Belarus - Polyglot Network 7 363 members

WELCOME TO  BELARUS!

Belarus is a small beautiful country with the heroic past. It is situated in Central Europe. It has an area of 207,600 square kilometers and the population of more than 10 million. The largest cities are Minsk, which is the capital, Gomel, Mogilev, Brest, Grodno and Vitebsk.

The climate in Belarus is moderately continental. The breathing of the Baltic Sea is constantly felt here. Most of Belarus is a flat country. More than a quarter of its area is covered with the forests and bushes. The large forests are called "puschas". The greatest of them is “Beloviezskaya Puscha”, which is a state preserve. It is well known by its rare animals - aurochs. There are nearly 10000 lakes and 20000 rivers in Belarus. The largest lake is Naroch also called Belarussian Sea. The Belarussian rivers are slow with almost no rapids.

Belarus has four World Heritage Sites: the Mir Castle Complex, the Nesvizh Castle, the Belovezhskaya Pushcha (shared with Poland), and the Struve Geodetic Arc (shared with nine other countries)

Belarus has historically leaned to different religions, mostly Orthodox, Catholicism (mostly in western regions), different denominations of Protestantism.

Belarusian cuisine consists mainly of vegetables, meat, and breads. Foods are usually either slowly cooked or stewed. A typical Belarusian eats a very light breakfast and two hearty meals, with dinner being the largest meal of the day. Wheat and rye breads are consumed in Belarust. To show hospitality, a host traditionally presents an offering of bread and salt when greeting a guest or visitor. Popular drinks in Belarus include Russian wheat vodka and kvass, a soft drink made from malted brown bread or rye flour. Kvass may also be combined with sliced vegetables to create a cold soup called okroshka. One of the traditional cuisines of Belarus is well-known “Draniki” (Potato pancakes).

The beauty of the Belarussian nature, the past and the present of the Belarussian people have been celebrated in song and verse by the Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas - the classics of Belarussian poetry and by many present-day poets and writers, artists and composers of Belarus.

Come and see our beautiful country!

For more information see, please: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus