Meet In Minsk

The Belarus city emerges as an inviting venue for corporate events.

- Sharon King Hoge

A PRISTINE CITY OF BROAD boulevards where monumental government buildings intermingle with charming restored shops and churches. An urban landscape where welcoming residents stroll along meandering river banks, pausing at picturesque bars and cafés for borscht and sips of local vodka. A metropolis scattered with museums; concert halls; parks; and two grand, rounded edifices housing the Bolshoi Ballet and the Circus. All these attributes add up to modern Minsk, and the capital of the former Soviet republic of Belarus perches on the verge of emerging as a first-class site for visitors.

The current stability brings relief to a country repeatedly ravaged by war. A buffer state situated geographically at the center of the European continent, it served as a constant battleground first resisting Mongol and Tartar invaders, then enduring violent battles between opposing forces of the East and the West in the War of 1812 and both world wars. Occupied by the Nazis during World War II, violent clashes between the Germans and the encroaching Red Army flattened the city into a pile of rubble.