Belarusian Switzerland

There are no mountains in Belarus, a flat country defined by forest, marsh and fields.

But a construction worker was talking tidiness and comfort, not terrain, when on a recent rainy morning he stood in the center of Alexandria II, a village in eastern Belarus, and said, "Lukashenko is building his own Switzerland here."

Alexander Lukashenko, the president who has controlled capital and country with a strong grip for thirteen years, grew up in Alexandria I, a village a few miles away from Alexandria II.

The first is classic countryside - wooden farmhouses, flat fields that slope to the banks of the Dnieper River. It has, in other words, changed little since the dictator was a child.

Not Alexandria II. (The similarity between the village names and that of the president is said to be a coincidence.) Over the past few years, the second Alexandria has sprawled in the shapes of a suburb. Neatly-curbed asphalt streets. A state-of-the-art sports complex with pool and basketball court. Rows of sturdy modern houses offered to workers at nearby cooperative farms, a newer one of which will raise 25,000 pigs.

Even on a damp day, Alexandria II can feel - with all the hammers hammering and dozers dozing - like some kind of market socialist utopia: solid and respectable housing and community services built for workers from the profits of a state run operation.

But drive 400 miles across the Belarusian countryside before arriving here, and Alexandria II looks more like the ultimate case of a politician sending pork back home. Along the route, most villages look touched only by time.

In Alexandria II, a sign on the wall of a small commercial center advertises a barber shop, shoe repair, tailoring, carpet cleaning, laundry, furniture sales, watch repair and more.

Indoors on an October afternoon, two women talked about when they will get to take saunas across the street in the sports complex. When asked for directions to the barber shop, one of the women, a clerk behind a counter in small shop, scoffed.

"It's a big list," she said of the sign. "But there's not even half of what's on it."

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Photos: Essdras Suarez/Globe Staff