BELARUS
(Republic Belorus)

CAPITAL: Minsk

FLAG: two horizontal strips of red (top) and green color, a red strip are twice more, than green. On the elevator there is a vertical strip showing a traditional Belarusian ornament.

SONG: Young Belarus.

MONETARY BILETKA: The Belarusian Ruble (BR) extends together with Russian ruble (R). The government has a different exchange rate for trade between Belarus and Russia. br1 = $0,00047 (or $1 = br2,140) as of 2005.

WEIGHT AND MEASURES: The metric system works.

HOLIDAYS: New year, on January 1; Orthodox Christmas, on January 7; International Women's Day, on March 8; Labor Day, on May 1; Victory Day, on May 9; Independence Day, on July 27; Day of remembrance, on November 2; Christmas, on December 25.

TIME: 14:00 - midday.

ARRANGEMENT, SIZE AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Belarus is the country which doesn't have an outlet to the sea, located in Eastern Europe between Poland and Russia. Rather the space occupied by Belarus is a little less, than the State of Kansas, with a total area of 207 600 sq.km (80 154 quarter. Miles). Belarus divides borders with Latvia in the Russian, Russian and Russian languages, in Ukraine, in Poland, in the southeast and Lithuania. Length of border of Belarus is 3,098 km (1,925 miles).

Capital: Belarus, Minsk, it is located near the center of the country.

TOPOGRAPHY

The relief of Belarus, as a rule, flat also contains many swamps. The Belarusian ridge (Belarus) stretches through the center of the country from the southwest for the northeast. The highest mark - in the Dzerzhinsk mountain, 346 m (1 135 feet).

CLIMATE

The climate of the country is transitional between continental and sea. Average temperature of July is 19 °C (67 °F). Average temperature of January is -5 °C (23 °F). Average draft is 57 cm (22,5 inches) and 61 cm (26,5 inches) a year.

FLORA AND FAUNA

About 45% of the territory of the country - forest. Pine trees meet in the north, but also the fir-tree, an alder, an ash-tree, a birch are widespread and oaks. Some of mammals in the wood include deer, brown bears, rabbits and protein. The southern region is marshy space. In swamps there live ducks, frogs, turtles, archons and muskrats.

ENVIRONMENT

Within heritage of the former Soviet Union the main environmental problems of Belarus are chemical and nuclear pollution. Belarus was the most affected by the Chernobyl accident in April, 1986. At the time of accident norths prevailed; therefore the majority of rainfall occurred on agricultural grounds in a southeast part of the country (first of all in the Gomel and Mogilev regions). By estimates of most of experts, 25-30% of agricultural grounds of Belarus irradiate and shouldn't be used for agricultural production or pick wild-growing berries and mushrooms though they are still used for these and other purposes.