воскресенье, 6 декабря 2015 г.

What do you know about Belarus?

 Foreigners who are going to visit Belarus think that potatoes are our main dish, the streets of our cities are extremely clean, Belarusians are very reserved, the country is filled with Soviet-era bloc buildings and the majority of Belarusians are afraid to change anything. But after visiting Belarus Europeans say that Belarusians are rather friendly, sympathetic and strong-willed people. We don’t eat potatoes all the time, but almost everyone in Belarus adores one of Belarusian main national dishes, which is called “Draniki”.

Is Belarus interesting for foreigners?

суббота, 16 мая 2015 г.

Religion in Belarus




Before 1917 Belorussia had 2,466 religious communities, including 1,650 Orthodox, 127 Roman Catholic, 657 Jewish, 32 Protestant, and several Muslim communities. Under the communists (who were officially atheists), the activities of these communities were severely restricted. Many religious communities were destroyed and their leaders exiled or executed; the remaining communities were sometimes co-opted by the government for its own ends, as in the effort to instill patriotism during World War II.
In 1993 one Belarusian publication reported the numbers of religious communities as follows: Orthodox, 787; Roman Catholic, 305; Pentecostal, 170; Baptist, 141; Old Believer, twenty-six; Seventh-Day Adventist, seventeen; Apostolic Christian, nine; Uniate, eight; New Apostolic, eight; Muslim, eight; Jewish, seven; and other, fifteen.
Although the Orthodox Church was devastated during World War II and continued to decline until the early 1980s because of government policies, it underwent a small revival with the onset of perestroika and the celebration in 1988 of the 1,000- year anniversary of Christianity in Russia. In 1990 Belorussia was designated an exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, creating the Belarusian Orthodox Church. In the early 1990s, 60 percent of the population identified themselves as Orthodox (in 2006, however, 47.8% of citizens already declared themselves as irreligious, so the former number has dropped). The church had one seminary, three convents, and one monastery. A Belarusian theological academy was to be opened in 1995.
Soviet policies toward the Roman Catholic Church were strongly influenced by the Catholics' recognition of an outside authority, the pope, as head of the church, as well as by the close historical ties of the church in Belorussia with Poland. In 1989 the five official Roman Catholic dioceses, which had existed since World War II and had been without a bishop, were reorganized into five dioceses (covering 455 parishes) and the archdiocese of Minsk and Mahilyow. In the early 1990s, figures for the Catholic population in Belarus ranged from 8 percent to 20 percent; one estimate identified 25 percent of the Catholics as ethnic Poles. The church had one seminary in Belarus.
The revival of religion in Belarus in the postcommunist era brought about a revival of the old historical conflict between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. This religious complexity is compounded by the two denominations' links to institutions outside the republic. The Belarusian Orthodox Church is headed by an ethnic Russian, Metropolitan Filaret, who heads an exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Belarus is headed by an ethnic Pole, Archbishop Kazimir Sviontak, who has close ties to the church in Poland. However, despite these ties, Archbishop Sviontak, who had been a prisoner in the Soviet camps and a pastor in Pinsk for many years, has prohibited the display of Polish national symbols in Catholic churches in Belarus.
Fledgling Belarusian religious movements are having difficulties asserting themselves within these two major religious institutions because of the historical practice of preaching in Russian in the Orthodox churches and in Polish in the Catholic churches. Attempts to introduce the Belarusian language into religious life, including the liturgy, also have not met with wide success because of the cultural predominance of Russians and Poles in their respective churches, as well as the low usage of the Belarusian language in everyday life.
To a certain extent, the 1991 declaration of Belarus's independence and the 1990 law making Belarusian the official language of the republic have generated a new attitude toward the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Some religiously uncommitted young people have turned to the Uniate Church in reaction to the resistance of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic hierarchies to accepting the Belarusian language as a medium of communication with their flock. Overall, however, national activists have had little success in trying to generate new interest in the Uniate Church.
The Uniate Church, a branch of which existed in Belarus from 1596 to 1839 and had some three-quarters of the Belarusian population as members when it was abolished, is reputed to have used Belorussian in its liturgy and pastoral work. When the church was reestablished in Belarus in the early 1990s, its adherents advertised it as a "national" church. The modest growth of the Uniate Church was accompanied by heated public debates of both a theological and a political character. Because the original allegiance of the Uniate Church was clearly to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the reestablished church is viewed by some in the Orthodox Church in Belarus with suspicion, as being a vehicle of both Warsaw and the Vatican.
Before World War II, the number of Protestants in Belarus was quite low in comparison with other Christians, but they have shown remarkable growth since then. In 1990 there were more than 350 Protestant communities in the country.
The first Jewish communities appeared in Belorussia at the end of the fourteenth century and continued to increase until the genocide of World War II. Mainly urban residents, the country's nearly 1.3 million Jews in 1914 accounted for 50 to 60 percent of the population in cities and towns. The Soviet census of 1989 counted some 142,000 Jews, or 1.1 percent of the population, many of whom have since emigrated. Although Belorussia's boundaries changed from 1914 to 1922, a significant portion of the decrease was the result of the war. However, with the new religious freedom, Jewish life in Belarus is experiencing a rebirth. In late 1992, there were nearly seventy Jewish organizations active in Belarus, half of which were republic-wide.
Muslims in Belarus are represented by small communities of ethnic Tatars. Some of these Tatars are descendants of emigrants and prisoners of war who settled here after the eleventh century.

National symbols of Belarus



Upon the independence of Belarus from the Soviet Union, the country resurrected national symbols that were used before the Soviet era. These included a flag of red and white stripes and a coat of arms consisting of a charging knight on horseback. These national symbols were replaced by Soviet-era symbols in a disputed 1995 vote. Those two symbols, along with the national anthem, are the constitutionally defined national symbols of Belarus.

National flag
The national flag has been in use since June 7, 1995, one of two symbols adopted in the 1995 referendum. The main elements of the flag is a red and green bicolor, then decorated with an ornament pattern at the hoist position. The current flag is a modification of the 1951 flag used while the country was a republic of the Soviet Union. In the Soviet version, a hammer and sickle was placed near the top-hoist corner and the ornament colors were inverted. Several flags used by government officials and agencies were based on the national flag.
The former flag consisted of a white background with a red horizontal stripe in the middle. It was used by the Belarusian National Republic and immediately after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

National emblem
 The other national symbol that was chosen in the 1995 referendum was the national emblem. The elements of the emblem include a ribbon in the colors of the national flag, a map of Belarus, wheat ears and a red star. At the base of the ribbon, it says the country name in the Belarusian language. The emblem is an allusion to the one used by the Byelorussian SSR, designed by I.I. Dubasov in 1950. In the Soviet version, a hammer and sickle replaced the map of Belarus and the ribbon was all red. On the left and right ribbons, the Soviet motto Workers of the world, unite! appeared in the Belarusian and Russian languages. The national emblem that was used at the time of the BNR and post-Soviet independence was called the Pahonia (the chase). On the base of a red shield, an armored white knight is mounted on a silver horse, with a sword drawn and charging to the left. On the shield of the knight, a golden Patriarchal cross is displayed. A variant of the Pahonia is used as the coat of arms of Lithuania.

National anthem
The only symbol that hasn't changed over during independence is the national anthem. Adopted during the Soviet era, "My Belarusy" was used provisionally until 2002. The only change that occurred was dropping the Soviet-era lyrics and choosing just to use the music, composed by Nyestar Sakalowski. On July 2, 2002, President Lukashenko issued a decree adopting new lyrics to the anthem, written by Uladzimir Karyzny. Klimkovich also wrote the lyrics to the Anthem of the Byelorussian SSR. Not only the lyrics were chosen, a protocol guide related to the national anthem was released by Lukashenko. The reason that was given for keeping Sakalowski's music was to keep the historic traditions of the country.[5] While references to Lenin, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the idea of Soviet brotherhood were dropped, the general idea of a "friendship of peoples" still remains present. According to the Belarusian Government, once the national anthem was adopted, the long process to adopt the three national symbols of Belarus was completed.

Language

The native language of the territory of Belarus is Belarusian, a language of the Eastern Slavic group with significant influence of Latin, Polish and Baltic languages and dialects. Besides Belarusian, Polish language has historically been wide spread in Belarus, especially among the nobility (the szlachta) and people of Roman Catholic faith. As a result of polonization, many inhabitants of modern Belarus and the Vilnius region identify themselves as Poles.
Following the process of russification in the Russian Empire and the USSR nowadays the majority of Belarusians in Belarus are able to speak Russian and often use it as their day-to-day language (especially in Minsk and other large cities).

Location



Belarusians also form minorities in neighboring Poland (especially in the former Belastok Voblast of BSSR), Russia and Lithuania. At the begin of 20th century Belarusians constituted a majority in the regions around Vilnia and Smolensk.
Noticeable numbers have immigrated to the United States, Brazil and Canada in the early 20th century. During Soviet times, many Belarusians were deported or migrated to various regions of the USSR, including Siberia, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine.
Since the breakup of the USSR several hundred thousand have immigrated to the European Union, United States, Canada and Russia.


Name




The name Belarus derives from the term White Rus, which first appeared in German and Latin medieval literature. The Latin term for the area was Alba Ruthenia. Historically, the country was referred to in English as White Ruthenia. It is also claimed by some people that the describes the area of Eastern Europe populated by Slavic people or the states that occupied the area. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the late-16th century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, Russian tsars used White Rus', asserting that they were trying to recapture their heritage from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Belarus was named Belorussia in the days of Imperial Russia, and the Russian tsar was usually styled Tsar of All the Russias—Great, Little, and White. Belorussia was the only Russian language name of the country (its names in other languages such as English being based on the Russian form) until 1991, when the Supreme Soviet of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic decreed by law that the new independent republic should be called Belarus in Russian and in all other language transcriptions of its name. The change was made to reflect adequately the Belarusian language form of the name. Accordingly, the name Belorussia was replaced by Belarus in English, and, to some extent, in Russian.

Belarus



Various directories for businessmen and tourists describe Belarus in a modest  and simple manner: a state in the center of Europe in the west of the East-European plain in the basin of the upper reaches of the Dnieper and the Neman and the middle part of the Zapadnaya Dvina  and the Western Boog, middle and low parts of the Pripyat. These above are the major rivers flowing across Belarus, whereas all in there are 20 thousand of them.
   Belarus is also often called  the land of lakes. Most of them there are small but deep, as a rule. The real pearl of the Belarusian nature is the Lake Naroch.
   Belarus’ terrain is chiefly plain. Its territory is forest-covered. According to the statistics 28 species of trees and 80 species of shrubs grow here.
   The pride of the Republic are its wildlife reserves and national parks, the biggest and the most widely known being th Belovezhskaya Puscha national park, the Berezina biospheric and the Pripyat water and terrain reserves.
   The state border which is almost 3 thousand km long is free from natural obstacles and runs practically everywhere on flat country. To cross the Republic from north to south one has to cover 560 km, from west to east – 650 km. in the north-west it has a common border with Lithuania, in the north – with Latvia, in the north-east and east – with Russia , in the south – with the Ukraine and in the west – with Poland.
   The country’s total territory is about 2 million 7 thousand sq. km. according to the 2001 census, the country’s population was 99,9 mln people, out of whom 70,2% lived in town and 29,8% - in the country.
   Administratively, Belarus is divided into 6 provinces – the Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Gridno, Mogilev and Minsk provinces, and 118 districts. There are 102 towns, 111 town-type settlements and over 24 thousand large and small villages in the country. The capital of Belarus is Minsk.
   The country’s state languages are Belarusian and Russian.
   Members of the Orthodox Church are the majority in the country, though other types of Christianity – Catholicism and Protestantism – are well represented too.
   Belarus is one of the founders of the United Nations Organization and has its state emblem, flag and anthem. 

International Activities



   The Republic of Belarus is a sovereign participant in international relations, an entity of international law. The country has established diplomatic relations with 125 countries of the world. There are 28 embassies of foreign states, 6 consular offices, 3 honorable consuls and 7 missions of international organizations in the Republic.
   Belarus is one of the founder-states of the United Nations Organization. The Republic is a member of various specialized bodies in the UN system and other international organizations, such as the UNESCO, the IAEA, the World Health Organization and others.
   With the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States the country’s foreign policy received a new impetus. It actively contributes to the work of all CIS bodies.
   Belarus’ foreign policy is versatile and well balanced as regards its relations with the world community.
   Belarus seeks fruitful cooperation with all countries, encourages consolidation of the security system in Europe, stands for peace on the planet and for the development of good-neighborhood and friendship relations between nations.