"Detained in Belarus"

10"x 10" oil on masonite

When we were younger and there was no particular agenda, we decided that it might be a good idea to see if we could sneak into Russia. This was before Ion had started with law school or written a book or had a family, and we had a bunch of time, so after we had traveled around Poland, we decided that we should probably just go to Moscow by train, avoiding any guards as we went by moving stealthily from car to car and pretending we were reading newspapers or whatever. Instead of actually obtaining a visa, we figured that we would use our combined powers of persuasion with any border officials or train guards, if questioned. Like Jedis. We didn't quite make it as far as Minsk, in Belarus, before we were hustled off the train, (and do I remember a guard throwing my bag out the window?) and detained for a few hours. It was like "Boy's State: Eastern Bloc" for the next few hours as we tag-teamed the border guards with rhetoric, vehicular openings, and strategic argument, and it almost worked.

This is a painting of Ion wielding a mighty argument with a border guard under the fluorescents of a holding area in Hrodna. I love that Soviet architecture with concrete and cavernous spaces and polished floors which catch reflections and light. I also love the slightly mismatched uniforms of the border guards, and the guards' friends sort of "hanging out," in case there is any trouble. And Ion, as ever, clean-cut even after a bunch of dodgy Bialystock hotels, earnestly making his argument not for release, but campaigning to press on, press on, further into the unknown.