|
Administrative and Territorial
Situated on the strategic crossroads from East to West, between Moscow and Warsaw, Vilnius and Kiev, Minsk is the largest transportation hub of the Republic. The local air company, CIS and foreign air companies transport passengers and freight via the city’s airports — Minsk-1 and Minsk-2. The Machulishchy cargo airport located in the capital’s suburbs has capacities to handle transportation jumbos. The planned rehabilitation of existing and building new European-wide transportation corridors Brest-Minsk-Moscow and Baltic states-Minsk-Ukraine serve the basis for developing the Minsk transportation hub and is the major potential for the urban development. 33 higher educational establishments are located in Minsk including 11 non-governmental educational institutions (about 170 thousand students), 27 secondary specialized educational establishments (over 40 thousand students), 267 general education schools (over 239 thousand students) and 445 preschool institutions. Minsk is the largest scientific center of Belarus, with 185 research institutions including the National Academy of Sciences operating in it. Minsk is the largest cultural center of Belarus. 16 museums, 11 theatres, 20 movie theatres, 132 libraries, 38 Palaces and Centers of culture, over 3.5 thousand of sporting facilities offer their services. 258 magazines and 282 newspapers are issued in Minsk.
Brest Region is located in the southwest of the republic. It borders Poland in the west and the Ukraine in the south. Its area — 32.8 thousand km² (15.8% of the country’s area), and resident population — 1,477.2 thousand people (14.8% of the country’s population). The Region’s center is the city of Brest (the population size is 296 thousand residents). It comprises 16 Districts, 20 towns and 9 urban-type settlements. The major industries are food, consumer goods and machine-building and metalworking industries. They account for nearly 2/3 of the total industrial output. Power engineering, forestry, and woodworking, pulp-and-paper, flour-milling and cereal and mixed-feed industries are also developed. The agribusiness sector specializes in beef and dairy husbandry, potato growing, cereals, sugar beet cropping and horticulture.
The Berlin-Warsaw-Brest-Minsk-Moscow transit corridor, extensive network of railways and highways and a direct route to Vilnius and Kiev run through the Region, thereby creating favorable conditions for passenger and freight traffic from European countries to Russia, Ukraine and other countries. In addition, Brest operates the international all-weather 1st category airport allowing wide-body aircraft like Boeing-747 to be received and serviced. The state national park Belovezhskaya Pushcha is located in the Region. Extensive researches are being conducted in the park to protect a unique natural complex characteristic of Belarus and Europe. |
The Region has mineral resources being the basis for development of industries capitalizing on local natural resources. This primarily includes construction stone, low-melting and refractory clays, glass-making, molding and construction sands, peat, sapropel and gravel; slate and brown coal deposits have been stricken. The Brest free economic zone was established in the Region.