Word: belarus
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...separate nations and something called the Commonwealth of Independent States, which provides a tenuous framework for cooperation among 11 of them. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have already reclaimed their status as separate competitors. Seven other former republics are not competing. But five states -- Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan -- will participate jointly at the Winter Games. Members of the so-called Unified Team wear the traditional red-white-and-light-gray uniforms of the former Soviet Union, but will be allowed to display the name, flag or symbol of their state on the sleeve...
They will march under the five-ringed Olympic flag and carry a placard -- presumably large -- reading UNIFIED TEAM OF THE NATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEES OF RUSSIA, UKRAINE, BELARUS, KAZAKHSTAN AND UZBEKISTAN. If a team member wins a gold medal, the Olympic hymn, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, will be played during the awards ceremony, at which, N.O.C. officials expect, the athlete may have his or her home country announced. The full Unified Team includes 192 athletes. About 160 will actually compete, and of those, 148 are from Russia...
...local governments are also reinstituting preferred names and spellings that accord with their languages: not every republic now uses the Cyrillic alphabet from which the English versions are transliterated. So Belorussia is now Belarus, Moldavia is Moldova, Kirghizia is Kyrgyzstan. Belarus says its capital is Mensk, not Minsk, and Ukrainians insist that Lvov is Lviv...