Language

Belarusian is an East Slavic language similar to Russian, is written using the Belarusian Cyrillic alphabet and is spoken by less than 40% of the country’s population. Both Belarusian and Russian enjoy equal official status in Belarus, although Russian is by far the dominant of the two. Street signs and metro stations are almost without exception written in Belarusian. Outside of Minsk, Belarusian is more widely spoken, with Polish also used further to the west. Staff in many bars, hotels and restaurants speak at least a little English, although many menus in town remain in Russian only.