Features offer in-depth accounts of issues related to the region without prior peer-review process.
Many who migrate are forced to leave their children in their home country. Children being left behind in this way has become a problem in the EU, as Påhl Ruin relates in a report from Lithuania. The children don’t thrive, and there is a risk that they will become social outsiders.
By
Påhl Ruin
January 22, 2014
Literary scholar David Williams analyzes Ulrich Seidl’s film Import/Export and criticizes Seidl for using and humiliating amateur actors with the aim of telling a story that ultimately only underscores a stereotypical image of the East: as precisely an object of pleasure for the West.
By
David Williams
January 21, 2014
VNIITE, once the world’s largest institute of design research, ceased to exist on June 14, 2013. It was once conceived as a marriage of engineering and aesthetics. Intellectual abilities and sensitivity were to be respected rather than viewed as problems.
By
Margareta Tillberg
November 12, 2013
After many years of searching, divers from Ocean Discovery in Västervik found the wreck of Erik XIV’s legendary flagship Mars, in 2011. In 2013 archeologists joined together to reconstruct a cross-section of the battle space. To this end, a selection of ship timbers were salvaged for detailed documentation on the surface.
By
Johan Rönnby
November 7, 2013
A new treatment plant in St. Petersburg could eventually be built, despite initial resistance. It is the outcome of a successful joint project, funded by the Nordic Council and the EU. St. Petersburg's water consumption has also decreased significantly. A challenge remains for St. Petersburg; getting neighboring cities to clean their drains. Not many mil away waste flows directly into the Baltic Sea.
By
Ann-Louise Martin
November 7, 2013
The Baltic countries have a larger percentage of people in prison than any other EU member state. The reason? A persistent Soviet legacy that decress criminals should be locked up.
By
Påhl Ruin
October 29, 2013
Hostile takeovers and company captures have been an everyday reality in the post-Soviet Russian economy. A new research agenda is needed to understand whether private property is worth anything in contemporary Russia.
By
Ilja Viktorov
October 29, 2013
"Hunger" shows us Khlebnikov at his most compassionate; it may well be the only adequate literary response to the Volga famine of 1921.
By
Robert Chandler
May 17, 2013
Soviet Design 1950–1980 was shown for two busy winter months and enjoyed great public success. Even if Soviet design was often — but far from always — based on originals borrowed from the West, the individual objects exude a personal charm, variation, and quirkiness that makes them well worth preserving, exhibiting, and discussing.
By
Margareta Tillberg
May 13, 2013
In Albania, its cultural heritage is threatened by tourism. Fairytale castle are being converted to hotels with no respect for their history. Albanians politicians believe that they cannot afford to preserve the past for the future, says reporter Axel Kronblom.
By
Axel Kronholm
May 13, 2013