Such a proposal was made by Alexander Lukashenka during a visit to the 'Mak.by' restaurant in Minsk.
Illustrative photo. Photo: freepik.com
During a demonstration for Lukashenka of the self-service machine at a 'Mak.by' chain restaurant in Minsk, the chain's director, Viktoria Danko, began, as an example, to order an Americano coffee for First Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Snopkov.
Lukashenka, hearing the name 'Americano', reacted unexpectedly:
«Americano should be renamed to a Belarusian brand. For now, write 'Americano' in brackets, and when they get used to it, then...»
Perhaps it was just a joke, though the politician spoke about it without a trace of a smile on his face. But in any case, past practice shows that similar statements from him are usually perceived as an order and have consequences.
Thus, in November 2024, during a visit to the Minsk State Linguistic University, Lukashenka recalled that this institution was formerly called 'Inyaz' (a Russian acronym for 'Foreign Languages Institute'), and described its current name as 'obscene'. As of August 2025, MSLU officially adopted a name closer to the Soviet era — Belarusian State University of Foreign Languages.
Even earlier, Lukashenka also found the name of one of the faculties at Vitebsk State University named after Masherov — Humanities and Language Communications — to be 'obscene'. Just three weeks later, this name began to sound slightly different — Faculty of Humanitarian Knowledge and Communications.
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