I'm supporting...

I've chosen my Belarus football team to support.

It's from the town of Vitebsk.  FC Vitebsk has changed it's name many times, but so have all the other teams in Belarus; that's what we do.  It was called Drina Vitebsk, which was named after the river (which flows on to Riga); which is nice.  We play Neman, (Grodno- far west near polish/ Lithuanian border) and Isloch (Minsk), both named after rivers too.

Vitebsk in blue playing Neman

The results this month

How are we doing?  we are 11th in the premiership at the moment having lost three matches this month.  We play Smolesvichi, a town near Minsk next Sunday.  

What can you do if you came and watch a match in our city?  We are up near the Russian border.  You can also get to Latvia in the west.  The town is famous for being the birth place of Marc Chagall.  We have the house where he was born, and a small museum.  Don't expect to see much art work.  The second world war made a large jack-boot imprint on this part of the world.  Marc was 35 when he left Vitebsk and headed to Paris.  He died when he was 98 years old.  

Where Moiche Chagalov was born.

North is Russia, west is Latvia, south is Minsk

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Church of the Annunciation

Belarus demographics reveal the old Polish border in the west, where Polish speakers have a presence.  They are also in Lithuania.  Interestingly, and nothing to do with football, a map on 'Big Think' shows the old German- Polish border as a political division in Europe.  The newer populations that moved into the region of Silesia given to Poland after the war appear to be more liberal and social that the older conservative areas.  Isn't that interesting?

Where the Poles live in Belarus with the old border marked

Where Poles live in Lithuania

The political differences in Poland either side of
the old German-Polish border