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Portal:Belarus

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Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) with a population of 9.1 million. The country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city; it is administered separately as a city with special status.

For most of the medieval period, the lands of modern-day Belarus was ruled by independent city-states such as the Principality of Polotsk. Around 1300 these lands came fully under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and subsequently by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; this period lasted for 500 years until the 1792-1795 partitions of Poland-Lithuania placed Belarus within the Russian Empire for the first time. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917, different states arose competing for legitimacy amid the Civil War, ultimately ending in the rise of the Byelorussian SSR, which became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. After the Polish-Soviet War (1918–1921), Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland. Much of the borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939, when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were reintegrated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland, and were finalized after World War II. During World War II, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a quarter of its population and half of its economic resources. In 1945, the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union. The republic was home to a widespread and diverse anti-Nazi insurgent movement which dominated politics until well into the 1970s, overseeing Belarus's transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy.

The parliament of the republic proclaimed the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990, and during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus gained independence on 25 August 1991. Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko was elected Belarus's first president in the country's first and only free election after independence, serving as president ever since. Lukashenko heads a highly centralized authoritarian government. Belarus ranks low in international measurements of freedom of the press and civil liberties. It has continued several Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. In 2000, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, forming the Union State. (Full article...)

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Fallen tree in the Białowieża Forest

Białowieża Forest is a large forest complex on the border between Poland and Belarus. It is one of the last and the largest remaining part of the immense primeval forest that once stretched across the European Plain. The forest is home to more than 800 European bison, Europe's heaviest land animal. UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme designated the Polish Biosphere Reserve as Białowieża in 1976, and the Belarusian Biosphere Reserve as Biełavieskaja pušča in 1993.

In 2015, the Belarusian Biosphere Reserve spanned 216,200 ha (2,162 km2; 835 sq mi), subdivided into transition, buffer and core zones. The forest has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an EU Natura 2000 Special Area of Conservation. The World Heritage Committee, through its decision of June 2014, approved the extension of the UNESCO World Heritage site "Belovezhskaya Pushcha / Białowieża Forest, Belarus, Poland", which became "Białowieża Forest, Belarus, Poland". It straddles the border between Podlachia historical region in Poland and Brest and Grodno Oblasts in Belarus, and is 62 kilometres (39 miles) southeast of Białystok, Poland and 70 kilometres (43 miles) north of Brest, Belarus. The Białowieża Forest World Heritage site covers a total area of 141,885 ha (1,418.85 km2; 547.82 sq mi). Since the border between the two countries runs through the forest, there is a border crossing available for hikers and cyclists. (Full article...)

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Siarhei Mikhalok (born January 19, 1972, Belarusian: Сяргей Міхалок, Russian: Серге́й Михалок, Sergey Mikhalok) is a Belarusian rock musician and actor. He was the frontman of the ska punk band Lyapis Trubetskoy that he dissolved on September 1, 2014. He was the frontman of the band Brutto, now leads Drezden.

Born into a family of a Soviet military man in Dresden, East Germany. The family was originally from Minsk. He grew up in Siberia. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated)

  • ... that the Russian and Belarusian military exercise Zapad 2013 was officially described as counterterrorist, but international observers concluded that it was a preparation for a conventional war?
  • ... that German national Rico Krieger was likely forced by the Belarusian KGB to lie in a state-televised plea titled "Confession of a German Terrorist"?
  • ... that Rufina Bazlova has used traditional embroidery to depict protests in Belarus?
  • ... that Obliskomzap People's Commissar for Public Charity V. L. Mukha resigned in protest over the dispersing of the First All-Belarusian Congress?
  • ... that there are more than 9,000 swamps in Belarus?
  • ... that the Russian and Belarussian military exercise Zapad 2009 involved nuclear-capable ballistic missiles?

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Sources

  1. ^ Kopka, D. (2011). Welcome to Belarus: Passport to Eastern Europe & Russia. Passport Series. Milliken Publishing Company. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7877-2770-3. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
  2. ^ Harshav, Benjamin. Marc Chagall and his times: a documentary narrative. Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences. Stanford University Press; 1 edition. August 2003. ISBN 0804742146.