My experience is so dated (1974) as to be practically useless. As part of my degree course I spent a month in Minsk (Byelorussia as it then was) and we had a day trip to Vilnius. I remember it being a lovely old mediaeval town and , unlike Minks actually had some bars where you could go and drink a pint or two. Of course this was at the height of Brezhnevism so the heavy hand of communism was apparent everywhere. I would love to go back, just to see if it's changed, but I'm probably too old for that now. As far as I know Belarus is still run very much like the Soviet satellite it once was. It suffered much during the war; Minsk was razed and completely rebuilt. There was a depressing uniformity about the place, all the building s looked the same. As I say, though, that was 37 years ago.