Top-5 Fake News. Russian filmmaker Mikhalkov: In Ukraine, investors are dissatisfied with number of cemeteries, and Belarussian Colonel compares Runet and English-language websites

Visiting government buildings is available to ordinary people only in Belarus, as stated by Sergei Klishevich, deputy of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus.

“In many countries, primarily the in West, government bodies are something sacred and closed. You know what happens in the USA, if someone tries to get into parliament, and God forbid, into the White House, what happens to these people. These are persons — political oligarchs, who have protected themselves from folks. And they decide the destinies of the whole world there. Yet we have truly people's power”, Sergei Klishevich said on the air of the program ‘Azarenok.Napryamuyu’ on the Belarus 1 TV channel on October 24. 

However, everyone can visit the Capitol building in the U.S. — you need only register on its website, choose a proper time, and book an excursion. Sightseeing tours of the Capitol are held daily from Monday to Saturday.

Congress hearings and meetings are also available for visiting. US citizens need only an invitation, which is given by their congressmen. Foreigners receive an invitation straight in the Capitol office.

To get into the White House, Americans must arrange a visit through their congressmen at least 21 days in advance. Foreigners — with the help of the U.S. embassy in their country.

As for Europe, you can book a UK Parliament House guided tour. The King's residence also provides sightseeing tours. The presidential palaces in Warsaw and Vilnius are open to visitors by prior arrangement.

The Palace of Independence in Minsk was built without foreign-made materials, the Belarusian state-run TV channel STV reported.

“It was constructed in a short time, but, of course, without sacrificing quality. From domestic materials and by the hands of Belarusians. These requirements were mandatory,” a propagandist said in the October 24 news.

Nevertheless, the website of the President of the Republic of Belarus points out that domestic manufacturers' materials were used for the interior decoration of the Palace. With the exception of a few types of marble and granite which were imported by the Russian company ISAKIDIS, which also has a representative office in Belarus.

The same company carried out the cladding of walls, and columns, and the installation of mosaic floors.

The company’s official website states that the area of ​​65,000 square meters of the Palace was covered with natural stone. They used several types of stone in large quantities.

The parquet floor is also not Belarusian. Its production was carried out by the Russian company Artparquet.

For the Palace of Independence, the company produced and montaged 3.5 thousand square meters of highly artistic parquet. Russians also are the manufacturers of 260 wooden doors with carved ornaments, decorated with gilding and patina.

The air conditioning system of the Palace is also imported. There is sanitaryware of non-Belarusian origin as well.

Belarusians have been using middle names for a thousand years, as claimed by Kirill Kazakov, editor-in-chief of the Belarusian state-run newspaper 'Minsk Courier':

“They, the Europeans, only use your first and last name. Well, that’s how it is with the Anglo-Saxons. True, what the Belarusians have to do with it is unclear. Now that 30 years have passed, everything is falling into place. [...] First, they took the country, then we confiscated the middle name. It doesn't matter if you have a thousand-year-old tradition. As we don't have it, and you won't have it,” he said on the air of the program ‘Evening Political Channel’ on October 23.

Belarusians did not have such a tradition. The newspaper of the Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus published an article about this.

“Middle names begin to be regularly used in official records of the Belarusians' names from the end of the 18th century after the joining of our territories to the Russian Empire”, Doctor of Philology, Professor Irina Gaponenko said in an interview with SB Belarus Today.

Instead of middle names, ancestors of Belarusians use patronymics — a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather, or an earlier male ancestor. They were similar in form to middle names and functioned as surnames. But when people have begun using surnames, patronymics naturally disappear.

“Most Belarusians know that Alexander Pushkin is Sergeevich, Leo Tolstoy is Nikolaevich. And when asked about the middle names of Maxim Bagdanovich, Ivan Melezh, or Piatrus Brouka [famous Belarussian authors], they will answer far less confidently. The professor believes that this is an indicator of some artificiality in the use of middle names in the Belarusian linguistic culture,”  the article said.

Belarusian Colonel Andrey Bogodel stated on the air of a state-run media that he was not worried that Russia and Belarus have been losing to the West in the ideological war on the Internet.

“It seemed to me that we were losing and losing, but when you open and see how much Runet takes up on the Internet... I want to say that this is actually second only to English-language sites,” he in particular said on the air of  Radio Minsk on October 25.

Worldwide, Russian-language websites indeed rank second in the number of entities after English-language ones. However, the share of the English language is almost 60%, and the Russian language is slightly more than 5%

The share of websites with the RU domain in the world is less than 4%. Whereas almost half of all sites on the Internet are registered in the English-language COM domain.

Western investors are unhappy with the way Ukrainians are using their arable land, famous Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov said.

“Mr. Nebenzya mentioned the company Blackrock, which is engaged in investments, including the purchase of land. And the director of this company, Larry Fink, says the following: “When President Zelensky and I signed a contract and created the  Ukraine Development Fund, we took into account the risks resulting from the illegal invasion of the Russian Federation. But now we are witnessing a completely unreasonable usage of black soil by the Ukrainians themselves. There are too many cemeteries. Precious arable land is being taken out of usage in a completely irrational way not accepted in Europe. Friends, that's not only your land,” he said in his program ‘Besogon’ on October 21.

This quote shows that Ukraine is allegedly selling off agricultural land to foreigners. However, the law of the country does not allow this. Until December 31, 2023, the land can only be bought and sold by individuals among citizens of Ukraine, no more than 100 hectares per person. 

In total, foreigners have sold and bought 1% of Ukrainian agricultural land since July 2021, when the agricultural land market was created.

Mikhalkov read the words of Larry Fint from the publication of the Belarussian state-run newspaper ‘Minskaya Pravda’. The original source of the quote is the satirical Telegram channel 'The Empire is Very Evil', which publishes fake news.

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