Belarus
With the post about Droyt, I felt I should put up some of the pictures I took of Belarus.
I’d actually gone there to see England play football and thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The people were friendly, there was absolutely no trouble and we were blessed with some very good weather. England won too!
Holocaust Memorial – Minsk, Belarus
This memorial was tucked away in a quiet park behind the hotels. Strangely, you can’t find much about it on the Internet, except for a small article about how it was vandalised in 2006.
Afghan War Widows Memorial, Minsk
This memorial to the widows of the Afghan War was built some time after the war actually ended. The war doesn’t fit well in Russian history, but it made a serious mark on it.
English Wreath on the Victory Memorial, Minsk
This wreath was laid by England supporters and the ceremony was totally unreported in any English newspapers. I did manage to find a reference in a Belarusian News Agency and there is a bit on the British Embassy web site.
But then there was no trouble and newspapers have their stereotypes.
This is a getting to be a sombre series of pictures, so here’s one of the beautiful girls of Minsk.
Girls of Minsk
There were so many and all were very well-turned out. But then one of their problems is that they outnumber the men considerably.
Minsk is also blessed with large numbers of street statues.
Street Statue in Minsk
None seemed to credit any of the sculptors. I always like sculpture in preference to painting, I suspect because one of my uncles was a serious one. He though, knew of the difficulties of making it a career, so he was earned his living as an engineer. But a good one!
At Belarus England in Minsk
Note the police, who were friendly like everybody in Minsk. There was no trouble at all. And England won.
One day, I’ll go back to Belarus. Perhaps in the Lotus.
A Real Soap Opera
Last week, in Waitrose I bought some liquid soap for the kitchen. It was organic and it was in rather a plain bottle. But it was made in Chorley in Lancashire, by a company called Droyt.
And then my housekeeper raved about it!
As the bottle had a small symbol that said Minsk 1893, the company needed a bit of investigation. Did they have a tale to tell?
Yes! And how!
The history is detailed in the Lancashine Evening Post.
The business prospered in Minsk under the name of The Victoria Fine Soap Works, the name reflecting the close ties Russia had with England at the time through its royal families.
It grew over the succeeding years and in 1913 a new factory was established in Saratov, on the banks of the Volga River.
Current managing director Chris Effendowicz remembers the tales his great uncle Pavel would regale them with, of standing as a child in Moscow and watching as Lenin and Trotsky swept past.
After the revolution, the factory workers were allowed to vote on who should continue to run the business and they elected to keep the family in charge.
That didn’t go down well with the revolutionaries and in 1921 the Danischewskys were forced to flee for their lives.
They perhaps didn’t make the best choice in that they chose to go to Germany.
With historical hindsight, and as the family were Jewish, Germany wasn’t a safe place to be. Particularly as Chris’s great aunt Helena, a journalist, wrote articles in the 1930s of the truth about the rise of Nazism and Hitler’s true plans. She was on his personal hitlist but despite this, was the only political correspondent of the time to have a one-to-one interview with Italian Fascist leader Mussolini.
The family came under increasing threat from the Nazi authorities. As Jewish employers they found themselves under more and more Gestapo checks.
So they moved to Chorley just before the Second World War and have been there ever since.
I hadn’t come across the company before, but as a child I did have one of their PC49 novelty soaps. Many kids did! One is shown on Droyt’s history page.
Pictures of Belarus
These are some of the pictures that I took, when I went to support England in Belarus.
The Anonymous Widower 