Belarus
A warmer winter, and a nicer summer.
The Basics
Belarus is located between Poland and Lithuania on the west, Latvia in the northwest, Russia in the northeast and east, and Ukraine in the South. Belarus has a moderate continental climate that is influenced by the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The Weather this week in Belarus consists of lows in the 20's and highs in the mid 30's. The week will start off partly cloudy and move into snow showers by Monday which will continue throughout the week.
How To Fit In
There are multiple languages spoken in Belarus. The official language is Belarusian but Russian is also widely spoken. Each ethnic minority speaks its own language. Some of the other minorities are Polish, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian. Some folkways in Belarus are that they eat 3 main meals a day, students in Belarus are required to attend primary and secondary schools, bread and salt are presented to guests, when greeting people you shake hands, gifts are given to friends and business associates, and 98% of people 15 and over can read and write. Education is very important to Belarusians so it is controlled by the government. They require everyone to be in school and be able to read and write. A few taboos in Belarus are men setting the table, skipping school or not going to school at all, and getting married without the consent of both families. In Belarus there are a lot of gender roles still going on and one of the byproducts of that is that the women set the table before meals. Also, because of their traditions for marriage, a couple needs the consent of both families in order to get married. In Belarus one of their mores is that the a bride needs to save her virginity for marriage. It is actually a prerequisite for marriage for the bride and even in some cases the groom as well because they believe it is important to have high moral standards for a spouse.
Digging Deeper Into Culture
2 Subcultures in Belarus are Christians and Muslims. Christianity is the dominant faith in Belarus. But there are also many other religions. One of which being Muslim. An example of culture landscape would be that people and farmers used to be able to own land in Belarus but after the Bolshevik Revolution of the 1917, all land belonged to the state and large state-owned collective farms. There has also been lots of evidence of Cultural Diffusion in Belarus. One example of this is that Christianity is the dominant faith, but Byzatine Christianity was introduced with the rise of the Kievan Kingdom in the tenth century. Also in 2000 Russian Orthodoxy became the most common practice of believers in Belarus. At that time 80% were practicing Russian Orthodoxy. Now, there is also currently 44,000 Muslims living in Belarus. There has also been lots of evidence of Culture Change. One example of this is that before WWII most Jews fled Belarus in order to try to gain safety. At the beginning of the twentieth century there were 704 Synagogues but by 1995 only 15 of them were remaining in the whole country. That's a huge amount of synagogues that had to close because of all the people that left.
By: Katie Sorensen
Works Cited:
"Countries and Their Cultures." Culture of Belarus. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2015.