About Belarus - GEOGRAPHY
Located in the center of Europe, Belarus is slightly smaller than the UK or state of Kansas in the USA and borders Russia in the north and east, Latvia and Lithuania in the north-west, Poland in the west and Ukraine in the south. The capital city of Minsk, which may be considered as the geographical center of Belarus, lies roughly on the same latitude as Hamburg, Dublin or New York.
With the population of about 10 mln people, Belarus covers 650km from East to West and 560km from North to South. It is a low-lying country, with the highest hill, Dziarzhinskaya, reaching only 345m (1132ft) and the lowest point on the Neman river, 90 m.
Although landlocked, Belarus has wide water resources: about 20,000 rivers and streams, with the total length of 91,000 km (the major rivers are: the Neman River, the Pripyat River, and the Dnepr River), and about 11,000 lakes, including 470 lakes with the area exceeding 0.5 km² each. Naroch is the largest lake (79.2 km², the deepest point about 25 m). There are also significant amounts of swampy area, notably in the Polesie region in the south iof Belarus.
The natural resources of Belarus are forests, peat deposits, small quantities of oil and natural gas, granite, dolomitic limestone, marl, chalk, sand, gravel, and clay.
Belarus has a continental climate which becomes marginally more severe as you move from south-west to north-east. Average January temperatures are between -4°C and -8°C, and there's frost on the ground 7 to 8 months of the year. The warmest month is July, when temperatures normally reach 20°C. It's wettest in June and August, and there's snow cover from December to April.
Belarus is divided administratively into six oblasts (regions), with their centers in Minsk, Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Grodno and Mogilev, and one municipality, or the capital territory of Minsk. Each oblast is divided into smaller administrative districts, called rayons, they also include cities and other territorial and administrative entities. There are more than 1 000 towns and cities in Belarus, including 12 cities with population more than 100 thousand people.
Everything in our country is easily reachable, so you won’t waste time on getting to wherever you want; instead, you will have more time to make the best of your visit to the Heart of Europe.
About Belarus - GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Belarus is a democratic social state with
the rule of law. Belarus
follows the priority of generally acknowledged principles of international law
and assures the conformity of legislation with them. The foreign citizens and
persons without citizenship on the territory
of Belarus enjoy the rights and
freedoms and carry duties equally with the citizens of the Republic of Belarus
if otherwise isn't provided by the Constitution, Laws and international
treaties.
Belarus
is a presidential republic. The President of Belarus elected by popular vote for a five-year term is the head of state, a guarantor
of the Constitution, of the peoples' rights and freedoms. The executive power
is exercised by the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister.
The highest legislative body is the National Assembly that consists of
two Chambers- the House of Representatives (64 seats; 56 members elected
by regional councils and 8 members appointed by the president, all for 4-year
terms) and the Council of the Republic (110 seats; members elected by universal
adult suffrage to serve 4-year terms). Judicial power is vested in courts.
The Constitutional Court
(half of the judges appointed by the president and half appointed by the
Chamber of Representatives) supervises and controls the legality of all Acts.
The Prosecutor General supervises accurate and uniform execution of laws
by all state control bodies, legal entities and individuals.
Belarus is actively working to become a full member of the international community. Under an arrangement with the former USSR, Belarus (known as Byelorussian SSR) was an original member of the United Nations. After the collapse of the Soviet Union it is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS – a group of 12 former Soviet republics), the Union of Russia and Belarus, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), NATO's Partnership for Peace, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
About Belarus - ECONOMY
As part of the former Soviet Union, Belarus enjoyed a relatively high level of prosperity during the Soviet era compared to other ex-Soviet republics and had a relatively well-developed industrial base which was retained following the breakup of the USSR. The country also has a broad agricultural base and a high education level. Among the former republics of the Soviet Union, Belarus has is a highly industrialized economy and one of the highest standards of living.
Belarus exports large quantities of machinery, transport vehicles, chemical and petrochemical products, fibers, fertilizers, and transport services. Raw materials remain the main import, together with fuel and energy resources.
Agro-industrial complex of Belarus is specializing in animal farming (milk and meat products), growing of flax, potato, grain and vegetable crops, sugar beet, rapes and fodder crops. The agro-industrial complex is oriented at the creation of multi-structural agriculture, combining different types of property and management: collective state-owned farms with individual private farming.
Belarus has established some six free economic zoneswhere more liberal tax and customs rules are applied. Profit received by free economic zone residents through the sale of products of own production is exempt from taxes for a period of five years following its declaration. Customs duty and economic policy measures do not apply to goods imported into the free economic zones from abroad. Residents of free economic zones exporting products of own production are exempt from customs duty and are not subject to licensing or quota requirements.
Due to objective historical and economic preconditions, Belarus maintains the most developed economic ties with the countries of the CIS, especially Russia. At the same time, considerable attention is being paid to the improvement of competitiveness of Belarusian goods and their expansion on the Western markets.
Your visit
to Belarus
on business can be an excellent chance to establish constructive and beneficial
relations with Belarusian companies. You will be able to find a reliable
partner that will contribute to your success in your business activities.
About Belarus - CULTURE
The beginnings of human settlements in the area now known as Belarus began some time in the 6th century, and since that time a Belarusian identity has slowly evolved, with the development of a separate language, unique customs and beliefs.
Belarusian culture is the product of a millennium of development under the impact of a number of various factors. These include the physical environment; the ethnographic background of Belarusians; the paganism of the early settlers and their hosts; Byzantine Christianity as a link to the Orthodox religion and its literary tradition; the nation's deficiency of natural borders; the flow of rivers toward both the black Sea and the Baltic Sea; and the mixture of religions in the region; Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam.
An early Western determine on Belarusian culture was Magdeburg Law - charters that granted municipal self-rule and were based on the laws of German cities. These charters were granted in the 14th and 15th centuries by grand dukes and kings to a number of cities, including Brest, Hrodna, Slutsk, and Minsk. The tradition of self-government not only facilitated contacts with Western Europe but also nurtured self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and a sense of civic responsibility.
In 1517-19 Frantsishak Skaryna translated the Bible into the vernacular. Under the communist regime, Skaryna's work was hugely undervalued, but in independent Belarus he became an inspiration for the emerging national consciousness as much for his advocacy of the Belarusian language as for his humanistic ideas. During the 17th and 18th centuries, when Poland and Russia were making deep political and cultural inroads in Belarus by assimilating the nobility into their respective cultures, the rulers succeeded in associating “Belarusian” culture primarily with peasant ways, folklore, ethnic dress, and ethnic customs, with an overlay of Christianity. This was the point of departure for some national activists who attempted to attain statehood for their nation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The development of Belarusian literature, spreading the idea of nationhood for the Belarusians, was epitomized by the literary works of Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas. The works of these poets, along with several other outstanding writers, became the classics of modern Belarusian literature by writing widely on rural themes and by modernizing the Belarusian literary language, which had been little used since the sixteenth century.
The country has a strong musical tradition and many 12th century Orthodox hymns and sermons had their origins in Belarus. Belarusian folk music is well known; don't miss a performance if you get the opportunity. Modern folk music originated from ritualistic ceremonies or church music, and became highly developed from the 16th century onwards. Belarusian classical music is a 20th century phenomenon, though this hasn't stopped the Minsk opera and ballet companies from earning international reputations.
Belarus, like Ukraine, has always been a crossing point between Latin and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Around 70% of Belarusians are Eastern Orthodox, but a sizeable Roman Catholic population (which dominates the clergy) has resulted from centuries of Polish rule. There's also a scattering of Protestants (a remnant of the once-large German population), Muslims (mainly Tatars) and Jews, although many of these are emigrating.
About Belarus – Nature
Belarus was once completely covered in forest. By the 16th century most of it had been cleared for farming, but great plots have regrown, especially in the south. Belarusian forests occupy about 36% of the territory of the country. The most common trees are conifer, oak, beech and silver birch. The Belavezhskaya Pushcha Nature Reserve, on the Polish border, is Europe's largest slice of primeval mixed forest and is home to a healthy population of European bison – an animal that has become the symbol of our land. Belarus' other nature reserves are home to elk, deer, boar, wolf, fox, squirrel, marten, hare, beaver, otter, mink and badger. Agricultural land is given over to grains and to flax (the raw material for linen): great fields of the delicate blue flax flower are a striking sight.
More than 20 thousand rivers of the total length of about 91 thousand km are flowing across the country. The rivers belong to the watersheds of the Black and Baltic seas. 6 rivers of 500 km long (the Beresina, the Nieman, the Sozh, the Zapadnaya Dvina and the Dnieper) are also important as navigable rivers. Another peculiarity of the Belarusian nature is a great number of lakes: about 11 thousand of the total area of about 2,000 square km. The total area of the glacial lakes is around 1.200 square m, flood-plain lakes - 800 square km.