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Languages

Throughout its history, Minsk has been a city of many languages. Initially, most of its residents spoke Ruthenian (which later developed into modern Belarusian). However, after 1569, the official language was Polish.^[37] In the 19th-century, Russian became the official language, and by the end of that century it had become the language of administration, schools and newspapers. The Belarusian national revival increased interest in the Belarusian language; its use has grown since the 1890s, especially among the intelligentsia.

Early 20th Century

In the early 1920s, under the influence of the Soviet korenizatsiya policy, the Minsk-based Belarusian government declared four official national languages: Russian, Belarusian, Polish, and Yiddish, representing the country's four primary nationalities.

Compared to other Soviet cities, support (both official and popular) for Yiddish was exceptionally strong in Minsk, due to its large Jewish population. Around the city, alongside Russian and Belarusian, Yiddish was soon featured on public buildings, transit stations, radio broadcasts, and cinema subtitles. By 1924, Yiddish-language educational institutions in Minsk included seven kindergartens, ten secondary schools, and a Jewish pedagogical training college. In 1926, the Minsk Central Jewish Chamber was established to hear court cases in Yiddish. During this period, Minsk drew Yiddish scholars, literati, and cultural activists from throughout the Soviet Union.

Throughout the 1920s, the Belarusian national elite, congregated in Minsk, campaigned for Belarusization, promoting the use of Belarusian in official gatherings and administrative paperwork. Ultimately, however, Russian has remained the predominant urban language.

Since 1939, only Russian and Belarusian have enjoyed official-language status in Belarus.

Late 20th and Early 21st Centuries

A short period of Belarusian national revival in the early 1990s saw another rise in the numbers of Belarusian speakers, culminating in the early 1990s with the declaration of Belarusian as the nation's sole official language. However, in 1994 the newly-elected president Alexander Lukashenko slowly reversed this trend. In 1995, Russian was once again declared a second, co-official language. Belarusian language instruction in public schools was reduced; in Minsk, between 1993 and 1998, the number of first-year students studying the language in school dropped from 58% to 4.7%.

Metro sign, in standard Belarusian.

Through the course of these changes, municipal administration employed a succession of different public language practices, tracking the ebb and flow of Russian and Belarusian linguistic promotion. In the metro, for example—significant portions of which was constructed during the early 1990s Belarusian revival—station signs in Belarusian are common; signs near the government center, however, are in Russian. Further artifacts of this era include the metro's maps, which are still in Belarusian, as are recorded warning and station announcement messages on the lines themselves.

In everyday speech and media, Russian is the lingua franca in Minsk, both in the public and private spheres; spoken Belarusian is largely relegated to the countryside. But through rural migration to cities, the two languages have collided, producing a unique Russo-Belarusian mixed language, trasianka (meaning "a mixture of hay and straw"), which combines elements of Russian vocabulary with Belarusian syntax, morphology and phonetics. Trasianka is commonly spoken in Minsk. Educated Minsk urbanites generally regard trasianka unfavorably, although president Lukashenko himself has occasionally employed trasianka in public addresses.

The Minsk-based Frantsishak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society still actively promotes the use of standard Belarusian in everyday public speech. The society's 2002 Minsk Metro campaign spread leaflets throughout the metro system, encouraging citizens to greet colleagues and neighbors in the Belarusian language. While such language activists are a minority, a survey of Minsk-based intellectuals found that a majority still does favor some manner of gradual public transition to speaking standard Belarusian.

Culture

Minsk is the cultural centre of Belarus. It is home to some of the country's most prestigious cultural institutions, as well as the state's headquarters of cultural administration.

Identity and Cultural Memory

Minsk's cultural identity remains deeply influenced by its formative experiences in the Soviet Union. Its rise as a cultural center was joined to its status as a Soviet city, and infused with a Soviet style of modernization. Today, Belarus's role in the Soviet narrative of the Great Patriotic War still plays a prominent part in the cultural memory of Minsk, events of which are memorialized through city street and building names; other streets and squares reference Russian geography, and Soviet ideals and cultural figures.

Chernobyl Path event, 2014

Since 1989, the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster has been commemorated annually by a march through the city called the "Chernobyl Path." The number of participants typically ranges from several hundred to tens of thousands. The event traditionally incorporates religious iconography, pre-Soviet Belarusian symbols, environmentalist concern, and an undercurrent of political opposition to the ruling regime. Violence and arrests have accompanied the protest. Since 1996, the state has offered its own Chernobyl commemorations in the city, which feature government-sanctioned patriotic displays.

Throughout public space in Minsk, billboards and posters offer a state-sponsored definition of Belarusian cultural identity, part of an ongoing nationwide project launched during the 2006 presidential elections. These consist of patriotic slogans such as "For Belarus!" and "We are Belarusians!" (rendered in Belarusian and Russian), paired with photographic images of children and families, workers, and state authorities.

Minsk is renowned for its cleanliness, a point of pride for its citizens.

Cityscape

Minsk's near-total destruction during World War II created an opportunity for Soviet architects to rebuild it in the image of the ideal socialist city. During the rebuilding process, remaining pre-Soviet structures were largely replaced. As in other Soviet capital cities, the downtown area was designed around administrative and cultural buildings, parks, and department stores, typically of monumental scale; the suburbs were constructed as a series of micro-districts, wherein housing units were built around basic services such as groceries, schools, hospitals, libraries and sports facilities, and linked by pedestrian paths.

This architecture and urban design remains a significant characteristic of the modern Minsk cityscape today. In addition to Soviet-era high-rise apartment blocks, Minsk's residential suburbs are occasionally interspersed with village-style wooden farmhouses—a remnant of a temporary housing strategy to meet immediate post-war needs. The Post-Soviet has seen a revival in religious architectures; sacred sites have undergone renovation, and new churches have been built. Extensive new public building and renovation projects took place during the first decade of the new millennium, many of which drew inspiration from Soviet architectural precedents, reinforcing an urban visual aesthetic rooted in the past.

Soviet-era architecture on Independence Avenue.

Major Landmarks

Independence avenue stems north-east from the city center; it is 15km long, and renowned for its Stalinist Empire Style architecture. It passes through Independence Square, a central rally and parade ground, surrounded by prominent municipal cultural and political institutions, including the mayor's office, the headquarters of the Minsk Metro, two universities, and the government headquarters.

Churches

• The Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Spirit is actually the former church of the Bernardine convent. It was built in the simplified Baroque style in 1642–87 and went through renovations in 1741–46 and 1869.
• The Cathedral of Saint Mary was built by the Jesuits as their principal church in 1700–10, restored in 1951 and 1997; it overlooks the recently restored 18th-century city hall, located on the other side of the Liberty Square;
• Two other historic churches are the cathedral of Saint Joseph, formerly affiliated with the Bernardine monastery, built in 1644–52 and repaired in 1983, and the fortified church of Sts. Peter and Paul, originally built in the 1620s and recently restored, complete with its flanking twin towers.
• The impressive Neo-Romanesque Roman Catholic Red Church (Cathedral of Sts. Simeon and Helene) was built in 1906–10 immediately after religious freedoms were proclaimed in Imperial Russia and the tsar allowed dissidents to build their churches;
• The largest church built in the Russian imperial period of the town's history is dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene;
• Many Orthodox churches were built after the dissolution of the USSR in a variety of styles, although most remain true to the Neo-Russian idiom. A good example is St. Elisabeth's Convent, founded in 1999.

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  Cathedral of the Holy Spirit (Russian Orthodox).
• 
  Cathedral of Saint Virgin Mary (Roman Catholic).
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  Church of St.Joseph (formerly Uniate, currently used as an archive).
• 
  Church of Sts. Peter and Paul (Russian Orthodox).
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  The Red Church (Roman Catholic).
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  Church of St. Mary Magdalene (Russian Orthodox).
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  Church of Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Roman Catholic).
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  Church of Holy Trinity (Saint Rochus) (Roman Catholic).
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  Church of All Saints (Russian Orthodox).
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  Church of St.Yevfrosinya of Polotsk (Russian Orthodox).
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  Church of St. Elizabeth Convent (Russian Orthodox)

Cemeteries

• Kalvaryja (Calvary Cemetery) is the oldest surviving cemetery in the city. Many famous people of Belarus are buried here. The cemetery was closed to new burials in the 1960s.
• Military Cemetery
• Eastern Cemetery
• Čyžoŭskija Cemetery
• Northern Cemetery

Theatres

Major theatres are:

• National Academic Grand Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Republic of Belarus
• Belarusian State Musical Theatre (performances in Russian)
• Maxim Gorky National Drama Theatre (performances in Russian)
• Yanka Kupala National Drama Theatre (performances in Belarusian)

Museums, Galleries and Libraries

National Academic Grand Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Republic of Belarus

The city hall (rebuilt in 2003) overlooks the Cathedral of Saint Virgin Mary.

Great Patriotic War Museum.

Major museums include:

• Belarusian National Arts Museum, established in 1939, and home to over 30,000 works of both Belarusian and international art.
• Belarusian Great Patriotic War Museum
• Belarusian National History and Culture Museum
• Belarusian Nature and Environment Museum
• Maksim Bahdanovič Literary Museum
• Old Belarusian History Museum
• Yanka Kupala Literary Museum
• Strana Mini, a museum where Belarusian landmarks are recreated in miniature.
• National Library of Belarus, which counts approximately nine million materials among its holdings, comprising the largest Russian-language collection outside of Russia.

Art galleries include:

• Ў gallery

Parks and Recreation Areas

Minsk's green spaces include nineteen parks and 177 public gardens. Notable locations include:

• Chelyuskinites Park
• Children's Railroad
• Gorky Park (Minsk)
• Yanka Kupala Park
• Boulders Park, where thousands of boulders are arranged to form the shape of Belarus.

Cinemas

List of cinemas in Minsk:

• Silver Screen Cinemas
  • In Galileo shopping center
  • In ARENAcity shopping center
  • In Dana Mall ( Uschod Metro stop ) - Velcom 3rd Floor
• Центральный (3D) (English: Central)
• 3D cinema in shopping center «Замок» / Zamok
• Аврора / Avrora (3D)
• Автокинотеатр / Avtokinoteatr
• Беларусь / Belarus
• Берестье / Bierascie (3D)
• Дворец Республики / Palac Respubliki (3D)
• Дом Кино / Dom kino
• Киев / Kiev (3D)
• Комсомолец / Kamsamoliec
• Мир / Mir (3D)
• Москва / Maskva
• Музей кино / Muzej kino
• Октябрь / Oktyabr'
• Пионер / Pianier
• Победа / Pieramoha
• Ракета / Raketa
• Салют / Saliut (3D)

The Arts

Theatre

Minsk is home to some of the nation's most renowned and well-attended theatres. It also hosts a number of international theatre festivals each year, including the Teatralny Kufar International Student Theatre Festival, International Theatre Forum TEART, and the Belarusian International Festival of Puppet Theatres.

Theatres in Belarus rely on the state for funding, which is predicated upon adherence to the state's social and political guidelines. Outside of the state system, Minsk has also developed an independent, underground theatre scene. Underground theatre troupes treat forbidden topics such as drugs, mental illness, gender issues and homosexuality; performances, which typically take place in apartments, cafés, garages, galleries, and forests, offer a modern, experimental aesthetic alternative to the state-promoted traditional theatrical style. One of the best-known independent theatres is the Belarus Free Theatre, founded in 2005 by producer Natalia Koliada and activist Nikolai Khalezin. Works produced by the Belarus Free Theatre deal with contemporary social, cultural and political issues in Minsk; during performances, both performers and audiences have been arrested by the state police.

Early 20th-century Minsk is the setting for Yanka Kupala's popular Belarusian-language play Tuteishiya ("locals"), which depicts the city's cosmopolitan mix of nationalities, and their relation to the struggle to define a distinct Belarusian identity.

Media

The National State Television and Radio Company of Belarus is headquartered in Minsk, as is STV, the Minsk municipal government television channel. Russia's TASS and Prime agencies have offices in the city, and journalists from Reuters, AP and Xinhua work there as well.

Tourism and Entertainment

Festivals and Holidays

• City Day, a late-summer open-air festival comprising street fairs and concerts, celebrated in September.
• Victory Day, where parades, concerts and fireworks honor veterans of the Great Patriotic War, celebrated May 9.
• Independence Day, celebrated July 3.
• Mlin, an exhibition marketplace for handcrafted jewelry, clothing, ceramics, toys, furniture, gifts, and souvenirs, featuring over 500 artisans from throughout Belarus and abroad, which takes place each fall, winter, and spring.

Casinos

Minsk has a number of casinos, which have proven a popular destination for Russian gamblers, earning it the nickname "the Russian Las Vegas." Some of Minsk's largest casinos offer so-called "junket tours," a sort of all-expenses-included gaming travel, which has become increasingly popular with Russians since a 2009 law restricted gambling in Russia. The Guardian has reported that following the 2014 international sanctions during the Ukrainian crisis, Minsk's Russia-dependent gambling revenues dropped precipitously; аs a result, a number of casinos have shut their doors.