Companies from Nottingham to erect a residential complex near Minsk
An interesting example of Belarusian-British cooperation. Minsk authorities largely develop the city via construction of Socialist-styled flat-blocks.
Surrounding villages that get incorporated into the city are gradually being destroyed and replaced with the same depressive flat blocks.
It would be good if they would find some replacement for Soviet architecture. The story appeared on www.thisisnottingham.co.uk:
IT COULD be one of the biggest residential projects that Nottingham has ever seen, with homes for 20,000 people and all the shops, offices and hotels that go with it. But the city won't notice any difference even if this giant, up-market, 700-acre project goes ahead. That's because Residential Complex Nottingham is more than 1,100 miles away on the outskirts of Minsk, the capital of Belarus, the former Russian state which borders Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and Russia. Since the 1960s, Minsk has been twinned with Nottingham, a link which saw the Ambassador of Belarus come to Nottingham earlier this year to see whether the city might help with the new project. Artist's impressions of this £500m scheme feature buildings which might look at home in the original Nottingham.
read full story The project was presented in Minsk earlier this year. Read more at the developer's site.
Belarus Looking for Oil in Latin America
The Venezuelan oil and energy minister announced a new Belarus-Venezuela oil project the Orinoco River Basin.
Belarus and Venezuela have agreed to invest $8 billion in joint development and production in that area. Belarus depends heavily on Russia, which provides most of supplies as well as crude oil for large refineries in Navapolatsk and Mazyr. The desire of Belarus authorities to diversify its energy supplies is understandable and plausible. However, the economic sense of getting oil supplies to North-Eastern Europe from South America, 10 000 kilometers away is doubtful.
Apparently, the political component of such projects dominates over economic reason. Given the U.S. sanctions against Belneftekhim, the largest state-run group of oil companies in Belarus and Russia’s increasing unwillingness to subsidize the Belarusian economy Minsk is forced to look for friends on the other side of the globe.
Read more about the new Belarus-Venezuela joint venture at Rian.ru. A more detailed article about the joint venture appeared in Novaya Gazeta in Russian.
