Flight to Minsk

Minsk

About Minsk

Minsk (Belarusian: IPA: [m?insk]; Russian: ; IPA: [mi?sk]), is the capital and largest city in Belarus, situated on the Svislach and Niamiha rivers. Minsk is also a headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). As the national capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is also the administrative centre of Minsk voblast (province) and Minsk raion. It has a population of 1,814,700 inhabitants (2007).

The earliest references to Minsk date to the 11th century (1067). In 1242, Minsk became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and it received its town privileges in 1499. From 1569, it was a capital of the Minsk Voivodship in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was annexed by Russia in 1793, as a consequence of the Second Partition of Poland. From 1919-1991, Minsk was the capital of the Byelorussian SSR.

Geography and climate

Minsk is located on the southeastern slope of the Minsk Hills, a region of rolling hills running from the southwest (upper reaches of the river Nioman) to the northeast - that is, to the Lukomskaye lake in northwestern Belarus. The average altitude above sea level is 220 m. The geography of Minsk was formed during the two most recent Ice Ages. The Svislach river, which flows across the city from the northwest to the southeast, is located in the urstrohmtal, an ancient river valley formed by water flowing from melting ice sheets at the end of the last Ice Age. Minsk was initially founded on the hills. However, in the 20th century, it grew to include the relatively flat plains in the southeast. The western parts of the city are the most hilly.

Minsk is located in the area of mixed forests typical for most of Belarus. Pinewood and mixed forests are still present at the edge of the city, especially in the north and east. Some of the forests were transformed into parks (for instance, the Chelyuskinites Park) as the city grew.

Minsk has a warm summer humid continental climate (Koppen Dfb), owing to its location between the strong influence of the moist air of the Atlantic Ocean and the dry air of the Eurasian landmass. Its weather is, however, unstable and tends to change often. The average January temperature is -6.1 Celsius (21 °F), while the average July temperature is 17.8 °C (64 °F). The lowest temperature was recorded on 17 January, 1940 (-40 °C) (-40 °F) and the warmest on 29 July, 1936 (35 °C) (95 °F). The air is often moist, with humidity levels at 80-90%,[citation needed] especially during the cold season. There are on average 135 humid days a year, compared with only 6 dry days.[citation needed] This results in frequent fogs, common in the autumn and spring. Minsk receives annual precipitation of 646 mm (25.4 in), of which one third falls during the cold period (as snow and rain) and two thirds in the warm period. Throughout the year, most winds are westerly and northwesterly, bringing cool and moist air from the Atlantic.

History

The area of today's Minsk was settled by the Early East Slavs by the 9th century. The Svislach River valley was the settlement boundary between two Early East Slavs tribes - the Krivichs and Dregovichs. By 980, the area was incorporated into the early medieval Principality of Polatsk, one of the earliest East Slav states. Minsk was first mentioned in the name form M?nesk? (?) in the Primary Chronicle for the year 1067. 1067 is now widely accepted as the founding year of Minsk. City authorities consider the date of September 2, 1067, to be the exact founding date of the city, though the town (by then fortified by wooden walls) had certainly existed for some time by then.

In the early 12th century, the Principality of Polatsk disintegrated into smaller fiefs. The Principality of Minsk was established by one of the Polatsk dynasty princes. In 1129, the Principality of Minsk was annexed by Kiev, the dominant principality of Kievan Rus; however in 1146 the Polatsk dynasty regained control of the principality. By 1150, Minsk rivaled Polatsk as the major city in the former Principality of Polatsk. The princes of Minsk and Polatsk were engaged in years of struggle trying to unite all lands previously under the rule of Polatsk.

Minsk escaped the Mongol invasion of Rus in 1237-1239. However, in later years it was attacked by nomadic invaders from the Golden Horde, who turned many principalities of disintegrated Kievan Rus into their vassal states. Trying to avoid the Tatar yoke, the Principality of Minsk sought protection from Lithuania from various northern princes, who had been consolidating their power in the region. In 1242, Minsk became a part of the expanding Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was joined peacefully and local elites enjoyed high rank in the society of the Grand Duchy. In 1413, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Kingdom of Poland entered into a union. Minsk became the centre of Minsk Voivodship (province). In 1441, the Lithuanian prince Kazimierz IV Jagiellon included Minsk in a list of cities enjoying certain privileges, and in 1499, during the reign of his son, Aleksander Jagiellon, Minsk received town privileges under Magdeburg law. In 1569, after the Union of Lublin, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland merged into a single state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Afterwards, a Polish community including government clerks, officers, and craftsmen settled in Minsk.

By the middle of the 16th century, Minsk was an important economic and cultural centre in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was also an important centre for the Eastern Orthodox Church. Following the Union of Brest, both the Uniate church and the Roman Catholic Church increased in influence.

In 1654, Minsk was conquered by troops of Tsar Alexei of Russia. Russians governed the city until 1667, when it was regained by Jan Kasimir, King of Poland. By the end of the Polish-Russian war, Minsk had only about 2,000 residents and just 300 houses. The second wave of devastation occurred during the Great Northern War, when Minsk was occupied in 1708 and 1709 by the Swedish army of Charles XII and then by the Russian army of Peter the Great. The last decades of the Polish rule involved decline or very slow development, since Minsk had become a small provincial town of little economic or military significance. By 1790, however, it had a population of 6,500-7,000 and was slowly re-expanding to the city limits of 1654. Most of the Minsk residents at the time were Jews and Poles, with a minority of Belarusians.

Minsk was annexed by Russia in 1793 as a consequence of the Second Partition of Poland. In 1796, it became the centre of the Minsk guberniya (province). All of the Polish street names were replaced by Russian, though the spelling of the city's name remained unchanged.

Throughout the 19th century, the city continued to grow and significantly improve. In the 1830s, major streets and squares of Minsk were cobbled and paved. A first public library was opened in 1836, and a fire brigade was put into operation in 1837. In 1838, the first local newspaper, Minskiye gubernskiye vedomosti (« Minsk province news ») went into circulation. The first theatre was established in 1844. By 1860, Minsk was an important trading city with a population of 27,000. There was a construction boom that led to the building of 2 and 3-story brick and stone houses in Upper Town.

Minsk's development was boosted by improvements in transportation. In 1846, the Moscow-Warsaw road was laid though Minsk. In 1871, a railway link between Moscow and Warsaw ran via Minsk, and in 1873, a new railway from Romny in Ukraine to the Baltic Sea port of Libava (Liepaja) was also constructed. Thus Minsk became an important rail junction and a manufacturing hub. A municipal water supply was introduced in 1872, the telephone in 1890, the horse tram in 1892, and the first power generator in 1894. By 1900, Minsk had 58 factories employing 3,000 workers. The city also boasted theatres, cinemas, newspapers, schools and colleges, as well as numerous monasteries, churches, synagogues, and a mosque. According to the 1897 Russian census, the city had 91,494 inhabitants, with some 47,561 Jews constituting more than half of the city population.

In the early years of the 20th century, Minsk was a major centre for the worker's movement in Belarus. The 1st Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, the forerunner to the Bolshevik and eventually the CPSU, was held there in 1898. It was also one of the major centres of the Belarusian national revival, alongside Vilnia. However, the First World War affected the development of Minsk tremendously. By 1915, Minsk was a battle-front city. Some factories were closed down, and residents began evacuating to the east. Minsk became the headquarters of the Western Front of the Russian army and also housed military hospitals and military supply bases.

Belarus

About Belarus

Belarus (IPA: /'b?l?ru?s/) (Belarusian and Russian: , transliteration: Byelarus', Polish: Bia?oru? listen (help·info) is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, that borders Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno, Gomel, Mogilev, Vitebsk and Bobruisk. A third of the country is forested, and agriculture and manufacturing are its strongest economic sectors.

Until the 20th century, the Belarusians lacked the opportunity to evolve a distinctive national identity, since the lands of modern-day Belarus belonged to several countries, including the Duchy of Polatsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. After the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic (1918-19), Belarus became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Byelorussian SSR.

The final unification of Belarusian lands within its modern borders took place in 1939, when the ethnically Belarusian lands that were part of interwar Poland were annexed by the USSR and attached to the Soviet Belarus. The territory and its nation were devastated in World War II, during which Belarus lost about a quarter of its population and more than half of its economic resources; the republic recovered in the post-war years and became one of the founding members of the United Nations. The parliament of the republic declared the sovereignty of Belarus on July 27, 1990, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Belarus declared independence on August 25, 1991. Alexander Lukashenko has been the country's president since 1994. During his presidency, Lukashenko has implemented Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of the economy, despite objections from Western governments. Since 1996, Belarus has been negotiating with Russia to unify into a single state called the Union of Russia and Belarus.

Most of Belarus's population of 9.85 million reside in the urban areas surrounding Minsk and other oblast (regional) capitals. More than 80% of the population are native Belarusians, with sizable minorities of Russians, Ukrainians and Poles. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages: Belarusian and Russian. The Constitution of Belarus does not declare an official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Russian Orthodox.

Etymology

The name Belarus derives from the term White Russia, which first appeared in German and Latin medieval literature. The Latin term for the area was Russia Alba. Historically, the country was referred to in English as White Russia. It is also claimed by some people that the correct translation is White Ruthenia (White Rus phonetically), which either describes the area of Eastern Europe populated by Slavic people or the states that occupied the area. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the late-16th century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, Russian tsars used White Rus', asserting that they were trying to recapture their heritage from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Belarus was named Belorussia (Russian: ?) in the days of Imperial Russia, and the Russian tsar was usually styled Czar of All the Russias »”Great, Little, and White. Belorussia was the only Russian language name of the country (its names in other languages such as English being based on the Russian form) until 1991, when the Supreme Soviet of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic decreed by law that the new independent republic should be called Belarus () in Russian and in all other language transcriptions of its name. The change was made to reflect adequately the Belarusian language form of the name. Accordingly, the name Belorussia was replaced by Belarus in English, and, to some extent, in Russian (although the traditional name still persists in that language as well); likewise, the adjective Belorussian or Byelorussian was replaced by Belarusian in English (though Russian has not developed a new adjective). Some Belarusians object to the name Belorussia as an unwelcome reminder of the days under Russian and Soviet rule. However, most residents of the country do not mind it being called Byelorussiya in Russian (which is, actually, the most widely spoken language there) - it is evidenced by the fact that several popular newspapers published locally still retain the traditional name of the country in Russian in their names (e.g. Komsomolskaya Pravda v Byelorussii, which is the localised publication of a popular Russian tabloid, and Sovetskaya Byelorussiya). Officially, the full name of the country is Republic of Belarus (? , ? , Respublika Byelarus'). listen (help·info)

History

The area of modern-day Belarus was first settled by Slavic tribes in the 6th century. They gradually came into contact with the Varangians, a band of warriors consisting of Scandinavians and Slavs from the Baltics. Though defeated and briefly exiled by the local population, the Varangians were later asked to return and helped to form a polity »”commonly referred to as the Kievan Rus' »”in exchange for tribute. The Kievan Rus' state began in about 862 at the present-day city of Novgorod.

Upon the death of Kievan Rus' ruler, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, the state split into independent principalities. These Ruthenian principalities were badly affected by a Mongol invasion in the 13th century, and many were later incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Of all the principalities held by the Duchy, nine were settled by ancestors of the Belarusian people. During this time, the Duchy was involved in several military campaigns, including fighting on the side of Poland against the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. The joint victory allowed the Duchy to control the northwestern border lands of Eastern Europe.

On February 2, 1386, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland were joined in a personal union through a marriage of their rulers. This union set in motion the developments that eventually resulted in the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569. The Russians, led by Tsar Ivan the III, began military conquests in 1486 in an attempt to gain the Kievan Rus' lands, specifically Belarus and Ukraine. The union between Poland and Lithuania ended in 1795, and the commonwealth was partitioned by Imperial Russia, Prussia, and Austria, dividing Belarus. Belarusian territories were acquired by the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine II and held until their occupation by Germany during World War I.

During the negotiations of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Belarus first declared independence on 25 March 1918, forming the Belarusian People's Republic. The Germans supported the BPR, which lasted for about 10 months. Soon after the Germans were defeated, the BPR fell under the influence of the Bolsheviks and the Red Army and became the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1919. After Russian occupation of eastern and northern Lithuania, it was merged into the Lithuanian-Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Byelorussian lands were then split between Poland and the Soviets after the Polish-Soviet War ended in 1921, and the recreated Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922.