Minsk

Minsk (in Belorusse: Мінск, in Russian: Минск ) is the Capitale of the Republic of Bielorussia. It counts approximately 1,7 million inhabitants, on the 10 million which populates the country. The town of Minsk is located in the central part of the Bielorussia, in the basin of the Dniepr, on the river Svislotche. Minsk is with 690  km of Moscow and with 2  300  km of Paris (53°55' NR 27°33' E).

History

The exact date of foundation of Minsk is unknown but the name is mentioned for the first time in 1067. In 1326, the city is conquered by the Grand-Duché of Lithuania. Starting from 1569, the city becomes capital of Voïvodie de Minsk in the Republic of the Two-Nations (name of the union between Poland and Lithuania). Minsk is annexed by the Russia in 1793 at the time of the second division of the Poland. Of 1919 with 1991, Minsk is the capital of the Soviet socialist République of Bielorussia.

The city was destroyed mainly during the bombardments Nazis during the Second world war. During the German invasion of the the USSR in 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), Minsk was found in first line; the city was bombarded by the Nazis as of the first day of the war and catch four days later. Minsk became the administrative center of the Reichskomissariat Ostland and its Jewish population undergoes a very hard repression. A Jewish ghetto of 100  000 people was created in Minsk. The city was taken again by the Soviets the July 3rd 1944. At the end of the war, close to 80  % of the city was in ruins. It was rebuilt in the Soviet style.

Nowadays, Minsk is a large metropolis equipped with a typical architecture of the communist time, but also of contemporary buildings since the end of the Soviet mode, like the National library of Bielorussia, 2006.

Lee Harvey Oswald resided, worked and met his wife with Minsk before being implied in the assassination of the US president John F. Kennedy.

Tourist sites

  • Museum of the patriotic Great War (1940-1945). One finds there inter alia a wreck of a French plane of the flotilla Normandy-Niemen.

Personalities

  • Mendele-Mokher-Sefarim, Russian writer of Hebraic language and Yiddish (Minsk 1836 - Odessa 1917).

Random links:Canadian alliance | Odette Babandoa Etoa | Laguna de Cotacotani | Google Catalogs | Valerie Karsenti