Life in Belarus update (from my email, from anonymous)

 [[{“value”:”Just an interesting update: Chinese cars are rapidly replacing European & American cars in the city. An improvement in terms of comfort. Luxury cars still only European. Housing prices in Minsk are reaching highs not seen since 2016. Government bodies that deal with the sales of properties are booked out 2 weeks. (Not common) Subjectively,
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Just an interesting update:

Chinese cars are rapidly replacing European & American cars in the city. An improvement in terms of comfort. Luxury cars still only European.

Housing prices in Minsk are reaching highs not seen since 2016. Government bodies that deal with the sales of properties are booked out 2 weeks. (Not common)

Subjectively, restaurants have improved immensely in the past few years with the influx of Chinese students and businessmen. Minsk has its first proper Korean restaurant,  and Chinese food has become as good as in China. Minskers have a new found taste of spicy food (so says friends in the food industry)

Everyone I know that lost their jobs from sanctions has found something new working for a locally (or CIS) focused company.

Any products that disappeared after sanctions was either replaced by local (or russian) products, or reappeared with a Chinese label.

From my perspective, regarding Chinese, the immigration center I go to every year has become very very crowded with Chinese. It went from maybe 10 people waiting, to over 100 – every day.

Oppositional people have left long ago, people who remain accept or support the Government. . .

There has to be some profound lessons to draw from this, but I’m not sure.

It’s hard to measure & quantify resilience? Sanctions are ineffective with such a global economy? China is in control of this century? Maybe it’s a good thing to produce things locally? GDP is taken too seriously in the public mind?

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