Focus

Joseph Elgars on how the recent election of Sadyr Japarov as Kyrgyzstan's new president might change domestic and international dynamics.

Despite spending a lot of time in Russia, I don’t like Russian food. For me, it has always been about buckwheat, mayonnaise covered “salads”, and rye bread. While in Russia, I preferred eating [...]

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a great challenge for Georgia, not only in terms of economic issues or the sustainability of the health care system but also in terms of proving that all peaceful [...]

February 1 marked the anniversary of the national remembrance of the victims of Communism in Bulgaria. On this date in 1945, the People’s Court handed down death penalties to a large number of [...]

A Palace for Putin, Alexei Navalny’s latest anti-corruption video, has taken the internet by storm, much to the grievance of Vladimir Putin. On January 19, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) [...]

‘The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five Kings left—the King of England, the King of Spades, the King of Clubs, the King of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds.’ So King Farouk of [...]

Alexandra Kollontai was one of the earlier Bolsheviks, joining the party already in 1915 and as one of the few Old Bolsheviks to survive Stalin’s purges, she was a writer not only of political [...]

Chechnya regularly sparks discussion in the media, from the rise of controversial leader Ramzan Kadyrov, through enforcement of the Islamic dress code on Chechen women, to the Chechen death [...]

Crimea is drying up, and it has everything to do with political arm-wrestling between Russia and Ukraine. Almost seven years after the seizure of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the region is [...]

Mamut Churlu is part of the mass return of Tatar repatriates to the Crimean Peninsula at the fall of the Soviet Union. Churlu worked for years in Uzbekistan and Russia on researching folk art [...]