Light Up Nights in Belarus: Lighting of the country’s main New Year tree, kilometers of illumination and decorations with national flavor

Beautifully decorated Belarusian cities have kicked off the holiday season and invite locals and visitors to get in the holiday spirit. The most thrilling moment in the run-up to the most anticipated winter holidays - Christmas and New Year – is the lighting of the illumination in the city streets that turns December darkness into a fairy tale setting. New Year’s lights will shine for a month until mid-January.

The festive marathon started in Grodno on 9 December, where 54 New Year trees were lit up at once in Gillibert Park. These were no ordinary New Year trees; they were created from a variety of materials and represent the city’s most iconic brands. On the Saturday evening of 10 December, a procession of fairy-tale characters and Father Frost took place in Gomel. It wrapped up with the Lighting the New Year Tree Together event. Mogilev picked up the baton on 15 December when the lighting of a 35-meter tree decorated with 16,000 lights took place to the tunes of the Secrets of the Mighty Lion musical and a New Year karaoke flash mob was held. On the same evening, lights were lit in the capital city Minsk spreading good cheer throughout the city streets.

The main draw of the holiday season in Minsk is Oktyabrskaya Square. The square houses the country’s main New Year tree (by the way, weighing 20 tonnes!) decorated with LED strips and ultra-precise images. It took the municipal services two weeks to install and dress up the 30-meter tree. They assembled the structure manually on the ground, then, using a crane, installed sections on top of each other and fixed more than 5,000 artificial spruce branches! The tree features 6,000 decorative elements - red and golden baubles. In the evening, the New Year tree lights up with 20,000 LED bulbs, festive images and a display of New Year wishes. The New Year tree is decorated with 120 garlands, which are about 4.5km long, and illuminated figurines, including the symbol of 2023 – the rabbit. The New Year tree itself is located in the center of a fountain of lights and a fairy-tale town of sparkling gingerbread houses. Read more about the Minsk design concept in the 2022/2023 festive season here.

All in all, 26 New Year trees have been installed across Minsk. The streets of the city have been decorated with light balls and installations. Visitors to the Chelyuskintsev and Gorky parks are greeted by the Chinese zodiac figurines. There are glowing trees on Pritytskogo Street and Nemanskaya Street. The capital city's TV tower on Kommunisticheskaya Street is also illuminated with New Year lights every evening.