Belarus Transportation and Telecommunications
Figure 9. Transportation System of Belarus, 1995
In the former Soviet Union, the central government
owned and
operated the transportation system of the Belorussian SSR
and
used it primarily to serve the economic needs of the
entire
country as determined by the CPSU. Because of the
Belorussian
SSR's generally flat landscape and its location, building
a
transportation system there did not entail the
difficulties of
building on rugged terrain, over permafrost, or in remote
areas
far from industrial centers.
Railroads were the premier mode of transportation in
the
Belorussian SSR. Minsk is a major railroad junction,
located on
the lines connecting the Baltic states with Ukraine to the
south
and the line connecting Moscow with Warsaw to the west
(see
fig. 9). In 1993 Belarus had a total of 5,488 kilometers of
1,520-
millimeter-gauge railroads; of these, 873 kilometers were
electrified. Minsk also has an underground Metro that has
eighteen stations on two lines (totaling seventeen
kilometers).
Belarus's railroads accelerated industrial development
and,
in wartime, played a significant military role. Well
developed
compared with those in the other former Soviet republics,
the
country's railroads continued to play a major role in the
early
years of independent Belarus. They moved raw materials,
manufactured goods, and passengers over long hauls,
transporting
30 percent of the country's bulk cargo and 10 percent of
its
passengers in 1992 (see
table 5, Appendix A).
Railroad freight transport in 1994 declined 19 percent
(to
50.1 million tons) from its 1993 levels; this drop
approximated
the decline in gross industrial output over the same
period
(unlike previous years, when it had been greater). As a
result,
experts believed that gross inefficiencies of the past had
been
eliminated and that railroad transportation would not be a
bottleneck in the future when industrial output rose.
Because automotive transport is not generally used for
long
hauls, many roads outside urban areas have gravel or dirt
surfaces, especially in the more remote rural areas. The
lack of
paved roads in these rural areas seriously hampers the
movement
of agricultural products and supplies. Privately owned
automobiles are relatively few per capita, and so have
been of
limited importance in transportation, although this began
to
change slowly with the demise of communism. At the
beginning of
1994, the country had 92,200 kilometers of roads,
two-thirds of
which were paved, and many of which were deteriorating.
There
were no expressways or major national highways. Truck
transport
of freight declined in 1994 by 41 percent to 122.8 million
tons.
In 1994 Belarus received funds and promises of funds
from the
European Union (EU), Russia, Germany, and Poland to
upgrade road
and railroad links between Moscow and Berlin. A project
funded
jointly by Belarus and the European Bank for
Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD) will upgrade segments of the highway
linking
Poland to Russia through Belarus.
Belarus has extensive and widely used canal and river
systems, especially the Dnyapro River and its tributaries,
and
the Dnyaprowska-Buhski Canal, which connects the Buh (Bug,
in
Russian) and Prypyats' rivers. Homyel', Babruysk
(Bobruysk, in
Russian), Barysaw (Borisov, in Russian), and Pinsk are
major
river ports. In 1991 some 800,000 passengers and 18.6
million
tons of freight were carried on the country's inland
waterways.
Although Belarus has no direct access to the sea, it is
relatively close to Baltic Sea ports and has an agreement
with
Poland to transport Belarusian goods to the port of Gdynia
and to
use the port itself. In 1995 Lithuanian officials spoke of
giving
Belarus access to the Lithuanian port of Klaipéda.
Of Belarus's 124 airports, only fifty-five were usable
in
1993, and only thirty-one had permanent-surface runways.
Minsk
has one airport, Minsk International Airport. In 1994
Belavia,
the Belarusian state airline, planed to use US$80 million
of a
US$220 million credit from Switzerland to build an
aircraft
service center at the airport.
At the beginning of 1992, Belarus had 1.9 million
telephone
lines, or about eighteen lines per 100 persons; more than
700,000
applications for household telephones were still pending.
Only
about 15 percent of the telephone lines were switched
automatically. Connections to other former Soviet
republics are
by landline or microwave, and connections to other
countries are
by means of a leased connection through the Moscow
international
gateway switch. An NMT-450 analog cellular
telecommunications
network was under construction in Minsk in the early
1990s, and
approximately 300 kilometers of fiber-optic cable were
being
added to the city network. Progress in establishing an
International Telecommunications Satellite Organization
(Intelsat) earth station was slow.
In 1993 four television channels were available in
Belarus:
Belarus's single state-run television station
(Byelaruskaye
telebachannye) and three Russian television stations--
Televideniye Ostankino (Ostankino Television, Channel 1),
Rossiyskoye televideniye (Russian Television), and SanktPeterburg TV (St. Petersburg TV). By 1994 there was one
private
television station; its license was suspended during the
parliamentary elections of 1994. No cable television
service was
available. In 1992 an estimated 3.5 million televisions
were in
use in Belarus.
In 1994 Belarus's state-run radio (Byelaruskaye Radyyo)
broadcast two national programs, four Russian programs and
various regional programs over thirty-five AM radio
stations in
seventeen cities and over eighteen FM radio stations in
eighteen
cities. There was also a shared relay with Voice of
Russia.
International shortwave radio service broadcasts were in
Belarusian, English, German and Polish. In 1992 an
estimated 3.1
million radios were in use in Belarus.
In 1995 the government continued to control both
television
and radio in Belarus. In April 1995, when opposition
deputies to
the Supreme Soviet clashed with President Lukashyenka over
questions on the upcoming referendum, Lukashyenka cordoned
off
the national television and radio building (because of an
alleged
bomb threat). Before voting began both on the referendum
and on
parliamentary elections, discussion of the issues simply
disappeared from the media.
Data as of June 1995
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