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Stories and ideas

A stop off at the gambling hall on the way to school

In rural Romania, gambling rooms stand just steps away from schools, drawing in students long before lessons start. Despite legislation banning betting halls near educational institutions, lax enforcement and local habits mean minors still find easy access – a reflection of how gambling regulation often fails to reach beyond the country’s big cities.

December 7, 2025 - Raluca Cristea

The fight to preserve Kyiv’s past and Ukraine’s future

Beneath one of Kyiv’s most iconic squares lies an archaeological site that reveals the story of Ukraine’s past and its deep Orthodox Christian roots. Despite its importance to Ukrainian identity, activists are fighting daily to protect it from corrupt developers. Their struggle takes on even greater meaning amidst the ongoing war, as Ukrainians continue to defend not only their land but also their heritage.

December 7, 2025 - Theodore Griffin

How Poland stole UK universities’ lunch in Africa

In recent years, Poland has quietly emerged as an unlikely magnet for African students, drawing thousands away from traditional destinations like the United Kingdom. Attracted by low tuition fees, accessible visas, and good educational standards, young Africans are finding in Central and Eastern Europe what Britain can no longer easily offer: affordability and opportunity.

December 7, 2025 - Ray Mwareya

Hospitality in practice: how does Estonia support Ukrainian refugees?

Estonia has been supporting Ukraine and Ukrainians significantly over the last three years since the full-scale invasion. Even though it was a challenge to receive a significant number of Ukrainian refugees at such a quick pace, the small country of Estonia managed to establish a specific approach to integration.

September 26, 2025 - Nino Chanadiri

Russian mall shutdown sparks uproar and confusion

Yekaterinburg’s largest shopping mall was suddenly closed on June 27th. Greenwich, which stands proud in the city centre, is Yekaterinburg’s answer to Moscow’s Okhotny Ryad or Afi Mall. Opened in 2004, Greenwich has routinely been listed as one of Russia’s best shopping malls and entertainment facilities. Why, then, was it shut down so suddenly without so much as a whisper from commentators crying wolf?

September 26, 2025 - James C. Pearce

Belarusian folklore as a language of expression during repressions

Throughout history, Belarusians have turned to their rich folklore traditions in times of repression. What may appear as a period of cultural stagnation is, in fact, often a moment of resilience and creative revival. The current wave of repression is no exception – once again, Belarusian culture is finding ways to endure.

September 26, 2025 - Alina Kovalev

There is no smell of peace here

After nearly a month of pretending to pursue peace and diplomacy, Russia has launched a new wave of attacks on Ukrainian cities. For more than three weeks, the capital had been spared from massive strikes, but this lull ended on the night of August 28th when the Kremlin fired drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles at Kyiv, killing 23 people and injuring more than a hundred.

September 15, 2025 - Stanislav Storozhenko

More than culture: The UK–Poland Season as a test of relations in a post-Brexit Europe

Relations between Britain and Poland remain obscured by issues such as Brexit and foreign policy realignment. Nevertheless, the realm of cultural diplomacy can prove a suitable forum for maintaining and strengthening links outside of government actions.

September 9, 2025 - Zula Rabikowska

A weekly dose of disinformation

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has used social media as a platform to promote pro-military and pro-state propaganda. This policy affected all public institutions in Russia, including in the regions. Soon after, a top-down system of social media posting was developed and people working on the ground soon found themselves in the position of having to act also as propagandists. Not all agreed with this policy.

“Become a force defending the motherland,” reads the caption on a photo of a man holding a weapon, promoting Russian military contract service. Since the spring of 2022, posts like this with military-patriotic themes have flooded the social media pages of government-funded institutions on VKontakte (the most popular social media platform in Russia, similar to Facebook). These posts can be found on public pages, including schools, kindergartens, social service centres, hospitals, theatres, museums and libraries.

July 8, 2025 - Novaya Vkladka

The fight for a letter: how Ukraine is removing Russia’s imperial legacy

For decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, remnants of the Soviet and Russian imperial legacy, such as symbols, street names and the names of cities and villages, remained visible in Ukraine’s public spaces. Russia’s 2014 invasion, followed by the full-scale assault in 2022, accelerated efforts to purge this legacy, though not always without controversy.

For years, Dmytro Karpiy has been on a mission to erase Soviet and Russian imperial symbols from Ukraine’s streets, advocating for the renaming of places and the removal of monuments that glorify a past empire. His latest battle is over a single letter in the name of Brovary, a city in Kyiv Oblast, where he has lived for 16 years.

July 8, 2025 - Olena Makarenko

Dancing with the dictator: how Belarusian propaganda took over TikTok

In September 2020, following the August protests and mass state media layoffs, Russia Today sent a team to Belarus. Their mission was to help reboot state media and to teach social media strategies. Since then, Belarusian institutions have leaned heavily on the Russian experience. One of their key platforms for cheap and effective propaganda distribution has been TikTok.

On the left, a young man is picking outfits for his visit to the military office. On the right, a man in uniform rates each look with sarcastic flair. Just another quirky TikTok? Not quite. The TikTok clip, created in the platform’s popular “stitch” format, has gained over seven million views. What seems like harmless fun is actually part of something much bigger – a surge of pro-Lukashenka TikTok creators aiming to promote regime narratives. The campaign makes authoritarianism look relatable, even charming. Welcome to Lukashenka’s TikTok, where propaganda comes complete with trendy beats and filters. Is there any chance for pro-democratic forces to fight back?

July 8, 2025 - Kseniya Tarasevich

Belarusian literature: wandering through a swamp

It cannot be said that today’s Belarusian literature has inherited the tradition of its perished predecessors naturally, through the continuation of stylistic choices or rediscovered forms. Rather, this tradition is now displayed through allusions, reminiscences, quotes, inclusions of images or metaphors developed by former poets that are now included in the fabric of modern and postmodern verse. At the same time, today’s Belarusian literature continues to "clear the path" of the generation from the late Soviet period.

Belarusian writers, who try to convey the dramatic history of Belarusian literature through, for example, public speeches, show that there are two approaches that can be described as optimistic and pessimistic perspectives. In the optimistic one, Belarusian literature is presented as a phoenix burnt to black ashes only to rise again. Indeed, over the past century alone, Belarusian writers twice had to reinvent the historical novel, the science fiction story, the school of translation, literary criticism and free verse.

July 8, 2025 - Vera Beika

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