Talk:Administrative divisions of Belarus

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Contents

[edit] interwiki intextlinks

I liked the links to be:WP, maybe software should show they are enWP-external links . Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:44, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] naming

This section discusses the naming of provinces/voblasts and districts/rayons.

Please have a look too at: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Subnational_entities#Current use

[edit] upper/lower case

  1. uppercase is used in Sweden, Poland, Russia, Estonia, Lithuania and many other countries

[edit] english/local

  1. as said in the article, voblast is usually translated as province
  2. only very few countries (currently most of them from Commonwealth_of_Independent_States) do not use english words

[edit] Discussion

I would favor english uppercase. Thanks for adding comments. :-) Tobias Conradi 18:58, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • I would favor national uppercase: Minsk Voblast. Uppercase, since "voblast" is part of the full name: Minskaya voblasc, unlike certain other countries. National, to distinguish from old historical subdivision in guberniyas. Mikkalai 22:22, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Hi Mikkalai! Logged back in again ;-) ... At first glance I liked your idea, but I see problems. One day we might have (please extend if you like):
Why not? Formally, they were different entities. As of now they may redirect into one place, but if someone pulls out an EB911 or so article about Minsk guberniya in Imperial Russia, it will have a place to go. Mikkalai 23:57, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • District
    • Minsk Raion -> How to distinguish here, historic in Russian? English would be neutral.
  • City
The oblasts and voblasts are more or less the same area? For the historic we could also use Governorate. Just started this article :-) Having "solved" the guberniya-problem I would favor english-uppercase, because as mentioned above, national forms are (currently) seldom used. Tobias Conradi 22:43, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The majority of example is of no say here. Why don't you go and convince French to replace Département by County? Mikkalai 23:57, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I was unprecise. Of course it would be possible to have Minsk Voblast, Minsk Oblast, Minsk Guberniya. Only because a reference to historical units is needed, there is no need to use non-english terms. Historic entities with no changing in the name cannot use this. But how about my question
     The oblasts and voblasts are more or less the same area?
"more or less" -yes, but not exaclty. Also, they had different kind of management. Don't forget, these are not only territorial, but also administrative units. Mikkalai 15:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
and how about the solution to use Province and Governorate? This is english wikipedia. you know what is oblast, I know what is oblast (I am interested much in geography and linguistics, and in East Germany learned russian for 7 years). At the moment I also know what is thai changwat, but the chinese names I already forgot.
A similar, but esentially opposite argument applies to "province" and "governorate". The English-speakers only think that they know what "province" is; in fact this may be a different thing for different countries; even a different level of subdivision. If in some context one wants to say "Minsk province", rightfully assuming that who cares what exactly this means, then fine; that's what redirects are for. But IMO the main article deserves to be named by the official name, precisely for educational purposes. That's what encyclopedia for. Mikkalai 15:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  'Why don't you go and convince French to replace Département by County?'
I like constructive discussions, but do not like wasting time on sentences like that. If entities of CIS countries are called by russian, ukrainian belarus and turc words. - fine with me, I do not want to be personal attacked by other wikipedians like from Ukraine. Tobias Conradi 02:26, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
So, you are saying that French are unconditinally entitled to the French name, but Belarusians are barbarians and undeserving, and must be taught proper English language; is that what you want to say when you "don't like wasting time on sentences like that"? You were attacked by several wikipedians. Isn't it saying something about your attitude to editing (in addition to saying something about someone else's tempers)? The desire to unify is natural but some people don't like to be unified, for various reasons. Mikkalai 15:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I never called anyone in my live barbarian, not direct, not indirect. I was attacked by two wikipedians, one from Ukraine. The other did not attack me. Have fun. Tobias Conradi 16:25, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
In Soviet/Independence times Voblast is same as Oblast (it just Belarusian and Russian word for same thing). I think article name should be in Belarusian (Voblast), with Oblast as redirect. Raion is transliterated in same way in Russian and Belarusian.
In Imperial Russia Belarus territory was divided on Guberniyas further divided into Uyezds.
In Poland time (West Belarus was under Poland in 1920 – 1939), I think this territory was divided on Voivodships further divided into Powets (as in Poland).
Of course all this information only what come to my mind. I didn't check any other sources. Please don't rely on it completely :-)
EugeneZelenko 04:52, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
powet = powiat. Mikkalai 15:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Hi Eugene, thanks for this info. If the oblasts and voblast are more or less the same it would be ok to translate it. There exist a lot of words for provinces, I added some translations there. Please look at the different ways wilaya are romanized, and different ways of ending for countries that use wilaya. For Uzbekistan and Tajikistan "XY Viloyati" Turkmenistan "XY Welayaty". Using the english term for all of them would avoid conflicts. provinces of Kazakhstan use oblysy. Bringing all voblast, oblast, oblysy, oblast', velayat, viloyat together would be easier for the user that does not know all this details. Of course, first line should mention the official name. Tobias Conradi 05:57, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This attitude assumes the lowest possible intelligence of readers. I don't think this s a correct approach. If someone doesn't know these details, he probably doesn't need them. Seeing a new word he has two options: either to look it up, or to ignore it, assuming that the context gives a sufficient idea of what it might be. Mikkalai 15:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Me too, I like seeing new words, because I learn from this. But there can be other ways to achieve this. BTW I would like to start a series of (official) terms for subnational entities. I extended wilaya and started governorate.
its only(?) CIS countries (partially, because some russian entities seem to go under district) that stick to local names. Tobias Conradi 16:25, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

After all this "theoretical" rebuttal, here are some google data. A general rule of wikipedia is to use the most common English term for article titles.

  • "minsk voblast": 686 English pages
  • "minsk oblast": 879 English pages
  • "minsk province": 415 English pages
  • "minsk gubernia": 485 English pages
  • "minsk voblasc"  : 14 pages; talking about "correct" belarussian transliteration :-)
  • "minsk region": 4110 English pages (add by Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:24, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC))
    • region irrelevant here. There is such thing as "Minsk raion". Mikkalai 19:36, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • probably Minsk Raion is, if translated, referred to as Minsk District Tobias Conradi (Talk) 13:37, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • And probably not. I've seen both. Not to say that "Minsk region" may refer to "Minsk region", literally. There is a word "регион" (translit.: "region") in East Salvic languages. Mikkalai 21:21, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So one may safely assume, English language doesn't have definite preference here (one might even say, with so small number of google hits the article may even get voted for deletion :-). Mikkalai 15:59, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 ;-) I strongly oppose to delete belarus entities from wikipedia. They have the same right to be in WP like all other entities on the world. That's not a matter of Google numbers. We are wikipedia, not Google, not Britannica. Tobias Conradi 16:25, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
While joking, I was saying voted for deletion from the experience of seeing much weirder nominations for deletion. Mikkalai 20:40, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
one (or more) guy at the russian oblasts is saying oblast is english. Even if there is more "Amur Region" than "Amur Oblast" in the net. He only tested against province. BTW good idea is to restrict search to co.uk / .au / .us / .nz . Whatever the outcome is, I think voblast will not be regarded as english. Please say if you do not like that I move to province, I will than move to Voblast. Thus we at least have Syntax like in current use for 99% of other subnational entities that have an entity term in the name. There are only few voblasts so the work for later changes is not that big. best regards Tobias Conradi 04:10, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What is "voblast"?

I have to confess I simply don't understand the word voblast and where it came from. It's a wierd Russian-English-Belarusan hybrid. Why do you call it Belarusan? FYI, the Belarusian word is voblasc (or vobłaść to be precise, using Lacinka). --rydel 17:05, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Rydel, can you have a look at Oblast and maybe correct things there? I made an additional redirect Voblasc to Oblast. Tobias Conradi 18:45, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
"Where from?": You may easily look into the histories. e.g, voblast and some voblasts were created by user:Alex756 in april 2003. I confess I thoughtlessly followed the example in several cases. Mikkalai 20:34, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
By the way, I wanted to check the official versions of spellings, only to find out that Belarusian President's official website is only in two languages: RUS & ENG... Mikkalai 20:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
LOL. Maybe ten years from now this will be different. best regards Tobias Conradi 20:59, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The joke goes like this. Reporter: "Mr Lukashenka, why don't you have your official site in Belarusan, but only in Russian and English?" Lukashenka: "Because I can still fool Russians and English-speaking people, but there is no chance I can fool our Belarusian-speaking population."
 :-)))) --Tobias
Now, speaking seriously, it seems there's a bit of a mess. Well, it's English Wikipedia after all, we shouldn't forget that. So I'm not saying that "voblasc" should be used here. In fact, I think it'll be confusing to an English speaker. I merely asked, where it came from. Now, theoretically if you have a word vobłaść the U.S.Congress transliteration of the word would be voblasts which seems to be moderately popular on the Web (~5,000 pages). On the other hand, "voblast" has already about ~4,000, though it seems a big portion of that is from our Wikipedia and its "clones". --rydel 23:06, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
can be checked by search for "voblast -wikipedia" Tobias Conradi 18:24, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
"voblasts" looks like plural, so this might be the "back-etymology" for "voblast". In a similar way one may find "nenet people" along with "nenets people", verst, borscht, Semiryechensk Cossacks and may other strange things. Mikkalai 00:05, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

voblasts: 181, voblast -wikipedia: 228, voblast: 333. Hint: you better always look at the very last page of the google report. You will be surprized that thousands are gone. Mikkalai 22:40, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bo.html#Govt has transcription voblast' with plural voblastsi Tobias Conradi 17:58, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Actually it is "voblasts'" there . Mikkalai 20:21, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Hey guys...as an American who has visited your nation several times, I like the old spelling Bielarus which I had seen on maps in the 1990's in Minsk. The reason I like it better than Belarus is because the standard English pronounciation of Bel is not how the first syllable in Belarus is pronounced by Belarusians. My first maps in Minsk had the white and red national emblem on them (remember that?...and could a photo of that be put up in this article somewhere?). Those maps had the nation spelled Bielarus in English, French and I believe German. That or Byelarus reflect the pronunciation in my mind more accurately than Belarus. Whatever the case I will always love Belarus and the citizens of this exceptionally hospitable nation.

I've never seen the term voblast. The signs and maps I have seen all say 'Oblast'. Is voblast Belarusian or Russian? Why is it not on signs and maps generally speaking, or has it been added recently? I think one potential change to the spelling would be to spell it 'Oblahst'. This would make Americans use the correct vowel sound. Otherwise it tends to be pronounced O-Blast with a very strong American accent.

I also have a theory on the name origination, but I will save that for later. Only let me say there are a lot of beautiful birch forests in Belarus. And many people there have told me it may be the original source of the name 'Biele'.

[edit] Horad

The item "1 municipality* (horad)" looks suspicious to me. Does Minsk really have a special administrative status (besided being capital), the one that other cities like Brest, Belarus don't have? Minsk article offers no explanation. "Horad" is simply "city" or "town" in Belarussian. And there is no Horad article. Mikkalai 20:21, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Official Minsk site says nothing of that. Changing the article. Mikkalai 20:28, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
CIA wrong ?;-) 6 provinces and 1 municipality* (horad); Tobias Conradi 21:09, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
http://statoids.com/uby.html you seem to be right Tobias Conradi 21:11, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The only thing may be right is the authentic official info from Belarus itself, which is available on internet. No traces of "horad" as of today. Mikkalai 21:32, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Propose move *** province -> *** voblast/voblasc

If we want to be consistant with other WP articles then I suggest we carry this out and rename the articles. Russian subdivision articles use Oblasts, as do Ukrainian. Polish ones use Voivodships. So why do we have provinces in Belarus articles?--Kuban kazak 18:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

If WP only consists of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus your argument would have more weight. But there are more countries described in WP. If you want to be consistent you would have to rename on a large scale. Poland does not use województwo. For consitency we could also go and rename Ukraine and Russia. But if we accept "Oblast" as somehow in english use than it could also be considered to use Oblast and not voblast for Belarus. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually read [Voivodships of Poland|subdivisons of Poland] and find that it does use the words voivodship in article titles. There is nothing wrong with using the word Voblast instead of province. And renaming Russian administrative divisions is going to be the biggest pain in the world where we have Krais; Oblasts; Autonomous Okrugs; Autonomous Oblasts, and then historical subdivisions Guberniyas, National okrugs... Do you really think that this will ever happen? Since a) Belarus calls its divisions Voblasti not provintsii b) Many western atlases and articles use Voblast instead of Province. I think the move is justified.
yes the subdivisions of PL use voivodship but this is not polish. I don't want to rename russian articles, because exactly of what you said. You were the one who introduced the concept of consistency in your first post. And you asked why we have provinces for Belarus. Well, AFAIK except for Russia and Ukraine and some Thai districts ALL subdivisions in WP use english names. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gomel Guberniya in RSFSR

Mikkalai wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gomel_Province&diff=57652582&oldid=25133842

  1. Gomel Guberniya of Russian Empire and RSFSR

Gomel part of RSFSR? Guberniyas in RSFSR? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)