Preservation vs urban renewal in the context of post-socialist Belarus: the case of the wooden historic suburbs of Minsk

Abstract This article examines the fate of Minsk’s historic wooden suburbs during the late Soviet and early post-Soviet periods, highlighting how these vernacular urban neighbourhoods, once central to the city’s working-class identity, have been increasingly marginalised in planning, policy, and public discourse. Drawing on archival research, policy analysis, and expert interviews, the study explores how shifting urban ideologies, institutional restructuring, and the rise of market-driven renewal shaped the treatment of wooden architecture in Minsk from the 1980s through the 1990s. While international discourses increasingly valorise wooden architecture as sustainable and culturally significant, Belarusian approaches have remained largely top-down, economically motivated, and exclusionary. The article identifies a brief moment of institutional consensus around preservation in the early 1990s, but shows how this was ultimately undermined by economic instability, political centralisation, and limited public engagement. Focusing on the unique case of Paŭnočny Lane, the only wooden district to receive protected status, the article interrogates the mechanisms through which heritage is either preserved or erased. By situating the Belarusian experience within broader Central and Eastern European urban transformations, the article contributes to post-socialist urban studies and heritage scholarship.