Alexander Rybak and the Belarusian Flag

Аляксандр Рыбак represented Norway in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, Russia, and became the winner of the contest with 387 points (the highest tally any country has achieved in the history of Eurovision)

He was born May 13 in Minsk, which at the time was in the Belarusian SSR in the Soviet Union.

When he was 4 years old, he and his family moved to Norway. At the age of five, Rybak began to play the piano. His parents are Natallia Valiantsinauna Rybak, a classical pianist, and Igor Aliaksandravich Rybak, a well-known classical violinist who performs alongside Pinchas Zukerman.
I start this post with Alyaksandr because my latest new visitor represents the Belarusian national Flag from June 7 1995.

The national flag is a rectangular cloth consisting of two longitudinal stripes: red upper stripe and green lower stripe that are two-thirds and one-third of the flag width respectively. A vertical red-on-white Belarusian decorative pattern, which occupies one-ninth of the flag's length, is placed against the flagstaff.

The flag does not differ significantly from the flag of the Byelorussian SSR, other than the removal of the hammer and sickle and the red star, and the reversal of red and white in the hoist pattern.
The red color of the flag signifies the past history of Belarus, as the color used by the Belarusian forces at the Battle of Grunwald, and of the Red Army when they were fighting Nazi Germany during World War II. Green stands for aspirations about the future, and also represents the many forests located in the country.

The Country´s name "Belarus" derives from the term White Rus, which first appeared in German and Latin medieval literature. The Latin term for the area was Alba Ruthenia. Historically, the country was referred to in English as White Ruthenia. It is also claimed by some people that describes the area of Eastern Europe populated by Slavic people or the states that occupied the area. The first known use of White Russia to refer to Belarus was in the late-16th century by Englishman Sir Jerome Horsey. During the 17th century, Russian tsars used White Rus', asserting that they were trying to recapture their heritage from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.