisinau in Moldova which we also visited). Having been to so many unpopular destinations, the fact that no one else was interested in visiting Minsk was one of the main reasons we got intrugued about it and, contrary to the popular trend, we really wanted to see it - does it really feel like a police state of Europe's last dictatorship? Is it gloomy, filled with communist-era Stalinist architecture? Are the locals cold and unapproachable?