Thanks CoffeeCup! I think Russia is probably a fair judge on the value of the BYR to dollar.

Well this man quotes his prices in dollars, but he wants to be paid in BYR. I have no issue with paying him in dollars online, but he has no suitable account and dollars in cash are a bit hard to get hold of in Belarus.

My issue is, if the price for his flat is 50 USD per night, but the exchange rate is 6000 BYR per USD, then I would actually be paying him 60 USD per night, not 50 USD. It's not as outrageous as I first thought, but it doesn't quite add up either and I might have to stay quite a few nights, depending on how long the Russian visa takes.

On the RU visa: Frankly I am thinking of bloody dropping it - just going to that embassy now:
I feel quite pessimistic though; I think it will turn out to take 10 days or something else unreasonable... Or they will want original copies of some docs that I don't have available. Or they will say they simply can't do it in Minsk after all... If so, I'll just cut my losses with visiting Russia and plan it in properly for some other time.

UPDATE: I paid the expensive rate.... the man sent his super nice wife to collect the money and she explained that the rate is different at the bank, or something weird like that. I really didn't understand what she was talking about - it's really strange., but essentially I lost 75 USD on this.The financial situation is so difficult for the Belarussians, so I will not complain about lousy 75 USD.

This woman also told me that she believed that Lukashenko has some brain damage - she said she wants him gone immediately. Basically, the views on Lukashenko vary a lot in BY. Only yesterday I was talking to a nice and very intelligent guy who told me that fundamentally Lukashenko is good and the best thing for the country is if he stays in power, and that the EU is hypocritical to complain about him. I really don't know what to believe.