Belarus: A New Country in Eastern Europe
Выдавец: Тэхналогія
Памер: 72с.
Мінск 1994
Belarusan sportsmen achieved a lot of success in major international competitions. Since 1952 over 200 Belarusan sportsmen have taken part in Olympic games and brought home 156 Olympic medals including 81 gold ones. Taking into account big achievements of Belarusan sportsmen in the Olympic movement we may consider Belarus as one of the most sport-minded countries in the world.
Among the stars of Belarusan sports there are such athletes known all over the world as: the strongest man in the world, Olympic champion in weight-lifting Alexander Kurlovich; repeated Olympic champion, the famous wrestler Alexander Medvedz; the most famous athlete of
38
Olympic Games in Barselona, six-time Olympic champion, gymnast Vitaly Shcherba; repeated world champion in skating Igor Zhelezovsky; tennis star Natalia Zvereva and the famous gymnast, repeated Olympic champion Olga Korbut.
Around eight million Belarusans live in Belarus and nearly three million abroad in different countries on different continents. A lot of Belarusans live in Poland, Russia, Ukraine, the U.S.A., Canada, Argentina, Australia. Around ten thousand ethnic Belarusans live in Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, Belgium. These Belarusans despite the long years of life far from their homeland have preserved the Belarusan mentality which is expressed mainly in tolerance, goodheart-edness, hard work. In the countries of their new citizenship they have organized national and cultural popular organizations for the support and the development of traditions of the Belarusan nation. For example, there is Belarusan-American Association in the U.S.A., Belarusan Canadian Coordination Committee, Belarusan National Association in Canada, Union of Belarusans in France, Union of Belarusans in Belgium, Belarusan Association in Australia, Union of Belarusan Organizations in Australia and others.
Many natives of Belarus because of numerous political and economic difficulties that haunted Belarus were to seek better life abroad for the last two centuries. For example, the world famous artist Marc CHAGALL born in 1887 in Belarus had to emigrate to France in 1922. There are many examples of talented natives of Belarus that went abroad and contributed a lot into the culture, economy and sciences of those countries. For example, one of the American researchers in the field of rocket fuel was a Belarusan Boris Kit. The famous Polish poet Adam Mickewicz was born in Belarus. In 1834 in France he wrote a poem "Pan Tadeusz" in which described the old-Belarusan life style at times of Napoleon's invasion of Belarus. Now one of the main tasks of the Belarusan government is the creation of conditions for the comprehensive development of people, their abilities development for the citizens of Belarus to enlarge the wealth of their own state and not to seek better conditions abroad.
39
6. Infrastructure And Service
Infrastructure and service as a complex of transport and telecommunication systems as well as the service system for the population are developed in Belarus unevenly and are inferior to the European ones. Infrastructure and services are more developed in the big cities of Belarus. The majority of the establishments and organizations of the service system were in the state sector until recently. Lack of normal competition, strict state regulations and, what's still more important, lack of the ownership feeling created in this important sphere an atmosphere of discomfort and red tape. Besides, the artificially kept-low prices for the infrastructure and services use led to constant financial problems in this important branch of economy. The infrastructure and service enterprises that worked well had to share their profits with those that worked worse. That meant that one and the same service could be rendered differently by different enterprises but the price was the same. Only a small number of service organizations, catering mainly for foreigners for hard currency, kept up relatively high level of services.
TRANSPORT
The transport infrastructure of Belarus includes a fairly developed network of automobile, rail, air and pipe communications. The transport infrastructure of Belarus is well integrated into similar infrastructures of the CIS countries as in the recent past these projects were realized as a united system. All transport communications of Belarus are well matched to those of Western Europe with the exception of the railway. This means that the standards for transport means and communications in Belarus are similar to those of Europe but the railway has a broader gauge than European. That is why on the western border of Belarus all the trains change at special points their bogeys. In future the cars that
40
carry passengers and cargoes between the CIS and Western Europe will have adjustable wheels, which will greatly simplify the border crossing for trains.
International airport Minsk-2
The autotransport system of Belarus includes public and departmental transport. The public transport carries any cargoes and any passengers; the departmental one carries cargoes and passengers of a particular ministry, establishment or organization only. The automobile public transport in Belarus is well developed and plays a great role in passenger transportation. By the end of 1993 in the public transport system of Belarus there worked over 40 thousand trucks, 10 thousand buses, 2.5 thousand taxi cabs and 30 thousand office automobiles. All the public transport is assigned to 106 state transport companies many of which, though, are now in the process of privatization. Besides in Belarus there are over 750 thousand private cars. In 1994 hard-surface automobile roads made 50 thousand kilometers.
41
Public railways in Belarus make 5.5 thousand km including 900 km electrified. The railroad and the railroad transport are monopolized by the state.
Belarus is in the crossroads of air routes from Asia to Western Europe. Nowadays Belarus has 7 well-equipped airports including 4 international ones. Airport Minsk-2 is the largest in Eastern Europe. It can serve 1800 passengers an hour but now uses only 10-20% of its capacities. The Belarusan civil air fleet is equipped mainly with Soviet-made airplanes of Yak-40, TU-134, TU-154, IL-76 and other out-of-date types. Belarusan passenger and cargo airlines connect Belarus with many countries of the world. For example, the largest Belarusan transport airline TRANSAVIAEXPORT which has over a dozen of transport planes IL-76 can easily bring cargo to any point of the globe. And the largest passenger airline BELAVIA connects Belarus with many large airports of Europe, America and Asia. Besides Belarusian airlines in Minsk there are representative offices of such famous airlines as LUFTHANSA, SWISSAIR, AUSTRIAN AIRLINES, LOT, El-Al, TRANSAERO and others. Minsk-2 international airport is a member of the European Airports Association.
A great perspective for international transport has the western border junction in Brest. Here is an excellent international airport, the biggest automobile cargo company of the former USSR SOVTRANSAVTO, a large railroad junction. In the future it is planned to create a free economic zone around Brest where transit cargoes from Asia to Western Europe will be served without paying customs. The crossing at one transport junction of international air, rail and automobile routes permits to organize fast and quality cargo delivery from the supplier to the customer on a transcontinental level.
Belarus possesses a powerful pipeline transport. By the end of 1993 it had 2906 km of oil pipelines, 5036 km of gas pipelines. In 1993 through those pipelines there were transported 66.6 million tons of oil and 33.8 billion cubic meters of gas.
42
POSTAL SERVICE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
By the end of 1993 in Belarus there were 2 million telephone numbers. At present there are 44 private telephone numbers per 100 households, of those in urban areas 54 numbers, in rural — 23. In 1994 there were about 700 thousand unsatisfied applications for the telephone number installation.
Now in Belarus there are projects being realized on the development of an international telephone network. Thanks to credits from EBRD in Belarus the works on the modernizing of a telephone network have started, including satellite and radio-telephone communication. Now businessmen from Western Europe coming to Belarus can rent a mobile phone of the radiotelephone communication system BELCEL and have same high quality telephone service as in the U.S.A, or in Europe.
Postal services in Belarus are the state monopoly. They provide quality and timely delivery of post to addresses.
TRADE AND PUBLIC CATERING SYSTEM
Until recently trade and the public catering system were the state monopoly and its level of quality of services and goods was rather low. By the end of 1993 in the retail sale network there were 23 thousand shops and 7.4 thousand small trade stands. The majority of shops are specialized for providing particular kinds of goods but there are also large supermarket-type shops.
The number of public catering establishments in Belarus was 11.5 thousand by the end of 1993. They could serve over 800 thousand people at a time. This number includes the canteens at enterprises, organizations, and at educational establishments which permits the organization of normal catering in industry and educational establishments. But the number of public cafes and restaurants is only a little above 1000 with the number of seats just above 70 thousand which is absolutely insufficient for a country with a 10 million population. Even by the Belarusan standards it is only 40% of the seats needed. In 1994 the process of public catering enterprises privatization started, people began to open private cafes and restaurants. There appeared competition in trade and public catering which positively influences the service level there.
43
HOTELS
Hotels in Belarus as well as other infrastructure elements were monopolized by the state. Now their privatization has started. In 1994 in Belarus there were 243 hotels which could accommodate 24.5 thousand guests. 164 hotels belonged to the Ministry of Municipal and Housing Economy. The rest of the hotels belong to various enterprises, organizations and departments. Besides there are 14 rather comfortable tourist hotels. The most comfortable hotels belong to the organizations that are specialized in catering for foreign tourists.
КНІГІ ОНЛАЙН
