Minsk, the capital of Belarus, is a modern city dominated by monumental architecture from the Stalinist era. Many of its museums, theaters and other cultural attractions are located on Independence Street (Praspyekt Nyezalyezhnastsi), a large 15km long main road leading to Independence Square. The square is dominated by the buildings of the KGB headquarters and by the neo-Romanesque church of Santi Simone e Elena, known as the Red Church.The name Minsk derives from the Belarusian miena, which in Italian means barter, because this city, founded in 1067, has always been "commercial". Conquered in 1655 by Tsar Alexis, and later claimed by King John Casimir of Poland, it was definitively annexed to the Russian Empire in 1795. In the last century it was ceded by Poland to the Soviet Union with the Peace of Riga. Partisan seat in the great war patriotic, heroin city in 1974, since 1991 it is the capital of the independent Belarusian state.
