Word: minsk
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...first glance, some twenty multi-colored tents that popped up in Minsk's downtown Oktyabrskaya Square on Monday night looked the next bright morning like merry little stalls offering hot tea and cakes to those enjoying the square's small outdoor skating rink. But the tents were covered with the national white and red colors of Belarus, frowned upon since President Alexander Lukashenko officially reintroduced the Soviet-era symbols back in 1995, and the 1000 or so people standing vigil around the tents didn't look like they were enjoying a day out with the family. Having spent a freezing...
...Before the now much-disputed election that brought these hardy souls to stand vigil, people in Minsk were making bets on how resounding a victory Europe's "last dictator," as Lukashenko is widely known, would claim in his third presidential race. Pessimists expected him to win hands down with some 78%, while realists expected Russian President Vladimir Putin to instruct his vassal to restrain his usual bad manners and go with a more reasonable...
...result, was even more unpredictable and dangerous than ever. And both camps, as it turned out, proved wrong on the returns: in the end, Lukashenko claimed almost 83%. "This is not an election," quipped Vladimir Ryzhkov, an Independent Liberal deputy in the Russian Duma, who came to Minsk as a journalist, because the Belorusian authorities would not accredit him as an observer. "This is some other phenomenon...
...just the rigged election that got so many Belorusians riled up - it has been the extent of the intimidation campaign that led up to it. The night before the election, all mobile phones in Minsk received text messages to the effect that those gathered in the square would be butchered. Earlier General Sukharenko, head of the Belarus KGB (which still goes by that notorious title), explained publicly that all those taking part in the street protest would be considered terrorists and get up to 20 years of jail under new anti-terrorist legislation. He claimed that his secret police...
...Batska promised to prevent Russian-style plunder of the new nation by capitalist oligarchs. But voters never imagined he would take them back to the Stalinist past. Once in office, he rolled back privatization, stifled economic reforms, renationalized most banks, stepped up centralized controls and preserved collective farms. Minsk today looks like the set for a 1950s Soviet movie. Its broad boulevards, designed for military parades and tanks, are clean, orderly - and dull. Monotonous rows of Stalinist apartment blocks line the streets, and there are no traffic jams or bright advertising to bring life to the city. The omnipresent police...