Minsk

Although prices in Belarus are as high as in any European country, salaries are very low. The average monthly income is around USD 200, but people still manage to buy food, flats and smart phones. How is it possible to make ends meet with such a low income? 

According to the State Statistics Committee Belstat, between January and October 2011 the average monthly salary in...

Last week, leading Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva announced that in Minsk there will be signposts put up in English and in Russian. This reveals several facts about contemporary Minsk. There are no signposts in English. Putting them up is so extraordinary that they publish an article about it.

You Better Read Cyrillic

If you have traveled around Minsk...

Last Saturday's Narodny Skhod (the People's Assembly) had been long planned as a major protest event in Belarus. Authorities warned and intimidated its organizers and prospective participants in all regions of the country well in advance. As a result of this pressure and adverse weather conditions, only around one thousand people appeared in Minsk and several hundred in other regions...

Yesterday Belarus security services detained over 100 participants of the "Revolution through Social Networks".  Authorities undertake unprecedented measures to prevent the actions relying on men in plain clothes and transporting detainees in vehicles without any license plates.  Many are severely beaten by the security service agents. The number of detainees and...

The headlines of stories about the US Congress like the one above are among the few opportunities for the words “Belarus” and “democracy” to stand next to each other. Last week, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee approved yet another piece of legislation on Belarus — “The Belarus Democracy and Human Rights Act of 2011” sponsored by Representative...

The worst nightmare of the Belarusian regime is a serious confrontation with Russia and the West at the same time if both parties agreed to the removal of Lukashenka. Of course, this scenario is hard to imagine but it is equally difficult to imagine such change without coordination between these stakeholders. The internal opposition is nearly crushed in Belarus but public dissatisfaction with...

Yesterday Belarus authorities announced criminal charges against former presidential candidates. Also charged are their aides and journalists – eighteen people in total. These people are already kept in a special KGB prison and are likely to be used as hostages in the future diplomatic war with the West.

The criminal charges followed violent suppression of tens of thousands who...

On December 19, members of the Belarusan-American Association monitoring the results of the presidential election in Belarus had adopted the following statement:

· We, the members of the Belarusan-American Association, both American citizens as well as new immigrants, express our concern with yet another election in Belarus, that was neither free nor fair.

·...