BELARUS

Belarus is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe which borders Russia to the east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk - other major cities include Gomel, Mogilev, Brest, Vitebsk and Bobruisk. One third of the country is forested, and agriculture and manufacturing are pillars of the economy. Belarus is a country with a unique history and a rich cultural heritage, which is carefully protected in the Heart of Europe.

Belarus. That means “White Russia”, a tender and poetic name that benefits this country in the best way. White means clean, clear and innocent in our days as well as main and western in 12–18th centuries. Bright colours of the Mediterranean region are not characteristic for Belarus. It does not have the stunning exoticism of Africa or delicate slyness of the East either. Belarus is the country of modest and, one may even say, intelligent beauty. Its quiet charm penetrates into a traveler’s soul gradually, through a soft play of the morning sky over the vague horizon line, through the velvet verdure of the vast expanses of the fields and through the overpowering balmy air of a century-old pine-
forest.

Perhaps, this is one of the few remaining places on our planet where one can see the amazing miracle — the miracle of the untouched nature. It is surprising that right here, in the very centre of Europe time seems to have considerably slowed down its run — the 21st century is raging around, the civilization is progressing with long strides, yet in Belarus nature remains real, people remain human and values remain eternal. Belarus is an island of calmness in the swirl of seething time, a place of wise harmony of the body and soul.

First mentioned in the Medieval Chronicles under the year of 1067, Minsk, the capital of Belarus and its geographical heart, has a population of 1.7 million. The city is situated in a picturesque place on the banks of the Svisloch River which in old days used to be one of the busiest trade routes connecting the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.

Minsk is the crossroad of the most popular European tours. It is connected by highways, railroads, and airlines with all the European capitals and with principal cities of Asia, Middle East, and North America as well.

Foreign visitors are attracted to this city by its surprisingly clean, beautiful, calm, optimistic and hospitable atmosphere just to see with their own eyes life, history, culture and traditions of the Belarusian people.

The slipping-away beauty of Belarus does not expose itself to everyone; for this you have to stop and feel the surrounding world: keep looking into the blue eyes of Belarus, its deep lakes until you feel dizzy, put down your hands into icy waters of a ringing brook, hide from a warm rain under a shaggy branch of a spruce…

Belarus is the country which one could not help falling in love with!