On 7 November, Belarusian athlete Dmitri Belaits (2nd left) and Russian athlete Mikhail Shivlyakov (left) pulled a new Belarus-4522 tractor during its initial rollout near the Minsk Tractor Plant in Minsk (Belarus).
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Minsk BYELORUSSIA
Kolomenskoye Museum Preserve
Moscow (Federal City of Moscow. Central Federal District) RF
Annually, a candle-lit procession is held by pilgrims in honour of the Catholic wonderworking icon of Our Lady of Buduslav. Buduslav is some 150 kilometres (@100 miles) north of Minsk, and this procession draws thousands of Catholic faithful from Byelorussia, Eastern Poland, and Lithuania. One of the distinguishing marks of the Christian is that they go on otpust, on pilgrimage. Note well that Sectarians not only don’t go on pilgrimage… they disparage it. This is proof positive that a Russian priest friend of mine is right, “The Sectarians are Satan‘s simulacrum of Christianity“… we should heed that. Those who wish to “learn” from Sectarians should be defrocked… but they won’t. Don’t argue with them… they won’t listen to Christ… why should they listen to us?
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Byelorussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko (1954- ), with his extramarital son Nikolai (2004- ), lights a candle at St Nicholas Church in Petrikov (Gomel Oblast) on Easter Sunday
Metropolitan Philaret Vakhromeyev of Minsk and Slutsk (1935- ), Exarch of all Byelorussia, serves Easter liturgy in Minsk at Holy Spirit Cathedral
Believers at Easter liturgy at Holy Spirit Cathedral in Minsk
Blessing of Easter food baskets at the Nativity of the Mother of God convent in Grodno (Grodno Oblast)
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Blessing of Easter food baskets in Vitebsk (Vitebsk Oblast)
Catholic Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz (1946- ) of Minsk and Mogilev, held the Easter Vigil in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Believers at the Easter Vigil at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Minsk
The Easter Vigil, was held at St Xavier Roman Catholic Cathedral in Grodno (Grodno Oblast). Catholic Bishop Aleksander Kaszkiewicz (1949- ) of Grodno lights the great Easter candle.
In Byelorussia, most of the population is Orthodox, but some 15 percent are Catholic. Everyone lives together in peace… there’s no ethnic or religious strife there. That’s as it should be… we stay on our side of the fence, you stay on yours, and the gate between is unlocked… there can be no “unity”… but there can be friendship, and decent pragmatic folk will grasp that, for it’s good, no doubt on that score. As for the airy-fairy schemes of loud-mouthed pseudo-intellectuals, I think that all good Catholics would agree with me… “send us letters of friendship only… send us no more letters on doctrine”. We’d clink a glass and drink to that… and God would smile at it all. Is it so wrong to acknowledge our DIFFERENCES? They DO exist, after all…
My thanks to Mike, the original poster of these images.
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Voices From Russia, Too 
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