I don't think it's super-easy to get a belarussian visa, which is a shame, since Minsk is a beautiful city.
I got an opportunity to speak at a conference there in december of 2014 and I absolutely loved it.
The problem is, I think most of those people don't even realise they _need_ a visa to get back to IST, even if they fully plan on skipping the IST-MSQ segment.