Getting to Minsk cheaply - Russian Ukrainian Belarus Travel Music Woman Dating News

	The Russian Meeting Place: A place to meet people and talk about all things Russian... International Discussions about Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Travel, Music, Russian News, Ukrainian culture, Belarusian Dating, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kiev and other intelligent topics about life in the former Soviet Union.

Pages: 1

Getting to Minsk cheaply
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)

Posted by: stevo

Since low-cost airline Ryanair now flies to Kaunas, Lithuania from near Glasgow, Natasha and I thought we'd see how easy it was to use this route to get to Minsk. She's there just now, and so far, so good.

There's an airport bus from Kaunas Airport to Vilnius which is timed to pick up passengers travelling from Prestwick and Stansted. Booking in advance through airport-bus.lt is strongly recommended. We were lucky that a few people had booked and didn't turn up (the driver told us this was quite common). Cost is about Ј8, journey takes around 90 minutes and the bus drops you outside the railway station which is right across the road from the bus station.

Buses leave Vilnius for Minsk around 7 times a day, supposedly. The first is at 05:50, the next at 09:00, then 12:something. However, autobusubilieti.lt only shows the first two and the 18:05 service, so it's possible there really are only three services and the information at the bus stop was out of date. Cost of a ticket was around Ј7. I don't know if you can travel the same day (although I don't see why not) because we bought Natasha's ticket on arrival in Vilnius and then hung around for a couple of days. Journey time is 4 hours and the bus arrives in the somewhat inaccessible Vostochniy bus station in Minsk, as the central one has been demolished - how can they tell? - although the driver did let people off elsewhere in the city. In any case, it definitely beats arriving at Minsk-2! The bus looked nice enough, certainly better than some of the other contraptions in the bus station.

The three buses I have accurate times for actually leave Kaunas a couple of hours earlier, so the airport transfer bus to Vilnius may be unnecessary depending on timings. (If you miss your connection or the transfer bus is full, there are 4 buses an hour from Kaunas to Vilnius.) Ordinary bus service 29 will take you from Kaunas Airport to the city bus station.

There are also several trains a day from Vilnius to Minsk. Natasha's route back will probably involve taking a very early morning train to Vilnius and getting the airport transfer bus to Kaunas at 08:15 outside the Hotel Panorama, which is opposite the railway station.