Eight Misconceptions Keep Moscow from Seeing Belarus will Enter EU before Ukraine Does, Belarusian Blogger Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 14 – A large share of Russians have eight serious misconceptions about Belarus, views that are preventing them from understanding their western neighbor and seeing that it is far more likely to join the European Union in a decade or so than is Ukraine, Belarusian blogger Maksim Mirovich.

            In a post that Novyye izvestiya has reposted (maxim-nm.livejournal.com/472720.html and newizv.ru/article/general/14-01-2019/mify-o-belorussii-pochemu-eta-strana-voydet-v-es-bystree-sosedey), he discussed each of the eight and “myths” discusses why they are all dangerously incorrect. They include:

1.      Belarusians are potato eaters. Belarusians do eat potatoes, Mirovich says, but not in greater amounts than do Russians or Ukrainians.

2.      Belarus is an agrarian country. Seventy-five percent of Belarusians live in cities; only 25 percent live in rural areas, with the former increasing and the latter decreasing as throughout the world. 

3.      Belarusians are the same as Russians. The Russian authorities have promoted this idea but there is simply no basis for it. Belarusians have a different ethnic and political history than do the Russians and are distinct in a whole range of ways.

4.      No one speaks Belarusian. Twenty-five percent of Belarusians use Belarusian as their primary language, and another 65 to 70 percent can shift to it without any difficulties. The remainder know it enough to get by.  

5.      Everything in Belarus is cheap. That might have been true a decade or more ago, but it isn’t now. Belarusian prices are comparable to those in Eastern Europe, and Russians who expect otherwise will be quickly disabused if they visit it.

6.      Belarus is pristine. Belarusians are more careful about trash disposal than Russians but their country is not as pristine as the tourist firms suggest. Any visit to the edge of Minsk or another city proves that. It is in this regard comparable to Warsaw or Berlin.

7.      In Belarus, there is order. There is more order in Belarus than in Russia because Belarusians feel more strongly against such things as theft and corruption than Russiuans do. But the amount of order there is far less than Russians think.

8.      In Belarus, the Soviet system has been preserved. Belarus does have a large number of Lenin Squares “but in fact these are purely external attributes. Practically all young Belarusians today are focused on Europe and on life according to Western standards. Moreover, the country as a whole is increasingly oriented toward the West.

Ukraine was more Soviet at least before 2014 and, despite changes, remains so in many ways to this day, Mirovich says. The Soviet element in Belarus exists almost exclusively among government officials. Indeed, he concludes, “the situation with us recalls less the sovietism of the USSR than the sovietism of countries in the socialist camp like Hungary or Poland.”

That makes Belarus’ further transformation far less unlikely than many Russians now believe.