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Stories and ideas

Buns, bigos, and beauty. Polish success stories in post-Brexit Britain

Ten years since Britain’s decision to leave the EU, the country is far from better off. Poland, on the other hand, is wealthier than ever. Many Polish nationals have packed up and returned home. So why are others staying?

September 11, 2026 - Ottilie Tabberer

How one concert united Russian-speaking diasporas and homelands in Istanbul

The Belarusian hip-hop star Max Korzh gave his first concert to Belarus and Russia-based fans in a visa-free country, Turkey, since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine. It was a cultural summit of those who left with those who stayed, revealing stubbornly potent myths of post-Soviet “unity” and abstract anti-war sentiment.

September 11, 2026 - Alexander Neuman

How Russia is driving Ukrainians out of occupied territories

Even as the front line in Ukraine has largely stabilized, another, less visible campaign continues behind it. In the territories occupied by Russia, civilians describe a system of repression, coercion and fear designed to make ordinary life impossible, forcing Ukrainians to abandon their homes while paving the way for a dangerous transformation.

September 11, 2026 - Aleksander Palikot

Narva memoir

The Cold War had its own places where the worlds on either side of the Iron Curtain came into direct contact. Over time, some acquired an iconic status. Today’s “Cold War 2.0” will also one day pass into history. It will be remembered through places such as the Narva river.

September 11, 2026 - Nikodem Szczygłowski

Contemporary artists rewriting the story of Central and Eastern Europe

For decades, Central and Eastern Europe has often been portrayed through narrow visualizations of communist relics, poverty and conflict. Today, however, a new generation of artists is reclaiming the narrative, offering more complex and personal perspectives that challenge long-held stereotypes and reshape how the region is understood at home and abroad.

September 11, 2026 - Zula Rabikowska

A small theatre that does not act so small

In a basement in Yerevan, 30 years ago, a teenage director built a stage because the actors refused to perform in the cold. Today, Vahan Badalyan's “Small Theatre” is one of the few places in Armenian culture ready to raise hard questions about disability, fear, and what Armenian art still will not say aloud.

September 11, 2026 - Kushane՛ Chobanyan

Calls to save the Ohrid region grow in North Macedonia

For nearly five decades, the ancient city of Ohrid and its lake have enjoyed UNESCO protection as one of the world’s rare mixed natural and cultural heritage sites. Yet a wave of uncontrolled construction, illegal development and mounting tourism pressure is now transforming the region’s historic panorama, and raising the real possibility that Lake Ohrid could soon be placed on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger.

June 22, 2026 - Miki Trajkovski

A father’s last recordings before genocide

A forgotten VHS tape found in a Belgrade second-hand shop became the starting point for an intimate and deeply human story about war, memory and loss. In The Srebrenica Tape – From Dad, for Alisa, director Chiara Sambuchi follows a daughter’s journey to reconnect with the father she lost during the Bosnian War, while confronting the silences and traumas that still shape lives three decades after the genocide.

June 22, 2026 - JP O'Malley

The battle for Ukrainian identity

Russia’s war against Ukraine is being fought not only on the battlefield, but also in museums, archives and cultural institutions struggling to preserve the country’s historical and cultural memory. From the ruins of Mariupol to diaspora institutions in New York, a growing network of historians, archivists and cultural workers is documenting destruction while resisting the erasure of Ukraine’s past.

June 22, 2026 - Zach Rogers

The last resident of Kharkov

In a sealed border zone between Armenia and Turkey, one woman refuses to leave the last home in a vanished village – preserving a fragile link to a homeland her family lost to genocide.

April 20, 2026 - Martina Sanna

Ukrainian children’s future left to Italian courts

Italy has taken in several hundred Ukrainian children from care homes since 2022. As these minors are now under Italian jurisdiction and the security situation in Ukraine has not improved, an urgent priority for the Ukrainian authorities is to re-establish partial oversight of their living conditions, with a view to their eventual return home.

April 20, 2026 - Nataliya Kudryk

Dividing the forest

In spring 2022, the Białowieża Forest, on the Polish border with Belarus, became the site of one of the most controversial infrastructure projects in the region: the construction of a permanent steel barrier along the Polish–Belarusian border. While construction crews worked on the fence, local researchers conducted daily field visits to document its immediate ecological footprint.

April 20, 2026 - Nasta Zakharevich Nikola Budzińska

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