Belarus: A New Country in Eastern Europe
Выдавец: Тэхналогія
Памер: 72с.
Мінск 1994
A NEW COUNTRY IN EASTERN EUROPE
Uladzimir NOVIK
BELARUS
A NEW COUNTRY IN EASTERN EUROPE
This booklet was prepared on the initiative of International Association BELFRANCE to introduce Belarus in the world.
Published by Independent Publishing Company "TECHNALOHIJA"
MINSK 1994
CONTENTS
1. General Information.....................................3
2. History................................................8
3. State System..........................................19
4. Economy...............................................26
5. Culture, Education, Sports............................34
6. Infrastructure And Service............................40
7. The Possibilities Of Business Cooperation.............48
8. Referential Information...............................52
1. General Information
Since 1991 the Republic of Belarus has taken its place in Eastern Europe as a new independent state. Though the history of Belarusan statehood goes back as far as the 10th century, the world community has discovered this nation only now. This was because being one of the republics of the former USSR (Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic or BSSR) Belarus wasn't represented in the world as an independent political, economical, ethnical and linguistic formation. It was looked upon as one of the members of the Soviet monolith.
GEOGRAPHIC POSITION
Belarus is a land-locked country and borders Russia in the north and east, Ukraine in the south, Poland in the west, Latvia and Lithuania in the north-west. Major land and air routes that connect east and west, north and south of Europe cross the country.
The area of Belarus is 207,600 square kilometers (80,200 square miles). By the size of its territory Belarus ranks 13th among the European states. Administratively the country is divided into six regions. The regions are divided into districts.
The capital of Belarus is Minsk with a population of 1.8 million. Minsk is also the Coordination center of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The largest cities of the country are Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Grodna, Mahileu. They are also the regional centers.
3
4
POPULATION
Belarus' population is 10.3 million. Two thirds (68%) are urban dwellers. 78% of the population are Belarusans, 13% are Russians, 4% — Polish, 3% — Ukrainians, 1% — Jews, 1% — other nationalities. The average family consists of 3.2 members, the average life span is 71 years (66 years for men and 76 for women). By its population Belarus ranks 14th in Europe.
LANGUAGE AND RELIGION
Belarusans speak their own language which is cognate to Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and other ancient and modern Slavic languages. The Belarusan language is the state language of the Republic of Belarus. Russian is also popular in state offices, business circles, in higher and secondary education.
In Belarus there are two major Christian religions — Orthodox and Catholic. The majority of believers of the country (nearly two thirds) belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Nearly 20% of believers are Catholics. In Belarus there are also different Protestant groups, Jews and Muslims. A lot of people are not believers though they observe some religious traditions.
NATURAL RESOURCES
For a long time Belarus was considered to be very poor in mineral resources. But the latest research of Radim Garetsky, an academician and the Director of Geochemistry and Geophysicist Institute of the Belarusan Academy of Sciences disprove this statement. Radim Garetsky says that with the help of intensive research made by the Institute there were found large mineral deposits, especially large high quality oil deposits in the south-western part of Belarus. In the western and central parts there are peat deposits, in the Pripyat marshes — there is coal, brown coal and oil-shales. The potassium salt deposits are the second largest in Europe. There are also deposits of limestone, sand, phosphates, iron and non-iron metals.
5
CLIMATE
The climate in Belarus is moderately continental with the average annual temperature in January -6 degrees Centigrade (21 degree Fahrenheit) and in July +18 degrees Centigrade (64 degrees Fahrenheit). The average annual precipitation is 550-700 mm (22-28 inches).
LABOR RESOURCES
In Belarus nearly 5 million people (half of the population) are engaged in the national economy. 3.6 million (72%) are employed in the government sector, 100,000 (2%) in the private sector, the rest are working in kolkhoses or are engaged in other activities. 50,000 people are officially registered as unemployed. The number of people employed in the private sector is constantly growing. At the same time the number of people working in government enterprises lessens. Every eighth able-bodied person has the higher education diploma. The number of scientists, university and college lecturers and professors is more than 75,000, of them 10,000 have doctorate or masters degrees.
COMMUNICATIONS
The basis of the transport communications of Belarus make railways 5.5 thousand kilometers long, hard surface automobile roads — 50 thousand km, international and local airports, gas-pipes 5.1 thousand km long, oil-pipes — 2.9 thousand km long. The communications system in Belarus is the shortest transport corridor from Russia and the Asian region to Western Europe which explains the good integration of Belarusan communications with many foreign countries.
The automobile and railway roads Paris-Berlin-Warsaw-Minsk-Moscow are of strategic importance for they connect Western Europe with Russia and the Far East. Both are now being modernized and standardized in the all-European project framework. Minsk International airport meets all the international standards and is one of the largest in Eastern Europe. By air routes Minsk is connected with many countries: Russia Ukraine, Poland, the U.S.A., Germany, Austria, Switzerland, India and many others. A special place in the communications system of
6
Belarus belongs to Brest — the Western Gate of Belarus and CIS coun-tnes. Through this border city come the most important transeuropean automobile, rail, air and water routes.
Belarus has a developed telecommunications system. The overall number of telephone numbers of the common telephone network is 2 million.
MONEY
The monetary unit on the territory of the Republic of Belarus is the Belarusan rouble which is emitted as bank notes of the National Bank of Belarus.
7
2. History
The first written documents of the Belarusan statehood go as far back as 980 AD when Prince Rogvold began his reign on Polotsk lands which are the historic and religious center of the Belarusan nation and culture. The formation of the features of Belarusan people began in special socioeconomic and political conditions of the Polotsk Principality. The young, fast growing state made close trade ties with German (Hansa) cities, with Scandinavia, neighboring eastern and southern principalities. On the Polotsk territory under the influence of local cultural views the traditions of Byzantine architecture were revaluated and as a result the outstanding Polotsk architecture school emerged in the 12th century. It greatly influenced the architecture of Smolensk and Vladimir-Suzdal principalities and later of the Moscow state.
From the 13th till the 16th century the territory of contemporary Belarus was the center of a medieval polyethnic state — Grand Duchy of Litva. The Grand Duchy of Litva which is sometimes called by historians Belarusan-Lithuanian state was one of the largest, most powerful and flourishing states in medieval Eastern Europe. The lands of contemporary Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine and a part of Russia comprised this state. The large role of ethnic Belarusans in this state is proved by the fact that the state language in the Grand Duchy of Litva was Belarusan.
The period that started in the 15th century, when the crusaders' expansion was crushed in the west, and lasted until the middle of the 17th century, when Moscow launched its widescale aggression, is considered the Golden Age in Belarusan history. In this period there was a wide growth of old and the foundation of many new cities and towns. There occurred significant evolutionary processes in the culture and economy of Belarusan people. A number of historic facts provide evidence for that. In 1517 the great Belarusan scholar from Polotsk Doctor Francisk
8
Skaryna published the Bible in the Belarusan language. Thus the Belarusans became the third nation after Germans and Czeches that had a printed Bible in their native language. In 1588 the third edition of Grand Duchy Statute came out. It was a comprehensive and elaborate state code of laws that stood above the local legal norms. Written in the Belarusan language it was the only full code of laws in Europe since the Roman Law and until the Napoleonic Code adopted in 1804. The above historic facts prove the Grand Duchy of Litva to have been a major political and cultural center in Eastern Europe at that time.
Grand Duchy of Litva — Belarusan-Lithuanian State in 13-16 centuries
In 1569 the Grand Duchy of Litva and the Polish Kingdom established a political union according to which the Litva-Poland confederation — Rzecz Pospolita — emerged. As a result of three divisions of Rzecz Pospolita in 1772, 1793 and 1795 between three empires — Russia, Austria and Prussia — the Belarusan lands were incorporated into the Russian Empire. So the third division of Rzecz Pospolita in 1795 practically checked the development of Belarusan statehood for more than 100 years.
9
Rzecz Pospolita — a political union of the Grand Duchy of Litva and the Polish Kingdom in 16-18 centuries
But the Belarussans under the Russian rule did not want to lead slaves' lives. In 1794 on the territory of contemporary Poland, Belarus and Lithuania a national liberation uprising broke out. It was headed by Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Belarusan nobleman by birth who received his military education in France (1770-1774), took part in the War of Independence in North America (1775-1783). The uprismg was directed against Russia and Prussia that made the second division of Rzecz Pospolita and against the local reactionary aristocracy that had taken power in the lands. To support Russian and Prussian troops Austria entered the fighting against the rebels. Tadeusz Kosciuszko was injured in a battle, captured by tsarist troops and imprisoned in Petropavlovskaya Fortress in the Russian capital of that time — Sankt Petersburg. The uprising started in mid-spring and was brutally suppressed in mid-autumn 1794. The result of its suppression was the third division of Rzecz Pospolita in 1795. Nowadays a monument to Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the brave soldier, national hero of the U.S.A., honorable citizen of France, born on the temtory of the contemporary Brest Region of Belarus can be seen in Lafayete Square opposite the White House in Washington.
КНІГІ ОНЛАЙН
