BELARUS

NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: The total area of Belarus is 207,595 sq km. Generally level terrain is disrupted by a series of highlands that run from northeast to southwest. Belarus has four additional discernible geographic regions: an area of lakes, hills, and forests in the north; an agricultural region with mixed-conifer forests in the west; a broad elevated plain in the east; and the Poles’ye, a lowland of rivers and swamps that extends into Ukraine, in the south. The country’s highest point, Mount Dzyarzhynskaya, is located in an upland area just southwest of Minsk. The Dnieper is the largest river in Belarus; it flows southward, almost the entire length of the country in the east, passing through the city of Mahilyow. Its important tributaries are the Pripyat’ in the south and the Berezina in the central region. Another major river is the Daugava, which flows westward from Russia through the northern tip of the republic. The Neman, also a west-flowing river, links the western part of Belarus with Lithuania. The Bug, a northward-flowing river along the country’s southwestern border with Poland, is linked at the city of Brest to a canal that connects with the Pripyat’ and subsequently the Dnieper. Belarus has thousands of lakes, the largest of which is Lake Narach in the northwest. Belarus is relatively poor in terms of natural resources. It has plentiful peat deposits, which are used for fuel and as a mulching material in agriculture. In the southwest there are small reserves of hard coal, brown coal, and petroleum, but they are not easily accessible and remain undeveloped. Belarus also has deposits of potassium salt, limestone, and phosphates. About one-third of the republic is covered in forest.
AGRICULTURE: Collective and state farms established during the Soviet period remain the dominant forms of agricultural production in Belarus. The principal crops are potatoes, grains, and sugar beets. Cultivated land accounts for 27 percent of the country’s land use. The 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl’ nuclear power station in Ukraine contaminated much of the soil in southern Belarus, reducing the country’s total area of arable land by more than 10 percent.
ENERGY: Belarus generates only about 12 percent of its own energy needs. It is heavily reliant on oil and gas supplies from Russia. These fuel imports reach Belarus via two major pipelines: the Friendship Pipeline carrying oil, and the Natural Lights Pipeline carrying natural gas. The price of these resources has risen considerably since 1991, and Belarus has carried a debt to the Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom, despite reducing its import quantity by about half. The country has two oil refineries, at Mazyr and Polatsk.