ABSTRACT
As a republic of the Soviet Union up to 1991, Belarus had a remarkably high level of social and economic development, and a reputation for political stability. This combination of factors prompted expectations of a quick and relatively painless transformation after the Soviet Union collapscd. However, these prospects had already faded by that time, largely because of the explosion at the nuclear power station in Chernobyl' in Ukraine in 1986. According to the UN, the Chernobyl' catastrophe was the world's worst ever environmental disaster, releasing radiation 300 times greater than that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Belarus suffered particularly badly since 70% of the radioactivity emitted fell on its population. In addition, Belarus had a number of other distinctive features hidden behind the official Soviet statistics. These will be examined in this chapter.
