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Interestingly, the ceremony could be repeated several times until the couple would be officially engaged. If the engagement were broken, whoever broke the engagement would have to repay the other side for all expenses. Basic Economy.
The official currency is the rouble R also known as the zaichik divided into kopecks. Belarus is an industrial state with developed and diversified agriculture. The main industries include electric power, timber, metallurgy, chemicals and petrochemicals, pulp and paper, building materials, medical, printing, machine-building, microbiology, textiles, and food industries. The agricultural products are dairy and beef products, pork, poultry, potatoes, and flax. Agricultural production is highly industrialized and is based on the use of modern technology such as tractors, machine tools, trucks, equipment for animal husbandry and livestock feeding, and chemical fertilizers.
Agricultural lands make up more than 46 percent of Belarus's territory, and agriculture accounts for about 20 percent of the national income. State-run farms are main producers of agrarian goods.
Privately-owned farms are in the state of development. A teacher instructs students during a physical education class at their school in Minsk. The state controls child rearing and education. The nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Ukraine power plant in had a devastating effect on Belarusian agricultural industry.
As a result of the radiation, agriculture in a large part of the country was destroyed, and many villages were abandoned. Since gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in , Belarus has moved relatively slowly on privatization and other market reforms, emphasizing instead close economic relations with Russia.
About 80 percent of all industry remains in state hands, and foreign investment has been hindered by a political climate not always friendly towards business. Economic output, which had been declining for several years, revived somewhat in the late s. Privatization of enterprises controlled by the central government virtually ceased in , and the Belarusian economy was in crisis.
The volume of production in all branches of industries has decreased. The Russian financial crisis that began in autumn severely affected Belarus's Soviet-style planned economy. Belarus is almost completely dependent on Russia, which buys 70 percent of its exports. Belarus has seen little structural reform since , when President Lukashenka launched the country on the path of "market socialism. Lukashenka also re-imposed administrative control over prices and the national currency's exchange rate, and expanded the state's right to intervene arbitrarily in the management of private enterprise.
Given Belarus's limited fiscal reserve, continued growth in the trade deficit will increase vulnerability to economic crisis. Land Tenure and Property. Prior to the partition of the Commonwealth by the end of the eighteenth century, all land belonged to the local gentry and petty noblemen predominantly Polish or Polonized Belarusians.
Before , when peasants were freed, only small parcels of land were in the hands of Belarusian farmers. Peasants had to work three days a week or one hundred fifty six days a year for the noblemen. Some landlords preferred cash to labor. The landlords also hired peasants those who did not own land as paid labor.
In the beginning of the twentieth century small stretches of land were owned by the state about 5 percent , some land was communal about 34 percent , and the majority was in private hands 60 percent. By the state, church, and gentry owned 9. Farms were grouped in small hamlets rather than villages two to ten households. With each generation the family lots got smaller. Some farmers rented additional land from the noblemen or wealthy farmers.
After the Bolshevik Revolution of the , all land belonged to the state and large state-owned collective farms. This situation persisted at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Major Industries. The vast Belarusian forests support a large lumber industry, contributing about one-third of the gross national product GNP. Among the most developed branches of industry are automobile and tractor building, agricultural machinery, production of machine tools and bearings, electronics, oil extraction and processing, production of synthetic fibers and mineral fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, production of construction materials, textiles, and food industries.
Much of the national industry is focused on ready-made products for export. The country's main trading partners are the other CIS states. Among the primary products traded are buckwheat, chalk, chloride, clay, limestone, peat, potassium, quartz sand, rye, sodium chloride, sugar beets, timber, tobacco, wheat, farm machinery, fertilizers, glass, machine tools, synthetic fibers, and textiles.
Among the most significant export partners are Russia 66 percent of export , Ukraine, Poland, Germany, and Lithuania. Belarus imports such commodities as oil, natural gas, coal, ferrous metal, lumber, chemicals chemical semi-products, cement, cotton, silk, cars, buses, household appliances, paper, grain, sugar, fish. The Republic of Belarus is united democratic, legal state. It is divided into six administrative regions: five provinces voblastsi, singular - voblasts' ; the administrative center name follows in parentheses : Brestskaya Brest , Homyel'skaya Homyel' , Hrodzyenskaya Hrodna , Mahilyowskaya Mahilyow , and Vitsyebskaya Vitsyebsk , and one municipality horad , Minsk.
The basic law is the Constitution of with variations and additions , amended by a referendum in The chief of state, the President, is elected by the population for a five year term. The legislative body, the National Assembly, is composed of the House of Representatives one-hundred-ten deputies, elected by the population and Council of Republic sixty-four members, fifty six elected by domestic councils of deputies, eight appointed by the president. Members of the National Assembly serve four-year terms.
A Ministerial Council, headed by the prime minister, is appointed by the President with the consent of the House of Representatives.
Local government is managed by local Councils with executive and administrative power. The supreme judicial organ is the Supreme Court, which interprets the constitution.
Gj , 55 Austria. Services depart twice daily, and operate Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The road distance is Church of Saints Simon and Helena : Dedicated to the two children of the church's patrons, the two small towers are overlooked by another large tower representing the parents' grief at the children's premature deaths and today features pieces of artwork and a replica of a Nagasaki bell. He added that several people were detained. Our mutual solidarity is very important. Hidden gems.
Leadership and Political Officials. Critics and opposition members denounce the increasingly oppressive political atmosphere and human rights violations in Belarus under the Soviet-style authoritarianism of President Alyaksandr Lukashenko.
In , the year President Lukashenko was to step down, he held what was internationally considered to be a rigged national referendum. The referendum changed the constitution and allowed Lukashenk to cancel the elections and remain president. Military Activity. Belarus has a sizable army, with approximately 98, active duty personnel. Military branches include the army 51 percent of personnel and the air force 27 percent. The remaining 22 percent is divided among the air defense force, interior ministry troops, and border guards. As a landlocked country, Belarus does not have a navy.
Military service is mandatory for males over eighteen years of age. There are several nongovernmental organizations NGOs in Belarus. One of them is The Belarus Project, which supports judges, lawyers, human rights advocates, and journalists in making their case before international audiences and intergovernmental bodies regarding President Lukashenka's violations of human rights and the rule of law in Belarus. Much effort goes toward bringing Belarusian civic leaders to the U.
State Department and to the United Nations to tell their own stories of the situation in Belarus. This also gives them the opportunity to meet with their international colleagues and with human rights organizations and other NGOs that may be helpful to their cause at home. Commuters climb on and off a city bus in Minsk, the largest city, with a population of almost two million. Division of Labor by Gender. Modern Belarus is a part of the industrialized world. But certain cultural traits, which are observable today, might be traced back to the past.
During the last fifty years some changes can be noticed in terms of traditional labor patterns. Today men and women do the same jobs and they might even be compensated equal wages. But ethnographic sources confirm a strong division of labor by gender existing in the beginning of the twentieth century and some of those patterns can still be recognized today. They relate to eating and childrearing patterns.
One of them is the obligation of setting the dinner table, which is exclusively a woman's job.
It is usually a mother or wife who is responsible for the arrangements. A man would not interfere with this obligation; it may even be considered degrading for a man to perform this task.
Also, children under fourteen years old traditionally were under mothers' care and fathers would not interfere. The Relative Status of Women and Men. Gender roles in Belarus remain very traditional.
Men are considered the more powerful gender and as breadwinners, while women are required to take care of the children and household. This traditional structure is slowly changing, and women are beginning to gain more recognition and power. The gay movement is also slowly entering the region, although with some opposition.
Men occupy all top positions in various spheres of the economy and politics. After some gains, a considerable decline in the professional and social status of women has been observed recently. Belarusian women are the least protected social group on the job market, and their unemployment rate is around 65 percent. Part of the gender inequality problem is that Belarusian women do not identify their rights and interests as specifically women's issues. Many Belarusians do not see social injustice in the low status of women, and so do not protest the situation.
The first appearance of feminist initiatives came in , when the Belarusian Committee of Soviet Women was transformed into the Union of Women in Belarus. From to , the Ministry of Justice of Belarus registered other organizations that, in addition to the protection of women's rights, were designed to achieve other goals like promotion of the development of culture, the revival of national traditions, and environmental protection.
These groups have appeared within the structures of trade unions in order to resolve problems of both working and unemployed women. In the late s, a number of women's organizations were formed that were tightly linked with certain political structures. For example, the Belarusian feminist movement "For the Renaissance of the Fatherland" united women of social-democratic orientation, while the "League of Women-Electors" were mainly members of the United Civil Party; a women's organization was set up within the Liberal-Democratic Party, called Women's Liberal Association.
In , there were more than twenty women's organizations registered by the Ministry of Justice in Belarus.