2015-03-09: One Apple A Day would not block the border so much.

Self referential Billboard, I swear they do these things to mess with me.

After purchasing the flowers for the Ladies yesterday we got all excited and took the Matriarch to a Turkish restaurant for dinner.

Yurt was decorative only

It is Turkish for varying definitions of Turkish. Once upon a time the Turks were a mighty empire. They attacked Vienna and were beaten off by the Polish King Sobieski III and his winged Hussars. From this event the croissant was born (some versions of the story) and Sobieski Vodka was born (my version of the story).

Stable looked functional and there were horsies! (no archers)

Arguably the entire western world was saved as well but, compared to the croissant and the vodka, that is kind of trivial.

"300 years ago Sobiesky showed us vodka"

A Kiwi's interpretation of things:

• Somehow the Turks of the time might have been called Tartars and might have been, from their art / bows / horsey thing, Mongolian. 
• Some of them must have been heavy drinkers because apparently a bunch of them came up to the Białystok region to live with Sobiesky (the King that wouldn't go on a crusade because "There's no mead in the Holy Land") when he came back after beating them up in Vienna.
• They also may have been the inspiration for Steak Tartar but I don't know if the French came up with that and the Poles grabbed it or vice versa. There are very big differences between Polish and French steak tartar but we won't go into that yet (Polish is better; stinky French know nothing about cucumbers which have been pickled but are not gherkins, plus the French version never has smaleć as the other entree ordered by us and we love the smaleć tartar combo).

Europe is complex.
Białystok makes Europe seems simple.

So close to the border google starting teaching me Belorussian

The restaurant is out near the border, in the commie times you would have to have cards proving you were allowed out there and such. On the way there we went through Supraśl which illustrates the complexity of the Białystok region well. In a two or three block radius you have Greek Orthodox, Jewish Synagogue, Catholic Church. The Mosque is a bit further away.

Church

Church?

Church

Church

Mosque (I am getting better at being a tourist, church photos are mandatory apparently)

Handy map of churches and mosques and synagogues for the multi faithed

In Supraśl there is a guest house which has an Activities Tour celebrating the multicultural aspects of the region. Each evening the dinner is based around one of the religions. Except Monday. Monday appears to be just Polish Food Night.

Not inside yurt.

The restaurant is tartar themed and, I think, Islam is big in the tartar religious world; there is no booze. If I ever get religious I am pretty sure I am going to have to go Zoroastrian. My main takeaway from what I have read is that Ahura-Mazda said brewing beer was good. I have assumed this means drinking it is good too. I like a religion that starts by saying "you are good".

In our latest round of revenge plotting we ordered way too much food deliberately and then kept asking Ewa's mum if she was hungry. I know the attempt is futile but a boy and a girl need distractions in this vale of tears we call life. Plus it makes us giggle.

Food & Beverage Review: Tatarska Jurta

http://www.kruszyniany.pl/
(About an hours drive from Białystok depending on detours / route choices)

Ewa's favourite

Unfortunately for us one of the dishes I was most interested in trying wasn't available. Pierekaczewnik was available though. The website does point out it is limited per day (We didn't plan enough to call ahead and reserve some, we were just lucky).

Butter up that dumpling boy.

There is a very angry page on their site about people selling half arsed knock offs as well. It wasn't the best dish they had so I am guessing some cultural thing.

It did look pretty but the dumplings were better

Krzyś (Ewa's Brother) works as a border guard near here and is where we got the idea to come here from. He says that at different times they have different menus and, making some wild assumptions, I reckon the end of Ramadan is going to be the time to drop by.

The Slovakian version of this soup still wins

Unfortunately I think the whole "fried bits of bacon" falls into the same category as booze

Out the back there are some small-ish horsies and there are several small cabin type buildings as well as a reasonable size building site next door. I have a suspicion they are trying to ramp the operation up a bit.

Dumpling with soup inside. Nip the end, drink the soup, eat the sausage! Activity Food!

When we were coming to Poland we were under the belief there was Horseback archery in Supraśl (now defunct unfortunately) and I suspect these guys might be involved in that.

Rating: 5/10 (has potential. I think when the archery and the horseys and the wider range of food are all happening it would be better).

Nostalgia makes everything better

For our journey home a decision was made to look at something which was nostalgic or something (I wasn't paying a lot of attention at the time). This involved driving through some pretty torn up dirt roads which was fun.

We also got a bit close to the border (probably from my bad navigating, I should pay more attention). The queue of trucks going into Belarus was maybe 2 or 3 km long.

Probably mostly apples

I am lead to believe that when the US/NATO sanctions against Russia hit the volume of exports there from Poland dropped by 99%. This caused havoc with the apple industry (amongst others). Fortunately for the Russian apple eaters someone in Belarus managed to increase their annual apple harvest incredibly high (Belarus is not banned from trading with Russia). I suspect the massive increase must be because of all the Polish apples going to Belarus now (Poland can trade with Belarus). Those crafty Belarussians have bought all the Polish apples, tested them for flavour profiles etc and have managed to duplicate the same type of apple with an accelerated growth cycle.

Welcomed home to more Lady Day Flowers