If it didn’t actually exist, it really would be amusing, even charming. A small chunk of the old USSR ruled over by a popularly elected meglomaniac seemingly determined to prove that Glasonst and Peristrioka could have redeemed the Soviet system. Old ladies out in their Brezhnev-era best, shopping in state stores packed with goods, while the TV offers daily updates on the successes of the current harvest campaign and the social implosion of other former Soviet republics. A place where a bottle of vodka costs a dollar, rent a few dollars more, where the hammer and sickle compete with Madonna and Sony, and the KGB – still called the KGB – plays cat-and-mouse with an opposition free enough to openly complain about the lack of democracy.

For more than a half decade, the former Soviet republic of Belarus has been treated by the international community and media as a political and economic eccentricity, a harmless joke on the periphery of emerging Europe . But with both government and opposition promising stark changes following this month’s elections, the EU’s future next-door-neighbor is taking on new importance. Meanwhile, the country’s once-whimsical image has been shattered by charges the government has been systematically murdering its leading opponents, and the increasingly dire results of a bizarre experiment in economic management.
While the “Soviet themepark” story offered by the newspapers suggests a forthright if wobbly attempt to return to the glory days of command economics and politics, the reality is far more complex. It is now clear that the “miracle years” of 1997-1998 – when near double-digit GDP growth and continued social order led millions of disillusioned and nostalgic former Soviets looked to the country for inspiration – were illusory. But little else is as obvious. So convoluted and opaque is the country’s development model that economists differ widely on its mid-range prospects, agreeing only that it is among the worst places on earth to do business. Adding to the confusion are recent moves by the government in the direction of liberalization, including new cooperation with the IMF and World Bank, and pledges by the country’s autocratic president, Alexander Lukashenka, that he will rapidly speed up economic reforms if returned to office in this month’s presidential election.