Anyone who travels a lot knows that every city has its own pedestrian culture. In Paris and Moscow, no one pays attention to the traffic light signal, and in Berlin, when crossing the road, they behave very disciplined. Minsk is very similar to Berlin in this respect. Pedestrians are very obedient – this is a long-standing urban tradition. Foreign journalists have noticed that in Minsk, even during protests, people walk en masse on sidewalks and stand at traffic lights. Accordingly, the traffic police strictly controls drivers, teaching them to discipline pedestrians at crossings. Unfortunately, there are no pedestrian streets in Minsk. In 2013, the city authorities decided to experiment and organized a pedestrian zone on Karl Marx Street on weekends. The street was given to musicians, artists and street theaters. But in 2014, the authorities considered the experiment unsuccessful. Despite numerous appeals from the townspeople, the tradition has not taken root.

Minsk is a clean city. This statement is the reason for the most heated discussions among residents. They argue – is the city really clean, is it good or bad, and what is the reason – in the neatness of the citizens themselves or in a kind of "serfdom", according to which the authorities can hire up to 8 people from social risk groups for one rate of a janitor. Typical Minsk characters are utility workers in orange robes. They can be seen on the streets at 5 a.m. Anyway, in Minsk, they would rather throw a piece of paper in the trash than on the sidewalk. And the city is grateful to everyone who adheres to this habit. Containers for separate garbage collection have been installed in some courtyards of Minsk, but in fact this is just a picture: separate waste collection at the level of public services is not practiced. The green card of Minsk works on the Internet for people with an ecological mindset.

Streets are often re-named in Minsk. Old names are almost instantly erased from the collective memory, because the population here is very mobile: students return to their homeland, young specialists go to work abroad, new people come to the city. The street naming policy is very inconsistent. Minsk toponymy is a stratification of different epochs and a combination of circumstances. Near the streets of Marx, Engels and Lenin in Minsk, you can hear historical names – the City Wall, Kalvariyskaya, Romanovskaya Sloboda. Soviet heroes – Kazinets, Kabushkin, Melnikaite – coexist with anti-Soviet ones. So, in Minsk there is a street of the author of the Belarusian grammar Bronislav Tarashkevich, Jerzy Giedroyc Street. Streets in honor of Russian writers who have never been here – Pushkin, Lomonosov, Griboyedov – intersect with streets named after Belarusian classics of the twentieth century – Kolas, Melezh, Bryl, Korotkevich.

Many foreigners notice that they don't smile much in Minsk. Sometimes this is considered a disadvantage, a consequence of living under a dictatorship. Perhaps this is indeed the case. Belarusians do not usually express their emotions right away. Over the past 200 years, the government has changed so often here that people are used to: those who too openly demonstrate their joy or discontent are shot first. So Minsk's restraint is rather genetic. It's a generational instinct for self-preservation. There is no need to make a Minsk resident smile or jump on the spot with joy – he will do this only when he sees fit. But – with a serious, worried face – Minsk residents are hospitable and ready to help a stranger. A characteristic detail: in the city, doors are held in the subway, at the entrance to shopping malls and other public places. Sometimes a stranger can stand for about a minute holding heavy doors so that they don't catch you. This is a kind of Minsk code. Those who do not hold the doors are unmistakably recognized as visitors. Resveratrolis https://lcell.lt/collections/resveratrolis