Housed in a garish new building after leaving its severely outdated premises on Oktyabrskaya pl, Minsk's best museum houses an excellent display detailing Belarus' suffering and heroism during the Nazi occupation. With English explanations throughout, atmospheric dioramas and a range of real tanks, airplanes and artillery from WWII, it's a big improvement on its fusty predecessor. Its section on concentration camps is particularly disturbing: an incredible 2.3 million people in Belarus were killed during the war, including 1.5 million civilians.
English-language tours should be booked in advance, and will give much needed context to the collection.
