Minsk Half Marathon
Minsk, Belarus
- Half Marathon, 10K, 5K
- Road (Paved)
- Official race website
The Minsk Half Marathon is a young event, first held in 2013 during the celebration of the Minsk City Day. This experience was successful and it was decided to make it a traditional event during the Minsk City Day, the second weekend of September. The Minsk Half Marathon course goes … MORE
Local Historical Weather (Sep 12):
| 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
| H (°C) | 23 | 20 | 24 | 24 | 26 |
| L (°C) | 12 | 8 | 12 | 13 | 17 |
Find Nearby Lodging (hotel, rental, etc.):
Run in Europe´s last dictatorship!
Minsk, the capital of Belarus, is a quite big city with around 2 million inhabitants. The half marathon is a wonderful opportunity to see the city as its downtown course … MORE
Minsk, the capital of Belarus, is a quite big city with around 2 million inhabitants. The half marathon is a wonderful opportunity to see the city as its downtown course has quite a few sights to offer. Start and finish is right in the city centre next to Galleria Minsk, a modern shopping mall, in which runners also get their bibs the days before the marathon. For late comers a pre-race pick up is offered in the morning before the race starts – everything is easy going even though the race is quite big with around 10.000 runners for different races (5,5 – 10,55 and 21,1km). Every runner gets a T-Shirt (not really nice and quite cheap looking) and of course a medal after finishing the race. The start was very funny as it was accompanied by Russian folklore dancers and Russian music as well as huge confetti canons. The atmosphere along the course was good with military music bands and cheerleader girls cheering the runners.
Critic points are:
1) only few water stations (every 5km) even though weather was sunny and much warmer than expected. Runners were offered water, oranges and bananas along the course and Coca Cola in the finish area.
2) it was a bit too crowed at the beginning and slow runners were in front…
3) runners only got the bib with a T-Shirt, but no bag
All in all I can recommend the race if one is interested to visit Belarus. The Hilton Double Tree is a perfect option to stay as the hotel is situated right next to start/finish and Galleria Minsk where the bib pick up takes place. Everything is VERY EASY and also very reasonable! 🙂