· August, 2005

Stories about Eastern & Central Europe from August, 2005

Armenia: View of Yerevan

  22 August 2005

Marmot Power‘s travelogue-style view of the Armenian capital, Yerevan, has sparked a lively debate in the comments section of this post.

Central Asia: Book review

  21 August 2005

Reuters correspondent Hugh Pope has a new book out about Turkic political cultures, which catches the eye of Laurence at Registan

Azerbaijan: On Melons

  19 August 2005

Carpetblogger wonders if rumors about nitrites injected into Azeri watermelons are true, or if they make any difference, giving the levels of environmental toxins to be found in the country anyway.

Afghanistan: Women need protection

  19 August 2005

Human Rights Watch warns that the Afghan government and international monitors must take special measures to protect women from attacks and intimidation by the Taliban and regional warlords, ahead of the Sept. 18 elections in the country.

NDI Azeri Staring Contest

  18 August 2005

Former NDI-er and current Democracy Guy Tim Russo says that NDI is daring Azerbaijan's government to not let them observe upcoming parliamentary voting.

Armenia: Tough talk on Nagorno Karabakh

  18 August 2005

Blogrel‘s Hovakim notes that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has been “talking tough” again about possible military action over Nagorno Karabakh, a largely ethnic Armenian enclave which seceded from Azerbaijan in 1991, but says ordinary people on both sides are unlikely to want to go along with it.

Georgia: Dead horse burns

  18 August 2005

Kaukasus posts a striking photograph entitled “Dead Horse Burns”, by Stefan Hostettler, and muses on the meaning of the horse in human culture.

Ukraine: Memories of Soviet youth camps

  18 August 2005

For Ukrainian blogger Veronica Khokhlova, the 80th anniversary of the former Soviet Communist Pioneers youth camp at Artek brings back memories of her own experiences.

Russia: Suicide in the military

  18 August 2005

Every month, around 20 people in the Russian armed forces commit suicide, according to a Russian newspaper article translated by Scraps of Moscow.

Russia: “The Flight of the Putin”

  17 August 2005

Scraps of Moscow comments on local media coverage of Russian president Vladimir Putin's flight in a strategic bomber aircraft during military exercises, saying they can no longer tell the difference between a PR exercise and hard news.

Russia: The lost universal language

  17 August 2005

Russian language student Misha Tch at Joy de Vivre considers the possibility that the world's languages are mistaken forms of an original human language.

Mongolia: An exile writes

  17 August 2005

Thomo's Hole posts an e-mail from a Mongolian woman now living in the United States about her feeling for the land she grew up in, saying she just about describes what it is to be Mongolian.

About our Eastern & Central Europe coverage

Filip Stojanovski
Filip Stojanovski is the Central Europe editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.

Daria Dergacheva
Daria Dergacheva is the Eastern Europe editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.