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Belarus: a new Bradt Guide

by Nicky Gardner

Summary

Nigel Roberts' new guidebook to Belarus, just published by Bradt Travel Guides, is authoritative and insightful. We review the first ever English language guide for travellers visiting Europe's least known country.

Just consider for a few moments. Which is the country in Europe about which you know least? Tiny San Marino perhaps? Moldova possibly? Or might it be Belarus? We hear so very little of Belarus. It is too often written off as being a post-Soviet wasteland, and too often mentioned only for its involuntary involvement in the Chernobyl catastrophe - the errant reactor, you might remember, was not in Belarus at all, but away to the south at Prypiat in Ukraine. But there is another Belarus: a country of warm and friendly people, often intensely devout; a country with great tracts of forest where bison, beaver, lynx, wolves and elk still roam; a country with magnificent baroque churches, opulent palaces and beautiful gardens.

This is the Belarus which is very competently mapped in the first ever English language guidebook to the country.

Related articleFull text online

Belarus: the making of Vitebsk

Tumbling off the train and riding the trolleybus over to the other side of the river is a fine introduction to Vitebsk. The Belarusian city is precise and orderly: Swiss efficiency colliding with Soviet style. And at the annual Slavianski Bazaar, Vitebsk is a city that knows how to party.