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Cover illustration:The border area of Belarus and Russia as depicted in a Landsat satellite image from the summer of 2000. Belarus lays to the west, and this is where agriculture remains active, field boundaries are clearly visible, and many fields appear in white and beige, representing freshly plowed soils, or bright orange, representing young crops. The situation in Belarus is very different from that in Russia, to the east, where almost all agriculture was abandoned: field boundaries are diminished, and many areas appearing in blue-green colors represent early-successional vegetation. Settlements on the Belarussian side include Drybin and Mscislau, on the Russian side Monastyrshchina and Khislavichi. The satellite image was recorded by Landsat 7 ETM+ on June 6th of 2000, and provided by the US Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center.
