Hi I live in Russia. They have almost same culture, society, and basic rules. If you are coming for education, make sure your language of study is English or get ready to the hustle of learning Belorussian(which is challenging but possible), if u are trying to use the country as a bridge to Europe, my sister it's not an easy route, I know people who tried to go from Russia, Belarus then Europe, some of them got caught from Russian border, some from Belarus itself. They all got deported. It's not just that the place they stayed before deportation was a very very terrible place. So consider these before coming