One of the biggest problems of modern Belarus is the lack of national identity. And indeed, the first form that an identity takes is the name, and that is exactly the reason why dozens of stubborn Belarusians keep sending official emails and letters of clarification to foreign news agencies and newspapers, asking them to refer to our country as to “Belarus” and not Byelorussia, or Weissrussland or any other forms of White Russia, and to use adjective “Belarusian” instead of “B(y)elOrusSian”. If you came to this blog, you might know that Belarus is a separate country, but I met a frightening number of educated people abroad who asked me if Belarus is a region of Russia. At the end of the day, you don’t expect Belorussia be that different from Russia. But the truth is that it is!
To me as a person it is completely clear why some people can find it strange. After all in Belarusian we also translate the names of most of the countries. However, when many of the so called strong democracies speak of solidarity with troubled nations like Belarusians, it is natural to expect them to call us the way we find more appropriate, especially when there are strong political grounds for that. So, as the only acceptable excuse is that people just don’t know, I will try to clarify the background of this issue further in this posting. Continue reading…
As it was mentioned in the very beginning the aim of this blog is to open the life in Belarus for people outside. Of course, the best way to do it is not just to read blogs but to go and see it. And this is what the hero of the following interview did. Massimiliano Clausi, a young Italian photo-journalist, went for a two-weeks trip to Belarus to see how the young people of the so-called “last dictatorship in Europe” live. Below you can read about his impressions from staying in Belarus and if the stereotypes regarding Belarus, that he built from the news and friends, turned out to be true. The interview was made during the last days of Massimiliano in Belarus by Vola Vitushka.
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Since the Referendum in 1996, the 3rd of July is the official Independence Day of Belarus. Even though “independence day” by default should call on the patriotic feelings of all Belarusians and especially those representing the national democratic block, so many pro-democratic young people detest this date and the way the state organizes the “celebrations” to commemorate it. There are a number of reasons for that. Continue reading…
April started with an unusual exhibition in Minsk called “DEPRESS and Arrhythmia“. It was a collection of drawings and graphics from Ihar Varashkevich, a blues-musician from the band Krama who also paints, and Nika Sandros, a painter who makes pictures of songs. The exhibition was a truly unusual event in the Belarusian art scene and made many people talk about it, especially if we take into account how rare we hear about modern art of Belarus.
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This year’s proposal by the Ministry of Education regarding the entrance procedure to some faculties (journalism, law, international relations and customs law) caused different reactions from applicants and their parents. Excited and uncertain for not having any information about how the interview was to be conducted, thousands of future applicants went to the appointed universities last weekend. The first round of the “professional-psychological interviews” which are to decide who can enter the University or not, were held on April 5th and 6th. Generation.by suggested Franak Viachorka, a student who was recently expelled from the Faculty of Journalism at the Belarusian State University (BSU) to attend the interview. As a potential applicant he had the opportunity to see how the people who once accepted him to University and gave him excellent grades would evaluate him now, taking into account the political background of his recent expulsion.
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