Stories about Eastern & Central Europe from March, 2011
Russia: “iPad 2 Smuggling in Full Blossom”
Profy writes about the attempts to smuggle iPad 2 into Russia.
Bosnia & Herzegovina: Towards Partition
At OpenDemocracy.net, Bedrudin Brljavac writes about the situation in Bosnia & Herzegovina: “Fifteen years since the end of the war, ethno-nationalist leaders continue to pursue political agendas leading to the partitioning of Bosnia rather than membership of a united Europe. And yet, without the prospect of the EU, it is...
Bulgaria: Protest Against Belene Nuclear Power Plant
Komitata and Simo Ivanov wrote in Bulgarian and in English, respectively, about their participation in the protest against continuing the construction of Belene Nuclear Power Plant that took place in Sofia on Wednesday.
Russia: The Most Fierce DDOS Attack On LiveJournal Analyzed
Ilya Dronov, LiveJournal's head of development, told [ru] some details about yesterday's DDOS-attack on LiveJournal, popular blogging platform in Russia. That was the most fierce attack in the history of the platform. Anton Nosik, suggested [ru] that (despite that most of the attacking machines were outside of Russia) the main client...
Russia: Voting For The BOBs Blog Award Has Started
On march 22, 2011 voting for "The Best Of Blogs" Awards, event annually organized by German media corporation Deutsche Welle, started. The award is getting more popular every year. This happens mostly because the role of blogs and online communities grows, as does their influence on social life.
Macedonia, Bulgaria: Facing Hate Speech
Two NGOs, from Macedonia and from Bulgaria, have published an analysis of the Macedonian-Bulgarian hate speech in the traditional and new media.
Macedonia: Early Elections Scheduled for June 5
The biggest Macedonian opposition party announced [MKD] today that they will participate in the early elections in spite of the failure of negotiations with the government on the conditions that would ensure fairness. About two hours later, the Prime Minister responded [MKD] that the ruling party would suggest to the...
Russia: Online Media 2010-2011 According to Yandex.ru
New Yandex.ru report "Media sphere of RuNet. September 2010 - January 2011" suggests that Russian online media are growing but still have a long way to go to become a truly developed reporting platform.
Russia: Mapping Bribery Online
Anton Nosik shares [ru] a link to RosKomVzyatka (‘Russian Committee for Bribes’), Ushahidi-based platform that allows users to map bribes (both given and taken) anonymously. It's another transparency project after rospil.info, gdecasino.ru, otmenta.ru, and others that crowdsource crime/injustice reporting.
Russia: Real Life Super Hero From Chelyabinsk
Metkere.com shares [ru] a video-address of a real life super hero calling himself “The Avenger.” (see his Vkontakte fan group [ru]) The avenger, a man in a black costume with a green letter “M” (apparently M for Mstitel’, the ‘avenger’ in Russian) on it and a black mask, says he...
Russia: Blogger Translates Articles on Alexey Navalny
LJ user vadda translates from English into Russian two recent texts about Alexey Navalny, a prominent Russian anti-corruption activist: one text, by Andrew E. Kramer, appeared in the New York Times on March 27 (the Russian translation is here; 266 comments); the other, by Julia Ioffe, was published in the...
Serbia: Gaddafi's Cyber Army Oppose Rebels and NATO
A Facebook page entitled "Support for Muammar al-Gaddafi from the people of Serbia" has become a show of support for the controversial Libyan leader, with over 62,500 members. Libyan opposition activists have also reported cyber attacks on opposition websites coming from Serbia. Sasa Milosevic reports on the online support for Muammar al-Gaddafi in Serbia.
Poland, Lithuania: “The End of the Romance”
Polandian offers “a quick review” of the Polish-Lithuanian relationship over the centuries and notes on the recent changes.
Russia: A Riot Police Officer's Twitter and Blog
A Good Treaty writes about an anonymous Moscow riot police (OMON) officer, who started tweeting in January (@OMON_Moscow, RUS, over 3,000 followers) and also has a blog (LJ user omon-moscow, RUS): “While the fact that this blogging activity is tolerated by the police force likely constitutes evidence that the top...
Ukraine: “A War of Monuments”
Back in February, Uilleam Blacker of Memory at War: Blog wrote about “a war of monuments” in Ukraine.
Bulgaria: Adoption of Gypsy Children
Belatedly, a link to the post on “adoption of abandoned Bulgarian Gypsy children by non-Gypsy Bulgarians and foreigners” – at Maya's Corner.
Russia: 2010 Cyber-Crime Market Research
Group IB, Russian cyber-security research company, publishes [ru] Russian Cyber-Crime Market in 2010 report. According to the research, Russian hackers commit nearly 35 percent of all cyber-crimes. DDOS-attacks (from $90 to $300 per day of attack) are falling in price which makes this method of cyber-warfare more accessible to online...
Macedonia: Personal Steps Against Economic Crisis
Bojana Jankovska blogs [MKD] on how she deals with the economic crisis at a personal level: make a deal with family members to use electrical appliances during “cheaper” hours of the day, possibly cancel central heating, locate the cheapest neighborhood store for regular grocery shopping, and lock your credit card...
Macedonia: A Proofreaders’ Five Commandments
Biserka Velkovska of the Lektor blog writes [MKD] about five most common mistakes when writing in the standard Macedonian language, and how to correct them.
Macedonia: No to Violence Against Women
Gordana Angelichin writes on Mladi!nfo about how she and two friends organized the V-Day Macedonia campaign from October 2010 to March 2011, as part of the global activist movement to stop violence against women and girls.
Russia, Japan: Sakhalin Residents’ and Chernobyl Survivors’ Reactions to Fukushima
Ksenya Semenova writes on OpenDemocracy.net about the reactions of Sakhalin residents to the situation in Japan: “I have some friends in Japan […]. From their relations and from the internet they have discovered what's going on in the Russian Far East at the moment. They sigh deeply and smile ruefully,...
About our Eastern & Central Europe coverage
Filip Stojanovski is the Central Europe editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.
Daria Dergacheva is the Eastern Europe editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.
