[Obviously a strongly procapitalist article, the below is nevertheless interesting -- full of contradiction -- if for no other reason than the fact that so little coverage is accorded Belarus.]
NZZ Online. 10 January 2002. Minsk: Soviet Reality Today. Excerpts. Ten years ago, the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic became the independent Republic of Belarus. Under the leadership of its President Alexander Lukashenko, there has been much less change in the Belarusian capital Minsk than in other East European capitals. As soon as you enter a government office here, you find yourself in a world of uniforms, flags, stamps and marks of rank, while the hours of waiting can turn even the proudest resident into a humble supplicant. The representatives of authority are strict and very conscious of their own power. In many respects, in externals as well as the self-image of officials, the old Soviet Union still remains surprisingly present here. The White Russian entry and departure visa for resident aliens, for example, entitles the holder to pass the "border of the USSR" (the visa form was printed in 1992). On the streets of Minsk, too, traces of the old days still remain. Lenin, long since toppled from his pedestal in other East European countries, still stands uncontested in front of the government building, and even Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police, has his park and his statue right across from the once-and-present KGB building. In the downtown area of this metropolis of 1.7 million people, there is little evidence of the economic pressure that bears down so heavily on the country as a whole. The city is clean, the number of expensive Western automobiles on the streets seems to increase every day, the house fronts are in immaculate condition. People here are happy and proud to show outsiders the city's new, largely glass railway station, the expensive and handsomely designed metro station. Oleg is 26 years old, a captain in the White Russian anti-aircraft force; married to a teacher, he has a 1-year-old daughter. Together with the wife's parents, the young family inhabits a four-room apartment - quite a comfortable living arrangement by Belarusian standards, but probably as good as it will ever get. Formerly, during the days of the White Russian S.S.R., young families generally lived with parents or in residential homes and waited for a good many years before they were assigned an apartment by the government. Today they have nothing left to wait for. State-owned apartments at merely symbolic rents are no longer provided, and the properties offered on the free market are not affordable to ordinary citizens like Oleg. He would have to pay a minimum of 80 dollars a month for a two-room apartment on the outskirts of the city. The salary of close to 200 dollars a month that Oleg earns as an anti-aircraft officer is "just barely enough, if you live modestly," says Oleg, and goes on to explain that "modestly" means no eating or drinking out, and certainly no visits to the disco. He is proud of his rank and enjoys his profession, but would change if he could earn more elsewhere. The military academy trained him as an electrical engineer, and he feels it is insulting that, with his education, his situation is so poor materially, while others "who have learned nothing, but have influential parents, make money in all sorts of businesses." To the question of who is responsible for these conditions, Oleg replies that he doesn't really know, but "the whole filthy mess" began with perestroika. Almost everyone in the army supports the president, he says, because unlike the political opposition, Lukashenko would never vote in favor of NATO membership or cuts in the size of the military. "If I were a civilian, I might think twice about voting for the president," declares Oleg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
