We also have a great country with a wonderful nature - lots of forests, perfectly blue lakes, rapid streams... Not sure if I could leave links here, but just google something like "Welcome to Belarus" or "Tourism in Belarus".

We don`t have mountains, we don`t have deserts (and no sea, sorry), but for those who eager to visit a countryside, a farm, or to take a walk across endless fields or forests - not sure whether you could find any place better :)

We boast cosy, clean and nice cities. Living is mostly cheap for foreigners - you can have a great lunch for a mere $2-4, or travel by the tube for just $0,2. We have really beautiful girls, number of great places to visit and a bunch of ways to spend a nice holiday. You may come by car, train or plane. Still, in most cases you`ll need a visa :(

Belarusians are very tolerant people: muslims and Christians, people with white and dark skin color, speaking different languages live happily in Belarus and conflicts occur extremely rarely.

I love my country and I would also love to share my passion with anyone of you who is reading this. Feel free to bother me on any topic, and if you decide to visit our country - just drop me a line. I`d be glad to share my advice or even guide you through the Belarus if schedule permits.

And now, finally,
«The end».
Thank you all!

I do not work with secrets nor do illegal stuff, I just clearly see how "transparent" we are in the eyes of everyone who is interested - with all these social networks and global companies, steadily gathering data on us.

Anyway, it does not help a lot: it seems that we live in a century where true privacy is a luxury.

Whether you are looking for something or just surfing around, you leave multiple traces on the Net. Sites log your visits: an IP address, a browser, a screen size, which site you have just visited, what you do on that site and so on and so forth.

Providers gather data about you - in case special services might need the data of possible criminals. They know not only which sites you visit, but also your personal ID (passport), address, mobile phones, et cetera.

Big companies gather data about you (and they really do know a lot!). For instance, Google does it now across multiple services: Mail, YouTube, Search - anything will do. It might be scary if you just imagine what a huge dossier Google has on you - go and check . They know our interests, hobbies, geographic location... They say it`s aimed at providing better services. Might be, might be. But how could we control them?

Mobile phones with all of our private data like SMSes, calendars, photos... Those all nude celebrity leaks from phones - it`s also a growing challenge. As phones become smarter each year, as we pump more information to these gadgets, loss of the phone usually means

The nail in the coffin of privacy are definitely social networks. They allow you to share everything about yourselves. Even if you do censor yourself or share it only with friends... Well, it`s no private at all.

Is anonymity a solution?

Despite we`re steadily moving from the "anarchic" Internet of 90-s and early 2000-s to the controlled and not-really-anonymous Net, there are still options to surf anonymously.

Turn off everything (cache/history/etc), do not log on to anywhere, use proxies - you might be unspotted for a while. But even the most anonymous guys somehow get caught.

And also while being anonymous you lose a huge part of modern life conveniences: you cannot use geolocation properly, control your personal accounts or use most services that reuire a registration.

Privacy is not an option. Just put up with it

Well, okay. I`m not Brad Pitt or other celebrity. I`m not an owner of multimillion business. I don`t know valued secrets to worry about. I`m just the person. Why should I care?

Okay, may all the world have an access to pictures of me and my wife or to texts where we were exchanging silly compliments. Okay, let all the world know my mobile number or home address - so what? Why might I be of interest to them? Go ahead, call me or drop me a line by conventional paper letter. Or try to rob/insult me, but I`ll be a criminal offence. People staring at the private stuff is supposedly not good, but why should we worry?

Maybe we should not. But also let us not forget that any information you post on the networks might be really sensitive. Post that you`re on a vacation and your address - voila, malefactors underline a fresh line in their dark lists. Your amusing photo where you were dancing drunk might come to light few years later, when you`ll be a director or company ruler.

So please, be little bit careful about your privacy, and please share your thoughts on the issue!

Health is a really immense topic, that`s why I suggest that we today focus on a healthcare system.

Here in Belarus we face a great debate from time to time: whether should we switch to paid-only medicine? How could we save doctors from leaving their workplaces for better-paid occupations? What way we should address the lack of specialists in the small cities? A number of friends/relatives in healthcare & "patient-experience", coupled with curiosity & some international first-hand facts do allow me to share some observations about pros and cons of different healthcare types.

For free!

But let me first make an introduction and brief you on what the Belarusian healthcare actually is at the moment.

We have the complimentary medicine. That means that most of the treatments would cost nothing to you. You call an ambulance - you pay nothing. Visiting a polyclinic? Just need to wait in a line, but no money required. Having serious troubles? Your operation would be free to you. Still, some things are not included in the free medicine benefits (say, cosmetic surgery).

So how it really works? If you have a health-related problem, you just go to a polyclinic where you make an appointment with a specialist-physician - say, a cardiology specialist if you have heart problems or an oculist for eye-related diseases. It is free but may take some time to book an appointment (it could be done over the internet for some medical institutions) and wait in a line, sometimes - hours and hours. Then you get your recommendations and prescriptions, if needed. Your case is serious? Then you will be given a "referral note" to visit a hospital. Sometimes hospitals may be overcrowded for weeks and months (for not an emergency cases), but all the treatment is still free. In case you need an emergency aid, just call an ambulance. It will arrive swiftly and again with no payments required.

Drugs are usually bought by the patient, but some categories may apply for a subsidy. We have some really talented and skillful doctors along with quite modern equipment to successfully perform even serious surgical operations - such as heart transplantations. Dental care is of high quality and low prices - you need to pay if you are not facing an emergency tooth problem.

Sounds good, huh? Now let me add some "flies" to the "ointment".

Free medicine = problems for free?

Well, we do have free medicine, but if you go into detail you may find out that it`s quite a controversial story. Free medicine does not mean free drugs. And they are really expensive sometimes. Of course, if you managed to get into a hospital, you`ll be generally treated by complimentary drugs, but they most likely would be locally produced. Those are "not always good", so doctors from time to time do strongly recommend patients to buy a really high quality drugs for themselves.

Situation in healthcare is tightly connected with "everyday bribery" - when patients bring doctors chocolates, cognac or even money to express their gratitude or to grab an appointment, to get an additional treatment without papers and lines. That is not a surprise, really: doctors have ridiculously tiny salaries (around $150-700).

A lot of things (like tests, dental services), especially when you are not "that ill", in most cases would still be done at the commercial centers or in the state healthcare institutions on a paid basis. Why? Lines in the polyclinics are just hellish: imagine dozens of patients waiting, lack of doctors, closed spaces - a lot of people prefer to pay (fees are reasonable).

Immense number of patients plus limited (and declining) number of physicians lead to shorter appointment times (what can you do in a 5 minutes? only your paperwork!), social tension (God prevent you to jump the queue!) and a vast number of other drawbacks.

Could paid medicine be the universal option?

Maybe we all should just shift to the paid (or insurance-based) medicine, will it be a cure-all?

Not sure. Of course, total comfort level, provision of hi-tech equipment and total quality of service are usually better, but... but it all costs money! Huge money. For the people, for the state. And it would be extremely hard for the nation to switch at once. Even timid appeals of ambulance workers to charge false emergency calls face massive repulse from the society! Once a suggestion arise to impose minimal fees ($0,5) for entering polyclinics in order to cut off those "false patients" coming there to socialize and battle boredom. But soon the guy who suggested it faced intense opposition from the society and government.

Despite transition problems, I see (according to my friends` experience) that insurance-based medicine has its own drawbacks. For instance, your appointments may be booked not less than a few months from now. Ambulance calls? No problem, but you`ll need to pay or to cover it with your insurance. And my experience of working with insurers say that they are willing to pay less or not to pay at all, which means additional stress for you.

Awaiting baby? Not a problem, go find few thousand dollars for medics to take care. Want to buy some relatively harmless drug (not talking about antibiotics or something really powerful)? Go visit your "family doctor" (it may also take weeks), get a prescription (we have them only for the most powerful medications)...

And well, not having an insurance policy covering all (which are really costly) means you still need to pay from time to time. Correct me if I am wrong, but those sums might be frightening if you caught something serious.

Change!

However, as I observe it, we definitely need to alter the attitude of our society to the doctors. They must not be treated by "servants" - people should get it once and for all these medical services are expensive and extremely difficult services (even if Government pays). Everyone will have to care about their health. For instance, a lot of alcohol addicts don`t care at all - maybe having less help for free could make them think of the consequences next time.

The main issue that if we don`t do anything, our medicine would be ruined quickly. Old and skilled workers pass away or retire on a pension, and young physicians are not willing to stay in the profession if the salary could not even cover their basic needs! And they leave country, or become traders, businessmen, housewives...

Less doctors plus the aging society equals severe problems in the nearest future.

P.S. Request for comments

What about your country? What healthcare system do you have? What challenges does it face?

Our leaders seem to have forgotten the lessons of the past. They set up plans to build a new nuclear plant - now in the perfectly green and clean area near Lithuania. Government reached an agreement with the Russian Federation to fund (by providing $9B loan) and actually build the power plant. Russia will also supply nuclear fuel for station to run.

Goes without saying that nuclear plant project caused great debate within society and in media. There were protests also, but it seems that Belarusians have finally tolerated the idea of potential nuclear bomb round the corner (as they tolerated a big bunch lot of unpleasant "presents" from the politicians).

The thing is controversial by nature. Yes, nuclear energy is really cheap, but it might be also really expensive in terms of ecology. It provides Belarus with a number of means to diversify its energy sources (now heavily dependant on Russia), but if examined closely nuclear power plant seems to even tighten embrace of our "big brother" (that's how is Russia sometimes called in Belarus). Why? Simple: we get workforce to build and support power plant, money to build it and nuclear fuel from Russia... Why don`t just continue pumping oil and burning coal?

Project of nuclear power station in Belarus leaves more question marks, than positive exclamations. Despite all the advantages, there are drawbacks that must not be overlooked - consequences may be fatal.

If blizzard did not stop now and again, consequences might have been way worse: transport collapse, at least. But why it happens? We got advanced tools, we got computers to predict weather, we got cutting edge chemicals to fight road ice, we got heads on our shoulders to create good ideas ("What if we`d left our car parked today and went by Tube?)... But still, we have nothing to do with Mother Nature. It ain`t volcanic eruption, not an avalanche, not a tsunami - just precipitation! And we couldn`t handle it properly - shame on us!

Mankind that managed to solve mysteries of a DNA, discover nuclear fission and launch a man into space, [...], could not cope with snow and rain?! That might have been funny if it was not that sad. Maybe we should look not that far in other mysteries of mind and body and space, but try to make an effective use of things we got? For our cities to successfully operate at any possible weather conditions, to overcome all these circumstances appearing out of a blue sky... We`ve got even a saying on this, when we try to make it through snowdrifts on the roads and curse road workers: "Winter came suddenly - as always". It`s of course harder to quickly manage snowstorm in July rather than in December, but anyways, it is possible.

Not talking about July, let me confess: even in April that felt really uncomfortable. I wish spring, or stay in London, or stay in UAE - anything, but no more snow please and freezing winds. Enough, enough!

Nick, Belarus