Dacha look down upon as reflecting the nouveau-riche tastes of their owners—and feature ostentatious items such as marble statues, fountains and exotic plants. Some have state-of-the-art sporting facilities such as an indoor swimming pool, multiple tennis courts and stables for race horses. A few privately owned estates even have small forests and lakes. Wealthy Russians have also bought up many of the tsarist-era dachas of the aristocracy, and Soviet-era dachas of artists and intellectuals. Types of houses or gardens similar to the "dacha": Dacha A dacha () is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of Russian
Russians in Belarus Russians in Belarus According to the 2009 census, there are around 785,000 ethnic Russians in Belarus, which accounts for approximately 8.3 percent of the population of Belarus. Ten years earlier there were around 1.1 million ethnic Russians in Belarus, meaning that the Russian population in Belarus decreased 31 percent between 1999 and 2009, while the total population of Belarus decreased by 5 percent in the same period. Nevertheless, Russians are still the largest ethnic minority in the country. Many Russian-Belarusians are descendants of people who migrated to Belarus during the Soviet times, as technical specialists and military or administrative personnel.