Latest posts by Veronica Khokhlova from November, 2010
Central & Eastern Europe: Initial Reactions to WikiLeaks’ Cablegate
While other regions feature a lot more prominently in the collection of U.S. embassy cables published by WikiLeaks thus far, a few countries of the CEE region do appear in the kickoff edition of Cablegate. Below is a small selection of initial reactions from the region's bloggers.
Ukraine: Entrepreneurs Renew Mass Protests
@Matteush reads tweets marked with the #kat_ua hashtag, concludes (UKR) that “the whole country has risen to protest bandit tax code”: rallies and strikes by entrepreneurs are taking place in (UKR, RUS) Chernivtsi, Rivne, Odessa, Lutsk, Kharkiv, Lviv. In Kyiv, some 30,000 are said to have gathered at Maidan, and...
Ukraine: “Revolution 2.0″
Andriy Kachor (@Ka4or) reports (UKR; #kat_ua) that Khreshchatyk, Kyiv's central street, has been “blocked” by the protesters and that “the number of cops is growing proportionally to the number of the people.” Dan Matteush (@Matteush) calls it (UKR) “Revolution 2.0″, alluding to the protests known as the Orange Revolution six...
Ukraine: Protests Against New Tax Code in Kyiv
Thousands of representatives of the Ukrainian small and medium business community are protesting against the new tax code in Kyiv. Live Ustream broadcast is here (over 5,000 viewers); Twitter tag is #kat_ua (UKR, RUS).
Ukraine: Press Freedom and Civil Society
At OpenDemocracy.net, Iryna Kolodiychyk writes about the “encroachment on media transparency and press freedom” in Ukraine, while Olena Tregub and Oksana Shulyar analyze some of the recent civic activism initiatives and conclude that Ukraine's “civil society may be reformatting itself, to develop perhaps a more potent civic power for future...
Russia: Putin and “The Brezhnev Factor”
Poemless does a new “VovaMania!” post on PM Vladimir Putin, while The Power Vertical highlights Sergey Shelin's article on Gazeta.ru that compares Putin to Leonid Brezhnev.
Russia: More on Nashi's Goebbels Plagiarism
Sean Guillory of Sean's Russia Blog has a message to the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi (aka Putinjugend): “Plagiarizing Joseph Goebbels is unacceptable.”
Russia: Siberian Light's Weekly Blog Roundup
Weekly Russia Blog Roundup at Siberian Light covers the week of Nov. 13.
Russia: One-Year Anniversary of Magnitsky's Death
On the one-year anniversary of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky's death, Robert Amsterdam writes: “No one has ever been held accountable for Magnitsky's death: no charges, no arrests, no trials, and no justice, despite the mountains of evidence and even the names of the ‘untouchables’ made public. Instead, with a familiar Russian...
Russia: Notes on the “Spygate” Scandal
Robert Amsterdam, Streetwise Professor, In Moscow's Shadows, and The Power Vertical weigh in on Russia's “spygate” scandal.
Russia: A Selection of Kashin's Blog Posts Translated
More on journalist Oleg Kashin's case from the Anglophone Russia blogosphere: on OpenDemocracy.net, Mumin Shakirov translates and analyzes a selection of Kashin's blog posts; Sean's Russia Blog writes that Kashin “has become yet another assault weapon in a much larger political battle.”
Russia: Cartoons and Public Diplomacy
Global Chaos writes about the potential impact that the Soviet and Russian cartoons in public diplomacy: “They can even help overcome long-held preconceptions and stereotypes about the other, thus creating the space for further openness to meaningful communication and information processing.”
Serbia: Time of the Gypsies, a “Punk Opera”
Emir Kusturica’s “Time of the Gypsies” – now, a “punk opera” playing in Belgrade (more about it – at Bill's Blog).
Russia: The Kushchevskaya Massacre
Natalia Antonova writes about the Nov. 4 massacre in the village of Kushchevskaya.
Poland: Henryk Gorecki Dies
the POLSKI blog writes about the Polish composer Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki, who died on Nov. 12 at the age of 76.
Poland: Mapping Geo-Tagged Warsaw and Krakow Photos
Polandian writes about “maps of Warsaw and Krakow superimposed with visualizations of where people take photos,” created by Eric Fischer.
Macedonia: Angelina Jolie and Lustration
Razvigor :-) writes mockingly about the connection between the screening of “Salt” and the issue of lustration in Macedonia.
Latvia: The Kristovskis Scandal
All About Latvia covers the xenophobia scandal that involves Latvia's new foreign minister Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis – here, here, and here.
Estonia: Pensioners’ “Relative Wealth”
AnTyx does some “number-crunching” and concludes that “on average, British pensioners are 76% better off than Estonian ones.”
Czech Republic: Russian Presence in Karlovy Vary
The Czech Daily Word writes about Karlovy Vary, a famous Czech resort town popular with tourists from the former Soviet states: “And one can see the Russian presence on almost every main street in downtown Karlovy Vary, where even hair salons, post offices, hardware stores etc. have signs in four...
Russia: Commentary on Oleg Kashin Beating
A roundup of the English-language reports and commentary on the beating of journalist Oleg Kashin (as well as the cases of Mikhail Beketov, Konstantin Fetisov and Anatoly Adamchuk): Julia Ioffe at Foreign Policy and The Moscow Diaries (here and here); Miriam Elder at GlobalPost; Natalia Antonova at GlobalComment; Poemless; Sean's...