Today is the 10th anniversary of the unity state of Russia and Belarus

Russia and Belarus mark the 10th anniversary of the treaty concerning establishment of the unity state by our countries today. The treaty was signed by the Russian President Boris Eltsin and the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko on December 8, 1999. Russia and Belarus maintain joint custom and pricing policy, work out the defense order and provide close cooperation in all spheres today.

In the 8th dialogue with citizens of Russia the Prime-Minister Vladimir Putin said the Russian-Byelorussian relations would be consolidated further.

“We try to render all-sided assistance to our allies” – he said – “Thus, we appropriated 1,5 billion USD to Belarus as a credit in 2007 and one billion USD in 2008. In 2009 we appropriated 500 million dollars to Belarus from the federal exchequer plus 650 million USD from “GASPROM”.

Besides, Belarus receives means from the International Currency Fund, which is also invested by Russia and Russian Federation insists that these means have to be used for support of our nearest allies first of all.

In its turn, as the Prime-Minister said, the larger part of Byelorussian agricultural output goes to Russia. Practically 100% of meat export from Belarus falls on Russia. Byelorussian agricultural machinery is exported to Russia too. At the same time Byelorussia receives practically all its energy resources from Russia and at that the oil prices for Byelorussia are the lowest.

Establishment of the unified customs space on the territory of the unity state has become one of the recent steps on further integration of Russian and Byelorussian nations. Kazakhstan also joined the space.

Creation of the unity state favorable affected the relations between Bashkortostan and Belarus too. Our republics are connected with the long-term bonds in sphere of economics, culture and sport. More than 17,5 thousand Byelorussians live in Bashkortostan for today. The first Byelorussian settlements started to appear on Bashkir territory at the end of the XIX century. Here the emigrants from the eastern and the central regions of Byelorussia mainly settled. The abolition of suffrage in 1861 contributed to their resettlement as well as the First World War because in the result of these events many Byelorussian peasants turned out to be landless. The majority of Byelorussian settlers selected the territory of Iglinsky and the northern part of Archangelsky regions RB. These territories remain the places of Byelorussian compact habitation nowadays too.