Daily Life in Belarus By: Andrea Bodine

Family If you were born to an average family in Belarus, you would be part of a 3-4 person family. Your ethnicity would be ethnic Belarusian and you would speak Belarusian. You would live in a town or a city rather than the countryside. The head of household would be male adult, or if he dies it would pass to the oldest son first. A 3 person family from Minsk, Belarus featured in USA Today.

Education You would likely attend pre- school education despite it being non-compulsory seeing as 70% of children do attend. Then you will be required to attend school from ages 6 to 15, but you will most likely stay until you complete your education at 18. More than likely, you will not be lucky enough to continue to university such as the Belarusian University in Minsk and will enter the job market instead. An elementary school in Minsk provided by the website from the President of the Republic of Belarus.

Income and Work Living in Belarus, your family would make on average 16, 940 PPP dollars. Your form of income would be in the Belarusian ruble. Average rent for a 3 bedroom apartment in a city would take $784.33 per month out of your disposable income. You would not be unemployed because the unemployment rate is at 1%, but you would likely be underemployed. You or your head of household would probably work in the metallurgical or manufacturing industry.

Food In Belarus, you would eat three meals a day which would include staples of potatoes and red meat. You may enjoy dishes such as borscht, filet ala Minsk, or mochanka. You would then wash these down with black tea or coffee. Common food prices include: $0.62 for a loaf of bread, $0.75 for a kg of potatoes, and $0.82 for a 1.5 liter bottle of water.

Religion Orthodox Church of Barysau, Belarus A member of the average family in Belarus identifies as a member of the Belarusian Orthodox church (82.5% of religious population). However, you would not regularly attend church services (82% do not) and religion would not impact your daily life that often. Holy Spirit Cathedral in Minsk

Leisure Time In your free time, especially the weekends you would spend time with your family. The most usual thing for you to do for leisure is watch television, go to the movies, or garden. Another popular pastime you would enjoy is simple socialization with other Belarusians. A Minsk cinema A Belarusian dacha (or garden)

Works Cited http://www.factmonster.com/country/belarus.html http://un.by/en/aboutbelarus/ http://www.everyculture.com/A-Bo/Belarus.html http://www.belarus.by/en/about-belarus/key-facts http://www.belarus.by/en/about-belarus/education http://president.gov.by/en/school_en/ http://mediagallery.usatoday.com/Belarus http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Belarus http://www.russia-ukraine-travel.com/religion-in-belarus/ http://murenia_natalia.blog.tut.by/category/topics/leisure-time/