Minsk is the capital city of Belarus, a country in eastern Europe. It stands on the Svisloch River. It is a place name, so it takes a capital M: you are naming that city, not a kind of thing. During the Second World War the city was terribly damaged — large parts of it were destroyed — and then built again. People say Minsk when they mean this city (government, trains, news), not when they mean Belarus as a whole. In older English writing you may also meet the city through Russian history, because for a long time it sat inside larger Russian or Soviet states; though actually it is the capital of Belarus, not of Russia.