MINSK TODAY.

Minsk is the country’s major industrial and cultural centre and one of the most beautiful cities. It is growing and prospering. Life in the capital is acquiring new qualities, becoming nicer with every passing year. The city has acquired its peculiar look and colouring thanks to the well-planned avenues and squares, to the green of the parks stretching along the Svisloch River. Now both old and new interlace in the city, attracting lots of visitors.

The Upper Town, a vast area of the old Minsk with the centre in Cathedral Square, which was the most important part of the city, was built in the 16^th century. The City Hall, St. Bernard monastery and St. Basil convent, the 17^th-18^th centuries Catholic Church were all situated there.

Let us take a walk along the streets and lanes of the old town and plunge into the atmosphere of the past.

The recently restored mansion in Internatsional’naya street that once belonged to the artist V. Vankovich now is a part of the National Fine Arts Museum. The Rakov and St. Trinity townships date back to still older times. At the corner of Nemiga and Rakov streets the cathedral of Peter and Paul is found it’s an architectural monument of the 17^th centuries. The old survivor buildings also make part of the renovated Rakov, Osvobozhdeniya and Zamkovaya streets. An old block has survived in the St. Trinity Township in Bogdanovich and Starovilenskaya streets. In the 80s it was rebuilt and modernized to make a single historical and architectural ensemble of the Old Minsk with its typical 19^th century buildings.

One of the main thoroughfares in Minsk bears the name Independence Avenue. In the middle of it a square called Oktyabrskaya and Tsentral’ny park (earlier called Alexandrovski) are located. The city’s second largest avenue Pobeditelej with its public buildings and dwelling blocks rising along the Svisloch River was chiefly built in the 70-80s centuries. The multi-storeyed hotels “Planeta” and “Yubilejnaya”, the House of Trade Unions were among the first to grow up here. In 1985, the Minsk-Hero City monument was erected in the Victory Park. The multi-storeyed residential blocks area and the originally shaped Minsk-EXPO exhibition pavilion do not spoil the architectural design of the entire district.

The pride of the city is its parks – Gorky Park, Chelyuskintsy Park, the Central Botanical Gardens and the water-and-park Svisloch Reserve. Not far from the Gorky Park one can have a view of the central square of the city called Victory Square. A lofty monument commemorating the war victory was erected in Victory Square in 1954.

Minsk is the country’s centre of science and culture. A great number of research institutes, Academy of Sciences institutes, design and engineering institutions function in Minsk. Republic’s specialists are trained at Minsk’s 26 higher educational establishments. There are many professional theatres and museums in Minsk.

Minsk today is the capital of the sovereign state, which means that broad possibilities for development are open before the city. Embassies, banks, business centers, offices and other public institutions have been springing up in the city.

The people of Minsk have been living through a spiritual renaissance. Sermons are now heard in the numerous restored temples of the orthodox, catholic, muslim and other confessions.

Besides that, Minsk has become an important railway junction after the Moscow-Brest and Libavo-Romno railroads were laid across the town.

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