Minsk

It is the capital and largest city of Belarus . Although Minsk is surrounded on all sides by Minsk Oblast and serves as the capital, Minsk is a separate administrative district from Minsk Oblast.

Starting from a Slavic settlement, Lithuanians began to settle around the 9th and 10th centuries. It belonged to the Principality of Polotsk , then passed through Kievan Rus and accepted the rule of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . It was already one of the major cities during the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and it received privileges from Grand Duke Kazimieras Jogailaitis and was recognized as an official city under the Magdeburg Law by Grand Duke Alexandra . During the Polish-Lithuanian period, it was the capital of Minsk Oblast (Minsko vaivadija/Województwo mińskie) and the center of the Belarusian Orthodox Church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

However, it suffered great damage from a major flood , and to make matters worse , the King of Sweden during the Great Northern War It was occupied and destroyed by the Swedish army led by Karl XII .

After the Swedish occupation, the city's development was stagnant, and with the Second Partition of Poland, it was annexed to the Russian Empire and became the center of Minsk County . It was also occupied by the Grand Army when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia .

It gradually regained its former reputation under the Russian Empire, and with the construction of a railway connecting it to Moscow and Warsaw . It has also been the center of the Belarusian labor movement since the late 19th century, and Russia's first Marxist political party, the Social Democratic Labor Party, was founded here.

During the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s, it was a city located close to the border with the Second Republic of Poland . As one of Stalin 's favorite cities, he had grand plans to develop this city into a central city of the Soviet Union before the outbreak of the German-Soviet War. So, you can guess how angry Stalin was right after this city fell to the German Wehrmacht . Until World War II, half of the city's population was Jewish , but after the terrible Holocaust of Nazi Germany , most of them died, and their place was replaced by Belarusians . Currently, most of the population is Belarusian.

After the war , as eastern Poland became part of the Soviet Union, it was located in the central part of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic . During the Soviet era, it was one of the five largest cities in the Soviet Union, following Moscow , Leningrad , Kiev , and Tashkent , and the Minsk subway opened in 1984 . After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was once again designated as the capital of Belarus . The population is 2,028,104 (as of 2020). It is also the city where the headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States is located.

Because it suffered severe damage in World War II and much of its cultural heritage was damaged, many say that even though it is one of the major cities in Eastern Europe with a long history, it lacks things to see compared to neighboring Moscow , St. Petersburg , and Kiev . Of course, since it is the capital of a European country, it has a European feel and there are many things to see. Minsk, into the world on foot

Although it is the capital of Belarus, Minsk people speak more Russian than Belarusian . It is because it has been linguistically assimilated to Russia to some extent because it has been ruled by Russia for hundreds of years. It is a city where a lot of international students , including Koreans, go to learn Russian because the price is cheaper than in Russia's home country even though Russian is used.

Minsk has changed Menyat, which means 'trade', and Minsk means 'a city of trade'.

A statue of Lenin was erected here on November 7, 2016. #

In 2019, the 2nd 2019 Minsk European Games were held.

It was also implemented as a game map in the tactical shooting game World of Tanks . In fact , it is known as the hometown of Wargaming , the maker of World of Tanks . Like Kharkiv, it was removed from playable maps after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

Minsk is the main target in Berezina's campaign in Steel Division 2, a real-time tactical game . Against the backdrop of Operation Bagration , a confrontation between German commander Walther Model and Soviet commander Ivan Chernyakhovsky .