Quote Originally Posted by Basil77
Почему же люди начинают считать себя белорусами, хотя раньше считали русскими?
I was there for quite a while, and I noticed that they had a campaign going on, to make people feel more "Belarussian". On billboards and on TV. It may or may not still be going on. I think it's worked, particularly on younger people.

Of course, in Western Europe, anything like that would be rejected as disgusting nationalism -- so for me, it was quite fascinating to see nationalistic TV ads and slogans in the street. They tried it for the EU a few times but people just vandalise it..

I thought it was quite nicely done; nothing racist or discriminatory, just some reminders about why, as a citizen there, you might like your country.

I think the slogan is/was "Вместе мы Беларусь". Quite a few people there are actually from elsewhere in the ex-USSR, so it's not really an ethnic thing - just more a plan to make people identify with the nation of Belarus, rather than for example Russia or Ukraine. I guess the government there wants citizens to be invested in what happens in Belarus and stop feeling like Russians or Ukrainians who just live in Belarus.

I don't think most people there want to join either Russia or the EU, like Basil77 said - at least not right now.

Edit: Example of slogan from Belarus