The republic of Belarus

Hey guys!

Today, we entered Minsk, the capital of Belarus. It was a hell of a trip. First, Lisa thought she lost her identification and later on, Liselotte thought she lost her wallet. But in the end, every thing came to light.

Let’s talk about Belarus. Officially, it’s called the republic of Belarus. This republic is bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. We already visited Ukraine and our next stop is Lithuania.

Belarus has a lot of woods. Over 40% is forested. And it’s logical that agriculture is one of their most strong economic sectors. When we talk about the Russian Revolution, we also talk about the BSSR. This abbreviation means the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The BSSR wasone of the four original founding members of the Soviet Union in 1922. After World War II, Belarus lost a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. Luckily, they redeveloped in post-war years. This country declared independence on the 25^th of August in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Three years later, Alexander Lukashenko became president and is nowadays till governing. Unfortunately, Mr. Lukashenko is an advocate of Soviet-policies. The state ownership of the economy in the republic is a good example. You may ask yourselves why this information is important, but it’s so fascinating that I wanted to share these facts with you.

Belarus its population exist of almost 9,6 million. It isn’t also a very big country so these are normal numbers.More than 80% of the populations are ethnic Belarusians with minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Lucky for the Russians, the republic has two official languages. Belarusian and Russian. Saddened, no one of us could speak these languages.

I hope you liked my blog! Please comment!

Isabella

http://www.belarus.by/en/