br23 blog - minsk, belarus

It’s -15°C in Prague right now, and according to forecasts it’ll drop to -20°C tomorrow. Still, it’s nothing in comparison to Belarus. In Prague, we got just a tail of that cold weather front. In Belarus it was around -25°C and as low as -30°C. On January 19 as a result of low temperatures and snow, some power lines went down, and power supply was cut-off in 150 towns and villages. Several people froze to death (mostly drunks who fell asleep outside). A junior ice hockey team from Ukraine almost froze to death on the way to Homel, Belarus. Their bus broke down in the middle of nowhere, and the temperature inside the bus fell to -25°C. Thankfully, mobile phones were still operating, and they called for help.

As temperatures continue to fall, main opposition candidates A.Milinkevich’s rating seems to keep growing, very very fast. Here’s a report from Gallup (!) which was published several days ago:

“While in November 2005 awareness of the democratic forces leader among Belarusian citizens was 59%, in January 2006 it has exceeded 79%. It is important that 56% of citizens who know Milinkevich, have a positive attitude towards him, and 25% have a negative attitude. Advance of A. Milinkevich’s popularity is most rapid in large cities. For instance, in Minsk, Hrodna, Vitsebsk up to 40% of electorate are ready to vote for him for today.”

This entry was posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2006 at 1:04 am and is filed under Belarusian politics, Milinkevich. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.