Minsk, Belarus travel guide

Two guys, eager to show you their native city.
Minsk is a modern city, truly comfortable for locals and guests. The tranquility and order in streets and other public places is maintained by abundant police patrols. The crime rate is fairly low - you can freely use your gilded Chinese iPhone or wear diamond necklace while walking by a deserted moonlit park. Just stay away from infrequent opposition pickets and safe you are.
The capital of Belarus is an ancient city. Through its history it belonged to Kyiv, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. Though the first mentioning of Minsk dates back to the 11th century, only a few of the reminders of the stormy past survived the numerous wars. During WWII, the city was totally ruinated, and afterwards resuscitated from scratch as a model soviet city. Wide streets, sumptuously decorated stalinist empire style buildings, marbled metro stations, cyclopean monuments to communist heroes and tyrants - it is the controversial legacy of the past epoch. After the collapse of the USSR, Minsk became the capital of the country and the area for the realization of the grandiose projects of the emerged regime, such as sports facilities, cultural and entertaining objects. Capitalist relations dramatically change the look of the capital: ugly gray shacks make way for pretentious ultramodern buildings, cracked and potholed asphalt is replaced by neat coloured paving tile, formerly half-empty streets are overfilled with cars, smiles appear on once sad, sullen faces of passersby.
With its semi-dormant atmosphere, Minsk looks rather like a provincial town than a two-million capital of a nation. Walk by its clean mosaic trottoirs, watching senior gay couples leisurely passing by; sit on a fumed oak bench near a pair of kissing teenagers; look at happy faces of people - we are sure, you will certainly return here, maybe next life, if not next year.