I've already written about Switzerland and Hungary, so that leaves Belarus. There's no getting around politics here. You've been warned.
We rode our 🚲 there twice: once spontaneously, and the second time more deliberately. Cyclists get to cross the border without waiting in line, which is great, but the process is still far from perfect. Which booth to go to, and how to do it without waiting in line — it's not clear at all. You have to hand over your passport at 🛂 without any inserts or covers, so you don't slip them a bribe. By the way, an interesting question. Do people in Latvia still give bribes to traffic 👮♀️👮♂️? If you know, drop a comment.
Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs asks Latvian residents not to travel to the RB — they're afraid of provocations. But that doesn't stop people. There were supposedly a few hundred thousand trips made over the few months that the visa-free regime was in place. It didn't stop us either. At the end of the day, it's a lot harder to stage a provocation against people who are only seen at the border, who have almost no belongings with them. And besides, we're deep in the 🌳🌲 of the Braslaw region. I don't deny there is some danger, but if the MFA gave specific examples, there'd be more trust in them. Recently, a Latvian citizen was sentenced to four years in the RB for anti-state activities and insulting Lukashenko. That doesn't excuse the regime or make this normal. Nevertheless, it's unlikely that bikers in the 🌳🌲 attract attention as targets for oppression. To be fair, a Latvian citizen was also arrested in Lithuania — for collaborating with the Kremlin and supporting RF propaganda. Pretty similar situations. It's another matter that the dictatorial regimes of the RB and RF are constantly passing nightmarish laws, violating their own constitutions, while citizens have no way to influence politics. In Latvia and Lithuania, things are an order of magnitude better in that regard. Look, the Dozhd TV channel has actually gone to court after all, so we'll find out just how fair our court is. Unfortunately, even when the court makes independent rulings (the constitutional court in favor of 🏳️🌈 marriage rights, for instance), our officials often just flat out ignore them.
If you're one of those who think that Latvia, by shutting down Dozhd, is little different from the RF, please note that there are 22! exiled Russian-language newsrooms operating in Latvia. Plus, the "Dozhd" journalists didn't get their visas revoked. I consider this to be the behavior of a normal country.
