As we learn in the first few pages of Ivan the Terrible: Free to Reward & Free to Punish by Charles J. Halperin, most of what we think we know about 16th-century Tsar Ivan the Terrible is based on dubious … Continue reading Portrait of Muscovy in Peril
– Russia was handed a four-year ban from all major sporting events by the World Anti-Doping Agency on December 9th. Russia’s participation at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar will be the highest-profile events … Continue reading What’s Up Russia? A New Prime Minister, and Environmental Activist Jailed
From December 1st through the 8th, the Tbilisi International Film Festival screened a diverse row of movies, from classic and modern Georgian films, such as Inhale-Exhale (Dito Tsintsadze), Before Father Gets Back (Mari Gulbiani) and Fatherland (Giorgi Sikharulidze) to alternative … Continue reading What’s up Georgia? Doctor released, and fake accounts removed
Murder of Ingush anti-extremism official. On November 2nd, the head of the Ingush anti-extremism agency, Ibragim Eldzherkiev, was shot dead in Moscow along with his brother, Akhmed Eldzherkiev. On December 10th, Interfax reported that ten suspects have been arrested so far … Continue reading What’s up North Caucasus? Minors returned from the Middle East and new sanctions against Chechen officials
– On November 25th Deputy Director of the National Police Office Blagorodna Makeva announced that in 2018, more than 31 000 reports of domestic violence had been received by the police in Bulgaria. Additionally, in the first eight months of … Continue reading What’s up Bulgaria? Prime Minister Boyko Borissov visits Washington, and the country is struck by protests
Croatia will see its voters head to the ballots on December 22nd to elect a new president. In the (likely) event of no candidate receiving more than half of all votes, there will be a run-off between the two candidates … Continue reading Croatian Presidential Election: Between continuation and change
This article was originally published by ZOIS Spotlight “This is our homeland High, high mountains at one with the blue sky” Aga-Ini – Bizdin Meken (Our homeland) Rap music – for European listeners – is mainly associated with boasting and hedonistic motifs. But … Continue reading “I wanna hear Kyrgyz spoken in my capital”
– On October 1st, news broke that representatives from Ukraine, Russia, the separatist territories of Luhansk and Donetsk, and the OSCE had signed the Steinmeier Formula, a slimmer, simplified version of the Minsk Agreement, put forward in 2016 by then-Foreign … Continue reading What’s up Ukraine? President Zelenskyy to meet with Putin, and movie depicting the Holodomor premiers
– On November 8th, the premier of the co-produced Swedish-Georgian film And Then We Danced, centered on a love story between two young male dancers of the Georgian national ensemble, took place against the background of the protests from far-right groups, … Continue reading What’s up Georgia? Vote to change election system takes political crisis to a new level, and Georgian doctor sentenced to two-months detention in South Ossetia
– On November 4th, the former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev gave an interview to the BBC in which he said that nuclear weapons must be destroyed to “save the planet and ourselves.” In 1987, Gorbachev signed the … Continue reading What’s up Russia? Professor confesses to killing fiancee and Russians want more freedom according to new survey
