Last week, Belarusian officials made an unprecedented series of statements in support of Belarusian language and culture. One after another, the President, information and education ministers and the Chairman of Constitutional Court spoke up on the issue at prominent...
On 9 January the Economic Court of Minsk charged the Lohvinaŭ book store with unauthorised book sales and ordered the confiscation of its whole year’s profit. This is perhaps the largest fine ever received by civil society in Belarus. Until...
In Soviet times, machine building was a driver of economic growth in Belarus. It is not so today. According to the Ministry of Finance, the Belarusian Automobile Plant, the Minsk Automobile Plant and the Minsk Tractor Plant lost $76m over...
The first signs of private enterprise - kiosks at street corners- sprung up in Belarus in 1991 as soon as the country declared independence from the Soviet Union. These kiosks initially sold imported cigarettes, chocolate, coffee, tea, and cheap...
Belarusians are really beginning to worry about their domestic state of economic affairs more than Ukraine as of late. This is the main result of a December 2014 poll from the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS) published in early...
On 27 December, Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka appointed Alyaksandr Kosinets as the head of the Presidential Administration. In less than a decade, Kosinets rose from the position of dean of a provincial university to one of the top offices in...
Starting 1 January 2015, Belarusians can no longer use e-money services with operations based inside the country. A presidential decree signed on 28 December requires all domestic e-money service account holders to provide...
The EUobserver reported last week that Belarus might start talks over a visa-free regime with the EU, citing senior officials from the Latvian EU presidency. Many Belarusians reacted to this statement with expressions of surprise, satisfaction and hope,...
Despite the worsening situation in the region and Alexander Lukashenka's bellicose rhetoric, spending on national security will not see an increase in 2015. Even common threats have failed to unite post-Soviet countries: leaders of CSTO countries more often than...
The iconographic prepared by Pact compares Belarus to its neighbours in various international ratings. Compared to Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, Belarus scores very low on various freedoms, including press and Internet freedoms. When it comes to human...
Belarus remains a blank spot on the map for many foreigners. A mere 137,000 tourists visited the country in 2013—twenty-one times fewer than the number who visited tiny Estonia. Onerous visa requirements, combined with an underdeveloped service industry, undermine the...
Belarusian Orthodox circles call it the beginning of a new era, as Metropolitan Pavel, its new leader who recently moved from Russia to Belarus, stated he would ask the Moscow Patriarchate to grant the Belarusian Orthodox Church self-governing status. Currently, the...
Network of gas stations switches service to Belarusian language thanks to MovaNanova. ODB publishes 2014 annual report. Belarus Research Council announces call for concept papers for policy-oriented original research. CSOs contribute to government discussion of 2030 Concept of...
Since the end of the 2000s, Belarus has become a destination for many hunt lovers from abroad. 40% of Belarus is covered with woods, which remain a natural habitat for many species of animals. Today, booking a hunting expedition...
