Minsk needs to squeeze out its provincialism and regain the audacity and brilliance of a Great City
Is Minsk really too big for Belarus? F. Raubich refutes both Siarhei Naumchyk and Adam Hlobus. There is no need to "de-capitalize" Minsk, he writes. On the contrary, it is necessary to save it from the rural mentality that turns the country's main city into a huge dormitory town without ambition or fire.
Capital Palace, more commonly known as the Karych Palace, is a classic example of how a provincial government destroys the image of the capital, not loving or understanding the city it governs, and perceiving it as hostile territory and a means of self-enrichment.
In a recent interview, Adam Hlobus suggested cultivating a capital identity, as we have enough provincialism. Against the backdrop of stagnant cultural and political discussions, where the same old topics have been chewed over for years, this thought feels like a breath of fresh air. It's as if a door has opened to a space we hadn't even peeked into before.
One cannot say that the author provides any answer as to why capitalness is important and necessary, other than that it deflates provincial arrogance, making a person ordinary. We see this conceit daily: yesterday's villagers love to turn up their noses and loudly declare that they "don't like this Minsk of yours at all" — as if that could offend anyone from the capital.
This is a manifestation of their own complexes: if you feel less worthy than those from the capital because you are a provincial yourself, why not try to bring the capital down a notch? These complexes, as Hlobus rightly noted, usually disappear quickly – the Minsk metro easily cures such a malady.
A big city gives everything, and the only thing it asks in return is to embrace its rhythm. It offers the luxury of being yourself, because in a large crowd, everyone minds their own business.
And the more remote the area, paradoxically, the stronger the desire to join that very "hated" Minsk, because these people perfectly understand what they are fleeing from. The capital, unlike the provinces, accepts everyone.
"Over-capitalized" Belarus
And here, former deputy Siarhei Naumchyk enters the discussion with a thesis that sounds like a diagnosis: Belarus, he says, is too "over-capitalized," and Minsk is an anomaly that draws too much unto itself.
The "Gates of Minsk" — the brilliance of imperial grandeur and classical architecture, a symbol of the capital for those arriving in the city from the provinces. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Porta Appia, now the Gate of Saint Sebastian, served as the main entrance to ancient Rome from the Appian Way. The parallels are obvious. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Naumchyk asserts: "Today, Minsk has concentrated almost 100% of influence... This is an anomaly. Such concentration does not exist in democratic countries."
This is not true. A beautiful idea, popular in wide circles, but untrue.
Minsk is not an anomaly. It is an absolutely ordinary European city, when speaking of its scale and influence within the country.
We cannot accurately measure that very "influence in all spheres," but outside of Minsk there are also large hospitals, theaters and museums, universities and scientific institutions, and large festivals and sports competitions are held.
It cannot be said that the residents of Belarusian regions are faced with a choice — either in Minsk or nowhere. An alternative exists, and that is by no means 100% influence.
Naumchyk doesn't explicitly say it, but the "abnormal" size of Belarus's capital relative to other cities and the country as a whole is a popular explanation for its supposed excessive influence on all spheres of life.
It should not be assumed that any particular proportion of the capital's population to the population of the largest cities and the country's population as a whole is correct. In northern Belarus, there are many tiny settlements, a few dozens per village council, while in Polesia, there are gigantic villages, only 3-4 of which might exist in a village council of the same population size. Which of these settlement systems is correct? None, each arose in response to specific natural, economic, and political conditions in a particular locality.
Minsk - an overgrown city?
But let's look at the dry statistics:
Minsk accounts for about 22% of the country's population. It is 4 times larger than the second city, Gomel. Is this an "overgrown city" in the modern world? Absolutely not.
Look at democratic Europe:
In Norway, Oslo is 4 times larger than Bergen.
In Estonia, Tallinn is 4.6 times larger than Tartu.
In Latvia, Riga is 7.6 times larger than Daugavpils!
In Iceland, Reykjavík exceeds the second city by 11.5 times.
One in three residents of Latvia lives in Riga. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Riga (32% of the country's population), Tallinn (33%), and Reykjavík (36%) — these are the real "head cities." And it's nothing, they are perfectly democratic countries.
Minsk, with its 22%, stands in line with Vienna (22.1%) and Tirana (24.7%). Overall, we are almost twin brothers with 9-million-strong Austria in this regard.
And those capitals that formally appear very small relative to the entire country — Lisbon (5.4%), Stockholm (9.4%), Athens (6.2%) — when viewed within their agglomerations, turn out to be entirely comparable to Minsk. At the same time, Minsk itself almost "stands in a field" and has nothing substantial nearby that would allow it to "grow" its weight.
For comparison: about 27.8% of the country's population lives in the Lisbon agglomeration, 29.4% in the Athenian, and 23.4% in the Stockholm agglomeration. In the Minsk agglomeration, it's from 23% to 28.5% in the broadest sense, if you consider the 1.5-hour accessibility zone, which covers a significant part of Belarus.
So, talks about some "extraordinary bloatedness" of Minsk are rather the fruit of fantasies and provincial frustrations, poorly substantiated. In dry figures, Minsk looks like a maximally ordinary European city.
Rome as the archetype of a capital
Model of ancient Rome. Rome became the first instance in European history when a city ceased to be merely a seat of power and transformed into a self-sufficient value — a center around which the entire empire was built. Photo: Museum of Roman Civilization in Rome
Not to mention the progenitor of all European capitals — ancient Rome. It was simply colossal, reaching an unprecedented figure of a million inhabitants during its heyday — a number unreachable for Europe for another millennium and a half. Perhaps this ultimately destroyed it, but how it lived!
Rome was the first instance when a city became something much more than just the place where the ruler's throne was located. It was not a city within an empire — it was an empire around the City. Rome was a self-sufficient value, the only value worth desiring and fighting for.
Centuries before and centuries after Rome, city-states existed, empires existed where the capital was the place where the government sat and the ruler resided. But for more than a thousand years, the idea of a capital as a self-sufficient value did not exist in Europe.
And today we find ourselves once again at that historical stage when for most states, the capital is no longer just the central city. It is something more: a symbol and a manifesto, the material embodiment of national ambitions and dreams, a stronghold of the spirit and at the same time a free spirit and a libertine.
Decentralization for decentralization's sake
Further, Naumchyk, stipulating that presenting the US as an example today is "unfashionable," turns to the United States, noting that the political capital Washington exists separately there, while cultural, media, educational, and economic centers are distributed throughout the country.
This is indeed true, but the example of the USA is not just "unfashionable," but simply incorrect — in terms of scale, geography, political organization, and historical experience. The United States is absolutely unlike Belarus, just as China, India, Iran, or even neighboring Russia are. We cannot compare ourselves with these countries, as they are fundamentally structured differently.
Washington and the District of Columbia emerged as a result of compromise and fear of regional dominance, which is why the capital was placed in a separate federal district. This experience is difficult to translate to Belarusian realities. Photo: Getty Images / halbergman
What is normal for a multi-million federal state, stretched from ocean to ocean, could in no way naturally arise in a relatively small, flat, and homogeneous Belarus.
In Europe, there is no shortage of countries that, at least by several parameters, can be considered comparable to Belarus: Austria, Portugal, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Hungary, and others. Naumchyk cites the Czech Republic as an example, where the Constitutional Court is located not in the capital, but in Brno — approximately 200 kilometers from Prague. The case is interesting and almost unique in the diverse European practice.
The Constitutional Court appeared in Brno in 1991, when socialist Czechoslovakia no longer existed, but the two countries were still united in the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic. Brno was approximately halfway between the political capitals of both parts of the federation, and after its dissolution, judicial power remained in its former place by inertia.
As soon as Germany became unified again, the question of the capital effectively disappeared: despite the difficulties and cost, Berlin unhesitatingly reclaimed its status as capital. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Similar exceptions include the Netherlands, where Amsterdam is the constitutional capital, but the government, parliament, and courts are located in The Hague, as well as Germany, where key judicial power is concentrated in Karlsruhe. Before Germany's reunification, the small city of Bonn served as the capital of the FRG, despite its proximity to the large cities of the Ruhr Basin. However, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the question of where Germany's capital should be effectively did not arise, although a number of federal institutions are still located in Bonn today.
These are all unique cases, not a panacea.
Naumchyk ponders what the country might be like if the Constitutional Court were not "across the street," and Lukashenka couldn't simply cross the street and negotiate with its chairman Tsikhinya.
To be honest, reading this is even a bit amusing: in one situation, they will complain that government institutions are located too close, in another — that they are too far. Because in most cases, the problem is not distance, but political talent.
Here one can also offer a counter-argument: what if there's a war, and government bodies are scattered across the country — in cities, some of which might already be under siege?
The idea of "scattering power across the provinces" sounds appealing only in peacetime. It is often imagined that centralization, or "over-capitalization," is dangerous based on the "all eggs in one basket" principle, but in practice, during a crisis, the most effective situation turns out to be when power is not just nearby, but virtually in one place, capable of making quick decisions and acting in a coordinated manner.
It is precisely in the military paradigm that it is particularly acutely felt that the capital is a true value, not just a simple epithet to the name of a large city. Even if government bodies are evacuated, the fall of the capital is almost always perceived as the fall of the country.
It is enough to recall examples where holding the capital, despite the terrible cost, determined the fate of the state, and compare them with how political systems instantly collapsed after losing their capital. We all well understood what the consequences could have been when Russian troops approached the borders of Kyiv.
Minsk is sick because it's not capital enough
There is no "dictatorship of Minsk" in Belarus; there is a dictatorship of the provinces that has captured Minsk.
Today, the capital of Belarus is a European metropolis with the soul of a kolkhoz chairman.
Look at the government. Almost all leadership — both of the country and of the city itself — are deeply provincial.
Tyche, or Fortuna in a mural crown — the ancient embodiment of the success and prosperity of cities. Has the goddess not left Belarusian cities today? Photo: Wikimedia Commons, processed by "Nasha Niva"
Minsk is governed by people who do not love it, do not feel it, and do not understand it. For them, the city is simply a village on a much larger scale, which needs to be "put in order": mow the grass, trim the trees, paint the curbs, and prohibit everything incomprehensible.
Minsk yearns for a mayor for whom it would be a value, as Rome was for the Romans, and not just another step in a career. But as long as the Belarusian capital remains in the shackles of provincialism, one cannot but agree with Hlobus that we lack capitalness.
This is precisely what distinguishes Minsk from full-fledged capitals.
It must be remembered that the city is the foundation of civilization since its inception. It is in the urban crucible, in this pluralistic, cramped space where thousands of dissimilar people daily collide, that new ideas, new meanings, technologies, and freedoms are born. The city determines the future for all.
We are entering an era of "new Middle Ages," when great cities once again become what Italian cities were during Dante's time — independent political and cultural centers that compete with each other and achieve unimaginable prosperity within their own walls.
The surrounding land, which for centuries served as a spiritual support for agrarian peoples and a source of pride for national states, gradually ceases to have independent significance.
What is Venice without its terraferma? It is still brilliant Venice. And what is terraferma without Venice? Nothing.
The City as Provider
The myth that "the capital devours the regions" must be shattered. Quite the opposite. It is the capital and large cities in general that carry the unprofitable, dying hinterland on their backs.
The city humbly pays the salary of a nurse in a rural paramedic station and maintains culture houses that no one attends. This is a great burden for which cities demand payment in people — there's nothing else to take from the provinces.
The capital has no right to refuse this burden, even if the land loses all value and the only value left is people: the provinces, its hinterland — this is a colorful mantle that adorns the capital when the nation places the crown of primacy upon it.
If we approached the issue cynically, it would turn out that sometimes it is cheaper to relocate all residents of depressed areas to cities, teach them to code, than to sustain life in remote backwaters. Their utility in offices and cafes would be greater than languishing in machine yards.
Let's admit it: the village is dying, and it will inevitably die. We simply no longer need the village when the issue of food supply is no longer a concern in any developed country. This is not a tragedy; it is evolution.
We will yet see nature cleanse itself to such an extent that there will be nothing between cities: wild animals will return to the forests, dirt roads will become overgrown, slate roofs will collapse. Rural life will be preserved as an exotic curiosity, in open-air museums and agro-estates that will serve for the recreation and leisure of city dwellers.
And that's normal. Cities should not go into the grave with the village out of a sense of solidarity.
The Promethean Fire of Progress
The sculpture of Prometheus at Rockefeller Center embodies the idea of technical progress, human courage, audacity, and defiance of traditional inertia. In Art Deco aesthetics, Prometheus is not a sufferer, but a hero of modernity, a bearer of the fire of technology and a new civilization. Without the Promethean fire, a city ceases to develop and begins to fade. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The tragedy of Belarus today is that the dying village, clutching with blue-tinged fingers, drags the living city into the grave with it.
Provincial leaders have brought their philosophy of "stability" to Minsk, which in reality is a philosophy of slow death.
The city must burn. Burn with ideas, money, ambitions, art, rebellions, scandals, with the Promethean fire of progress. In Belarus, cities no longer burn. They are burning out, the flame is dying.
While cities in other countries are developing, Belarusian cities have stopped. They grow in scale, literally swelling with people, but do not develop: necessary infrastructure projects have not been implemented, war and post-war wounds have not healed, new theaters, circuses, zoos — and much more — have not appeared. The widespread decline in science, education, arts, and architecture, amplified by state censorship and political dismissals; grayness and silence — all of this accumulates and gradually extinguishes the fire of progress.
"Minsk World" is a striking example of how the development of Belarusian cities is being replaced by their quantitative growth: instead of an international business center on the site of the former airport, a giant residential area has grown. Photo: developer.
People move to the city to escape old ways and meaningless decay, but in today's Belarus, they can encounter it even in large cities and the capital. It is a quiet, unnoticed dying.
The very idea not only of capitalness, but also of urbanity, has been lost. The only understanding of a city that remains in "provincial Belarus" is a place where millions of people go to sleep in sprawling panel districts to commute to work in the morning.
We don't need to "de-capitalize" Minsk, as Naumchyk suggests. On the contrary. We need to squeeze out the imposed provincialism from Minsk, restore its right to aristocracy, audacity, and brilliance.
Minsk must stop being just a large settlement and become what it ought to be — a Great City.
«Nasha Niva» — the bastion of Belarus
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