Below are some links to articles, mostly in Belarusian and Russian, where citizen and professional journalists share photos, videos and commentaries on today’s events.

toxaby.livejournal.com (1)
toxaby.livejournal.com (2)
korsart.livejournal.com
p-kuznetsov.livejournal.com
by-politics.livejournal.com
euroradio.by
nn.by (1)
nn.by (2)
nn.by (3)
naviny.by (1)
naviny.by (2)
kp.by
belaruspartisan.org
svaboda.org (1)
svaboda.org (2)
svaboda.org (3)
kurt-bielarus.livejournal.com
actualcomment.ru
welgar.livejournal.com

For a long time it was just www.google.com/intl/be/ that had Belarusian user interface. Then www.google.com.by came along and became an official Belarusian Google search page. Because of obscure intellectual property and copyright laws in Belarus, domain google.by belonged to an e-media company called ActiveMedia, which for almost five years displayed Google Adsense ads within otherwise standard Google Search user interface. Ironic, isn’t it? This fact even lead eWeek to accuse Google of “ending the company’s nearly decade-long tradition of an ad-free front page”. But after hearings in the Belarusian Supreme Court in December of 2008 Google was granted the right to google.by

I’m not sure about the faith of the ActiveMedia or exact court order. What is more clear is that company’s website is still up but latest press release was published on April 1st 2009. It should be safe to assume that they are essentially out of business.

However, up until mid December 2010 google.by redirected all traffic to google.com.by and now it’s the other way around, google.com.by redirects to google.by, at last.

Below is a screenshot of Alexa.com traffic statistics for google.com.by and google.by. December 15th looks like clear switchover date, though I have no explanation to the sharp drop in google.com.by traffic on November 1st, neither can I tell you why google.com.by is still getting some significant numbers of page views.

• svaboda.org Use Google translate gadget in the top right corner
• www.belradio.fm/en
• naviny.by/rubrics/english/
• charter97.org/en/news/
• spring96.org/en

All websites above are updating their English versions not as often as Belarusian or Russian. Use Google translate to translate pages in your language.

Photos uploaded from mobile devices.

Nyaklyayew and his supporters attacked by special forces minutes before going to the October Square (action starts at 1:30)

Riot police violently disperse crowds on Independence Square

More Election Day news and media in chronological order from Radio Liberty (translated from Belarusian with Google Translate)

The Day After the Election. Same source.

More HQ photos with some comments (in Russian) are here

On October 8, NTV, one of Russia’s most popular TV channels, has broadcasted the latest episode of its scandalous miniseries “Крёстный Батька” (The Godfather). Little clarification here, “Батька” is Belarusian word for “father” not Russian (“Отец”). “Батька” is how many Russians (and some Belarusians) jokingly refer to Lukashenko, that’s how he referred once to himself in mid-nineties in relation to Belarusian people and the name stuck with him. By choosing this title for the series authors wanted to draw clear parallels between ways of doing “business” by Lukashenko and those depicted in Coppola’s Oscar-winning gangster-drama.

The entire 25 minutes of the movie is devoted to accusing Belarusian president of killing his political opponents. Col. Dmitry Pavlyuchenko and his SOBR (Special Rapid Response Unit) are shown as likely perpetrators of assassinations of Hanchar, Krasowski, Zakharanka, Zavadski and some other people who were threatening Lukashenko’s grip on power. This theme was not new to the series. In previous episodes authors were already touching on this point, but here they decided to spend the entire 25 virtually on the same topic. They have also dedicated more time than previously to talking about mysterious death of Aleh Biabenin, founder of the most popular Belarusian opposition website who was found dead on September 3^rd of this year.

There are also attempts to portray Lukashenko as a friend and partner of such unpopular in Russia people as Borys Berezovsky, Mikheil Saakashvili, Viktor Yushchenko, Yury Luzhkov and some others.

One can’t help but notice that the only opposition candidate shown in this film was Vladimir Neklyayev. This fact clearly demonstrates who is Russia’s candidate on these elections, not that too many people still had any doubt about it. It will be very interesting to follow the electoral campaign, the first presidential campaign since Lukashenko came to power (1994) where Moscow will be supporting opposition, at least officially.

With all this negative information about Lukashenko it is hard to understand why it took more than ten years for Kremlin to realize that the first and only president of Belarus is not playing fair with his opponents, is power hungry and a hypocrite.

Video Part1 Part2

Belaruskali

Belarusian government owns quite a valuable asset which currently generates very significant and steady flow of foreign currency for the country. Belaruskali is world’s third largest (15%) supplier of potash (potassium chloride or KCl). Recently the global potash business has enjoyed lots of attention. Fertilizer industry becomes more and more lucrative fueled by $40 billion hostile takeover attempt by BHP Billiton Ltd of Canada’s Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc, high food prices buoyed by population growth, droughts, floods and other natural disasters. Even though the price of potash has gone down from its highest point in history of more than $800 per metric ton in early 2009 to around $350 per mt today, many industry analysts predict that it can go as far as $1500 per mt within next ten years.
Belaruskali (unlike cheap energy resources from Russia) is the only cash cow over which Lukashenko has a total control. However, if relations with the neighbor to the East will continue worsening the cow can very quickly end up on a dinner table. First steps in this direction were already taken. On September 27 the process of corporatization of the state owned company was completed. It means that now all obstacles have been removed and a minority stake can be sold any time.
It’s unlikely though that the sale will take place before presidential elections because such move can weaken Lukashenko’s image in the eyes of the electorate. But after elections extra $7 billion that can be raised in such a sale can be very helpful to cover shortfalls in the budget (2009 budget was $22Bln). The most likely buyer is Chinese firm (state owned CITIC Group?). It makes sense because Lukashenko will not sell it to Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov and partners who have control over Uralkali and Silvinit because of political tension between the two countries. On another hand, China is world’s largest consumer of potash and has to import most it. Having a stake in Belaruskali who has a 45% stake in Belarusian Potash Co. (potentially world’s largest potash trading company) makes perfect strategic sense. In return Belarus can diversify its partner base by increasing trade, improving business relations and potentially receiving investments from Chinese companies.
Potash prices.

On October 1st Belarusian president Lukashenko held his eighth annual press conference aimed at Russian media. The record number of more than one hundred reporters from neighboring country attended the event. Their interest was fueled by the growing number of personal attacks aimed at Lukashenko on Russian TV and upcoming presidential elections in Belarus.

Lukashenko spent most of the time answering questions related to Belarusian-Russian relationships which have significantly worsened in last few years.

When explaining why his county has not recognized independence of Georgia’s two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he said that he was “ready” to do so but Russian president refused to “share” negative consequences which Belarus could have suffered if he were to take this step. The president accused his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in ordering to “hound” him and expressed believe that Vladimir Putin “takes the same position”. He called this strategy “reckless” and “brainless”. However, “If there is a will of the Russian state, the Russian elite, then within three months, maximum six months we will not just improve relationships, will not simply return to the level of relationship that existed, but substantially surpass it,” he summarized.

He also expressed his frustration with Russian political and business elite who support opposition candidates in soon to be held presidential elections. ”Representatives from the opposition in elections can be supported by no more than 100-150 thousand voters,” said Lukashenko “These are the people who yesterday used to receive grants from Western Europe and the USA. Now they found another sponsor – the Russian business”.  He also voiced his opinion about the number of people who support opposition “Pure opposition – 400 people. The number of supporters who can openly confront the authorities at rallies and demonstrations – 800. And maybe 100-150 thousand can vote for them in elections,” president suggested.

More information about the conference can be found here (in Russian)

Most presidential hopefuls end members of their initiative groups decided not to procrastinate and took to the streets despite rainy weather. You can read more about tactics and strategies chosen by the candidates for this election season here.

The total of seventeen initiative groups were registered by the Election Commission.  The first round of presidential elections is scheduled for December 19^th.

This seemingly easy question does not have a simple one-word answer. Google shows that Internet users spell it any way they want to; there is no firmly established norm. Nevertheless, these Google statistics are a useful indicator of popular usage, and I will use them as a starting point to investigate the situation with the adjective.

Based on online search results Belarusian is the obvious leader, and indeed it is widely accepted to be the correct form of the adjective. It is used in United Nations documents and in English versions of official government documents in Belarus. The above statistics show that the adjective Belarusian is used almost 95% of the time ( 43 900 000 / 46 268 002 * 100%). The frequency has risen to the current level from 60% just few years ago.

Note: Merriam-Webster’s dictionary considers Belarusian to be a preferred form as well.

The adjective Byelorussian is still very wide-spread over the Web (1 070 000 pages according to the above data). This is an old Soviet form that stems from the Russian spelling of our name. During the long Soviet occupation, the outside world received all its information about Belarus through Russians, so this form used to be dominant. Even today, some sources such as Russian news agencies still use this form, perhaps to emphasize the kinship with the White “brothers.” Also, in my experience, even Russian speakers from Belarus itself who learned English from Russian textbooks are accustomed to the now-deprecated form Byelorussian.

Some even go so far as to use the expression “White Russian” which is even more misleading. In fact, “White Russian” could be confused with the term “Whites” which refers to the Tsarist supporters in Russia who fought against the “Reds” (Bolsheviks) during the October Revolution and the Civil War, which has nothing to do with Belarus. The same problem exists in languages other than English (e.g., German, Swedish and many others) where the adjective for Belarus etymologically means “White Russian”, but discussing this misnomer is beyond the scope of this article.

Given the destructive nature of the Russian imperial rule that Belarus had to endure, many people in Belarus would find the adjective Byelorussian even offensive. So if you want to treat Belarusians with respect, eliminate Byelorussian and other similar forms (Belorussian) from your vocabulary.

The third most popular spelling is Belarussian, with 548 000 pages. To the best of my knowledge, this form is not officially endorsed by anybody, and most probably it is simply a “hybrid” form, a strange compromise between Belarusian and Byelorussian. Or, perhaps, it simply indicates ignorance on the part of English speakers. Paul B. Gallagher also notes that we should consider the fact that many instances of intervocalic “s” in English spelling are pronounced as /z/, so an “ss” spelling may be an attempt to make sure the consonant is not voiced. For example, figure skater’s last name Marina Anisina is often spelled Anissina in English.

Belarusan ranks only fifth, but it is considered the only acceptable form by some hardcore linguistic purists in Belarus. Moreover, it was used by the United Nations from 1992 to 1995. It is also used by the BNR (“Belarusan National Republic”) government-in-exile. Some academics use this form. For example, professor Zaprudnik uses Belarusan in his book Belarus: At a Crossroads in History and in other publications.

[bèl@-rús-i-@n] and [bèl@-rús@n]

Key:

è – e as in “bet,” secondary stress

@ – a as in “sofa,” i.e., schwa

ú – u as in “rule,” primary stress

i – i as in hundreds of place names: “Algerian,” etc.

So, the simplest answer to the original question is that Belarusian and Belarusan are the two forms that would be considered correct by most experts. But the second part of the question remains unanswered: how would you pronounce them? Not being a native English speaker, I am definetely not an authority on this issue. Based on my experience native English speakers usually pronounce the word Belarusian as [Bèl@rúsi@n], while Belarusan is pronounced as [Bèl@rús@n]. I think, most people have already learned this and don’t pronounce the second part of the word as “russian.” Another alternative pronunication that I’ve heard a few times is [Bèl@rúsh@n] (“sh” as in “share”), but this is not so widespread, perhaps because the name is still relatively new in English, and the morpheme boundary still feels pretty firm for the native speakers of English.

Weissruthenien army patch, 1918 Finally, an inquisitive reader might ask: “But why all the fuss? Doesn’t the word Belarus actually mean White Russia, if you translate it literally?” This is a widespread misconception. Rus refers to the Eastern Slavic lands that nowadays belong mostly to Belarus and Ukraine. There is a Latin term for Rus which has been used in English scholarly works as well: Ruthenia. So, etymologically, the word Belarus means “Ruthenia Alba” or “White Ruthenia.” Indeed, for centuries Russian historians have tried to confuse the situation by equating Ruthenian with Russian. But in Belarusian language there is a clear distinction between ruski (refering to Ruthenia) and rasiejski (refering to Russia). Unfortunately, in many other languages there is no special word for Ruthenia (Rus), so this differentiation may be difficult. But, essentially, it must be clear that “Belarus” does not mean “White Russia”, but rather “White Ruthenia.” For further reading I would like to recommend a great book by Ales Biely The Chronicles of White Rus’ – Chronicon Russiae Albae, published in 2000 in Belarusian language.