Belarus

B

Agriculture

Collective and state farms established during the Soviet period remain the dominant forms of agricultural production in Belarus. The principal crops are potatoes, grains (especially barley and rye), and sugar beets. Cultivated land accounts for 26 percent of the country’s land use. The 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl’ nuclear power station in Ukraine contaminated much of the soil in southern Belarus, reducing the country’s total area of arable land by more than 10 percent.

C

Forestry

Although Belarus possesses valuable stands of forest, the forestry industry is underdeveloped, with forest and woodland contributing a negligible amount of the country’s land use. The timber-producing areas and most sawmills are located in the Minsk, Brest, and Homyel’ regions. Forestry products include furniture and plywood.

D

Services

During the Soviet period, the service industry employed only about 5 percent of the workforce. This sector of the economy remains largely underdeveloped. State-owned stores offering relatively low-quality goods predominate, although new supermarkets are opening at an increasing rate. Private stores are limited mainly to small kiosks, or free-standing merchandise booths, on the sidewalks. The number of restaurants in the major cities has risen markedly only in Minsk. The first McDonald’s fast-food restaurant opened in Minsk in December 1996, but investment by Western firms has generally been limited.

E

Energy

Belarus generates only about 12 percent of its own energy needs. It is heavily reliant on oil and gas supplies from Russia. These fuel imports reach Belarus via two major pipelines: the Friendship Pipeline carrying oil, and the Natural Lights Pipeline carrying natural gas. The price of these resources has risen considerably since 1991, and Belarus has carried a debt to the Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom, despite reducing its import quantity by about half. The country has two oil refineries, at Mazyr and Polatsk.

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F

Transportation and Communications

Belarus has an extensive road and rail network with some 5,498 km (3,416 mi) of railroads and 93,055 km (57,822 mi) of roads. The system is geared primarily to former Soviet republics and Eastern European countries. The major railroad, which was built in the 1860s to connect Moscow and Warsaw, runs through Belarus via Minsk and Brest. The best-quality road in Belarus is that which links Moscow with Warsaw.

Belarus has four international airports, the largest of which is Minsk-2, located about 50 km (about 30 mi) east of Minsk. Although Minsk-2 serves airlines from Germany, Austria, Poland, Scandinavia, and other countries, the airport operates well below capacity. Belarus derived a national airline, Belavia, from the former Soviet Aeroflot planes it inherited when the USSR was dissolved.

The state owns and operates all principal daily newspapers and the National State Television and Radio Company, as well as nearly all the country’s printing and broadcasting facilities. Since taking office in 1994, the president of Belarus has replaced editors of several state-owned newspapers with his own appointees and placed the legislature’s newspaper under the control of the executive branch. In 1996 the government restricted freedom of the press in an attempt to stifle political opposition. Though some small independent weekly newspapers still publish in Minsk, all of the large dailies are organs of the Council of Ministers and reflect the views of that government body.