Minsk

Minsk is the capital of Belarus, on the Svislach River in the center of the country. Independence Avenue, its main street, is lined with neoclassical buildings of the postwar years and has been put forward for the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Minsk was first named in a chronicle in 1067. It belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and it received Magdeburg rights of self-government in 1499. The Russian Empire took the city at the end of the 18th century, and the railways of the 19th century made it a junction between Moscow and Warsaw. It became the capital of the Belarusian Soviet Republic in the early 20th century and was rebuilt to a new plan after the Second World War. Minsk became the capital of independent Belarus in the 1990s.

The Minsk Tractor Works builds the Belarus tractors sold in many countries, and MAZ makes trucks and buses at its plant in the city. Atlant makes refrigerators and washing machines, and the Kommunarka factory makes chocolates and sweets.

The National Library of Belarus is a glass building in the shape of a rhombicuboctahedron, lit at night with colored lights. The Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus, set in a park near the river, stages opera and ballet in a building from the 1930s. The Trinity Suburb, a quarter of rebuilt 19th-century houses on the riverbank, keeps cafes, shops and small museums. The Holy Spirit Cathedral, a white Baroque church on a hill above the old town, is the main Orthodox church of the city.