Belarus displayed modest but stable growth during past couple of months. However, future prospects for growth remain uncertain, given the deteriorating economic situation in Russia along with the desire of the authorities to carry out several growth stimulating policies. Moreover, there are questions with respect to both the exchange rate and interest rate policy that the authorities cannot decide how to deal with the issues.
Belarus Digest with its sister project Belarus Profile is launching a new series of publications primarily devoted to changes in the Belarusian nomenclature. Every two months, Belarus Profile Digest will cover the most important recent appointments and dismissals and examine emerging trends in Belarus. In November, Lukashenka made a number of appointments which show a new trend is developing. Many of the new appointees are young and all of them were born in Belarus. Another noticeable trend can be seen in the appointment of the first vice-ministers as ministers, as happened with the ministers of finance and housing and communal services as well as the previous appointment of the Minister of Information.
On 21 November the Minsk Arena hosted the famous Ukrainian rock band Okean Elzy, who are known for their support of Euromaidan and its pro-European orientation. The musicians did not raise any political issues during the gig according to agreement with the administration, but their concert became politicised nonetheless. The next day videos appeared online in which policemen refused to allow people sporting the colours of the Ukrainian flag into the concert and even went so far as to pull a flag out of a fan’s hands inside the venue. Belarus has so far only placed a ban on the Belarusian national white-red-white flag which is considered by the authorities to be an anti-government and anti-Lukashenka symbol that is unauthorised at public gatherings.
On 6 November, President Lukashenka appointed a new mayor to the nation's capital. The appointee Andrei Shorats (41) represents a new generation of state officials. Most of his life passed in independent Belarus. He and Andrei Shved (41), chairman of the Investigative Committee, are the youngest members to climb to top ranks of the state bureaucracy. The Mayor of Minsk is always a major figure in Belarusian politics. After all, every fifth Belarusian lives in the capital and 25% of the country's jobs are concentrated in Minsk. One of the recent mayors, Uladzimir Yarmoshyn, jumped directly from the mayor's office to the office of the prime minister. The newly appointed Shorats, who has so far advanced relatively quickly in his career, may continue his rise. This rise deserves additional attention because of the liberal economic views held by Minsk's youngest mayor in recent history.
On 9 November 2014 in Pastavy - a city in the Vitebsk Region of Belarus – members of the Holy Rus' Movement distributed flyers with a call for the unification of the 'Russian World'. Many similar events and military camps now taking place for Belarusian youth near Minsk and Vitebsk and exhibit a rather disturbing trend. At camps organised by organisations such as Kazachi Spas or The Orthodox Brotherhood, soldiers and veterans instruct Belarusian youth and teenagers about the tactics employed by sabotage groups and how to handle weapons and survive. The Ukrainian 2014 revolution and subsequent events clearly triggered pro-Russian centres and groups to activate themselves.
Belarus ranks 53rd out of 142 countries in prosperity, ahead of Russia and EU member states Greece and Romania. The rankings stem from the Legatum Institute, a private think tank based in London. According to the ranking Belarus scores highest in social capital and lowest in governance. It is striking for any post-communist state to perform well on measures of prosperity and social capital -- let alone Belarus, the country sometimes referred to as Europe’s last dictatorship.
Gunnar Wiegand, the top EU official for the CIS region, visited Minsk last week to continue active dialogue on modernisation. His unexpected avoidance of Belarus' titular opposition raised concerns in their ranks about a possible shift in policy in Brussels. Belarus continues its policy of manoeuvring between Russia and the West. Senior diplomats from Belarus and Russia met in Minsk a day prior to Wiegand's visit to coordinate their respective foreign policies. Moscow has managed to secure Minsk's support in the ongoing and potential future geopolitical battles in exchange for some consular assistance.
On 10 November the General Prosecutor’s Office of Lithuania reported that a Vilnius court will try a Lithuanian citizen on espionage charges. The Lithuanian authorities claim that he cooperated with Belarusian security services. As other cases from recent years prove, Belarusian intelligence is quite interested in its immediate neighbours – Poland and Lithuania. Belarusians usually seek military intelligence and generally probe opportunities to advance Belarusian economic interest in these countries. Belarus's EU neighbours regard Belarusian intelligence as being, more or less, on par with its Russian counterpart. However, despite close ties since Soviet times and cooperation agreements, Belarusians may have a separate agenda, as Lukashenka's attempts to pursue a more independent foreign policy.
As of 17 November, the Ministry of Housing and Communal Services has a new head - Aliaksandr Cierachaŭ. However, this new appointment will unlikely fix the serious problems which the sector is facing. Housing and communal services swallows up 8% of the Belarusian budget and remains a hotbed of corruption. Over the past half year, the police have identified more than 100 crimes in this sector.
Over the past couple of years informal education has witnessed remarkable growth in Belarus. It offers Belarusians possibilities missing at the nation's over-regulated state-run universities. New grass-roots initiatives such as the European College of Liberal Arts and the Flying University are organising innovative and inspiring courses in Minsk. Although functioning within a certain limitations peculiar to Belarus, they still manage to appeal to the nation's youth. Belarus Digest interviewed representatives of the Flying University and the European College of Liberal Arts about what it is like to organise non-formal education in Belarus.
The most popular Belarus web portal TUT.BY launched a new initiative to promote the Belarusian language, MovaTUT. The law 'On alternative Service' adopted at the session in the House of Representatives on first reading Minsk districts introduce state social contracting. Local authorities will allocate subsidies to CSOs for the provision of social services and social projects. Student Week is taking place on 9-17 November in Minsk. Civil society activities
At first glance, Belarus may appear to be a Communist state thanks to its overt fondness of the Soviet Union and its soviet-red tinged state flag. In practise, however, the country has little to do with the far-left ideology. On 7 November, Belarus celebrated Revolution Day - one of only two countries in the world still officially celebrating the 1917 Russian October Revolution. A week prior, Minsk hosted the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Congress, which gathered nearly every communist of the former USSR in one place. then there is the fact that two Communist parties operate in Belarus.
Belarus and Ukraine are currently studying the economic feasibility of reviving the E40 waterway which goes along the Vistula and Dnieper rivers. It will connect the Baltic and Black Seas and make inland shipping cheaper and more environmentally friendly. On 10 October the trilateral commission presented their project on the route's restoration at the international exhibition "Transport Week - Belarus 2014" in Minsk.
Last week MoveHub.com released an infographic showing the second language spoken in countries across the globe. The infographic revealed many surprises, such as that Polish is the second language in the UK and that Turkish is the second language in Germany. There was a curiosity about Belarus, too: Belarusians’ second language is ... Belarusian! The paradox of Belarus’s linguistic identity is that most Belarusians speak Russian on a daily basis. Not unlike other post-Soviet states that broadly use Russian, Belarus has struggled with elaborating an appropriate language policy. What distinguishes Belarus from other nations, however, is that the very nature of its linguistic identity remains contested.