Uładzimir Katkoŭski

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Uładzimir Katkoŭski (Belarusian: Уладзімер Каткоўскі, June 19, 1976 — May 25, 2007) was a famous Belarusian blogger, web-designer and website creator.

[edit] Biography

Uładzimir Katkoŭski was born in Minsk. He got a degree in Computer Science at the American University in Bulgaria in Blagoevgrad and later worked as IT specialist in Budapest, then in Frankfurt am Main. Since 2002 he worked in the Belarusian edition of Radio Free Europe.

On June 16, 2006 he and his wife got into a car accident on a street in Prague. Since that Uładzimir was in coma for almost one year until he passed away on May 26, 2007.

[edit] Activity on the Internet

In mid-1990ies Uładzimir Katkoŭski became one of the pioneers of the Belarusian speaking internet. In late 1990ies together with his future wife and other Belarusian internet users he created the Belarusian historical website Litvania that got notable popularity. Uładzimier was one of the first and most popular bloggers in Belarusian language known as rydel23. For his blog br23.net he was awarded by the Belarusian top web portal TUT.by.

Uładzimir created the websites Pravapis.org (about issues concerning Belarusian language), Martyraloh Biełarusi - "The Belarusian Martyrologe" about victims of Stalinist terror in Belarus. He translated the interface of Google into Belarusian, and was the founder of the Belarusian Wikipedia. As (User:Rydel) Uładzimier was an active contributor to the English Wikipedia.

He was creator and administrator of the website of the Belarusian edition of Radio Free Europe.