20 Sep 2007
Belarusian Emoticons
On the 19th of September many Internet geeks were celebrating the Birthday of the first emoticon :-) created by Professor Scott Fallman in 1982. In Belarus this date coincides with the adoption of the new state symbols of independent Belarus in 1991 which once changed the soviet national symbols. While serious established newspapers and online resources were writing historical articles about the origin of the state symbols and young people were congratulating each other with the Day of a Smiley, generation.by team connected all in one. We presented to BY-net a new set of adopted Belarusian smileys – 15 funny emoticons with red-white-red flags which became a hit in the BY-net this autumn. 
One of the most popular is the smiley with a red-white-red flag on the top of the bus #100 which also reminds of the young man who was carrying the national flag on the top of the bus during the spring protests in Minsk in spring 2006. 
The best thing about the smileys is that they changed the mood of the day. In stead of sad remembering about the time when these symbols, wearing which is forbidden in Belarus now, were changed back to the soviet flag and emblem after the referendum in 1996, people were more positive about the smileys and the symbols themselves.
You can find all of the emoticons here