Belarus

Belarus has no mountains and no coast: it is a low plain smoothed by glaciers, under pine and birch forest, marsh and slow rivers. Retreating ice left thousands of lakes in the north, Narach the largest. The Dnieper flows south and the Neman west. Polesia, along the southern edge, is a vast wetland drained by the Pripyat, and on the western frontier the Białowieża Forest keeps a remnant of Europe’s primeval lowland woods, where bison roam.

Polotsk, first recorded in 862, was the seat of an early principality. From the thirteenth century these lands formed the heartland of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, whose laws were written in Ruthenian, the forerunner of Belarusian. Francysk Skaryna printed Bible translations in Prague from 1517. The partitions of 1772–95 brought the region under the tsars, and Napoleon’s army was shattered crossing the Berezina in 1812. The Second World War burned hundreds of villages like Khatyn, and in December 1991 the accord dissolving the Soviet Union was signed at Viskuli in the Białowieża Forest.

Potatoes rule the kitchen, and draniki, crisp potato pancakes with sour cream, are the dish most families make. Most believers are Orthodox. On Kupalle, the midsummer night, young people float wreaths on rivers and jump over bonfires. Marc Chagall was born in Vitebsk. Zhodzina builds BelAZ dump trucks for open-pit mines, potash comes from Salihorsk, refineries at Mazyr and Navapolatsk process imported crude, and farms grow flax and rye.