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Central and eastern Europe

Photos: Prague Spring, forty years on

In front | ANALYSIS
Making a cut forty years on (Photo: Boris Svartzman)

On 21 August Prague commemorated forty years of it’s famous democratic ‘spring’, which ended revolt in the capital this past century. The spontaneous protest caught the world by surprise, before it was reprimanded by the Soviet regime. Images

by Boris Svartzman // 22/08/08

FEATURE
(Photo: ©Sandra Wickert)

Czech cinema in the 'Hollywood of the east'

Light comedies and export hits: Czech cinema rides on the wave of success. But in Prague young fresh filmmakers and independent cinemas push against the mainstream

by Sandra Wickert // 29/04/08

REPORT

Drinking trademark Budweiser beer in Bohemia

Czech beer came to the world’s attention again in April after a century-old dispute with the US over the naming rights to its Budweiser beer was settled in a Luxembourg court

by Chris Yeomans // 29/04/08

FEATURE
Radek refuses to go on Palacký Square to express his opinion (Photo: ©KK)

Prague ‘Hyde Park’: dead speakers society

The Czech capital is banishing a young Brit’s project from the city centre after the first Speaker’s Corner in Europe outside of the UK became a hotspot for extremists

by Katharina Kloss // 29/04/08

Mission possible in Romania (Photo: oaspetele_de_piatr a/ Flickr)

Romania: welcoming NATO

One international summit, 26 countries, thousands of different voices - one of the youngest EU members welcomed NATO officials and the international media to Bucharest from 2-4 April 2008

by Luciana Grosu // 08/04/08

PANORAMA

NATO summit in Bucharest: Albania and Croatia to join

On 2 April NATO invited the two candidates to join the defence alliance, but leave Macedonia waiting

by n- ost // 03/04/08

PANORAMA

Europe’s eastern bloc palaces

Berlin, Bucharest, Vilnius and Warsaw - four examples of what to do with those eastern state building dinosaurs

by Natalie Lazar // 01/04/08

REVIEW
(Photos: ukemi_42/ Xavier Häpe/ Flickr)

Babelblogs: Macedonia, cloning and praying in Berlin

Europe is often seen as boring and bureaucratic - not the case with cafebabel.com’s community blogs. European debate is in full swing, bloggers are up in arms and words are flying

by Jean-Sébastien Lefebvre // 28/03/08

FOCUS
(Photo: ©Zormasa/ Flickr)

Easter in Europe: all about the egg

Everywhere you look, display windows, promotional offers, Easter markets and cards are covered with bright, beautifully decorated Easter eggs

by Inga Pietrusiska // 21/03/08

INVESTIGATION
Babysitter, for better or worse (Photo: bekah2067/ Flickr)

Au pair Alices in washing up land

It’s an enticing experience which draws many young people abroad – but the catch lies hidden behind closed doors

by Elisa Marengo // 06/03/08

(Photo: ©berlinale-talentcampus.de)

Fresh new faces at the Berlinale Talent Campus

Between 9 and 14 February, the German capital played host to 350 up-and-coming film enthusiasts from all over the world

by Sandra Wickert // 17/02/08

INTERVIEW
(Photo: Katarzyna Kozyra)

Katarzyna Kozyra: plastic penises and ribbon vaginas

The Polish sculptor, video and installation artist, 45, probes the theme of the body as a costume - what it is like to be a ‘real woman’?

by Natalia Sosin // 13/02/08

FEATURE

Günther von Hagens: dead bodies 'Plastinator'

The German anatomist has created quite a furore with his ‘Body Worlds’ exhibition throughout Europe. Since November 2006, visitors to the Plastinarium workshop in Guben have observed how corpses are plasticised

by Anika Kloss // 13/02/08

FEATURE
Hamburg Europe Passage (Photo: Linda Holzgreve)

Hamburg: European metropolis?

Built in lavish style in 2006, the Europa arcade in the centre of Hamburg is the city’s new landmark shopping centre. 'Europe' can at best be imagined here

by Linda Holzgreve // 12/02/08

ANALYSIS
(Photo: Lanier67/FLickr)

Czech smokers: pubs welcome Europe’s last indoor puffs

The smoking ban, in force in many of the 27 EU member states, may soon take hold in the Czech Republic. Prague’s anti-smoking lobby steps up its fight against the fog. Plus a smoking ban guide map in the EU

by Hans-Jörg Schmidt // 07/02/08

ANALYSIS
Will the incumbent, Boris Tadic, win on 3 February? (Photo: Norbert Rütsche)

Serb elections: blackmail Europe

Serb incumbent Boris Tadic needs every vote he can get in the second round of presidential elections on 3 February. PM Kostunica supports his pro-European coalition partner - but on his own terms only

by Norbert Rütsche & Marzena uchowicz // 01/02/08

Intentional outsider (Photo: www.michalzygmunt.pl)

Michal Zygmunt: 'By 2010, Poland will be talking commercial gay movement'

30-year-old author of the book ‘New Romantic’, the journalist and editor of gay magazine ‘Dik Fagazine’ talks politics, left-wing politics and emotion-drained religion

by Natalia Sosin // 11/01/08

FEATURE
Cigarette smugglers on the Poland-Ukraine border, Przemysl-Medyka, Poland (Photo: Jan Zappner/ n-ost.de)

Smuggling cigarettes in Schengen Slovakia

Since December 21 2007, border controls have vanished inside the EU. The eastern border now seems like a fortress - what's 'big brother' in Slovak?

by Hans-Jörg Schmidt // 09/01/08

INTERVIEW
Jacek Sonta struggled with a one hour time difference with Lithuania when both entered the Schengen zone (Photo: Polish border guards)

Poland's 10, 000 border guards

Since 21 December 2007 there have been no border controls between Poland and Portugal. In Germany there have been fears that the Polish authorities aren’t ready to take on the security of the entire EU

by Agnieszka Hreczuk // 09/01/08

REVIEW
Does Monica make it? (Photo: Marian Hanciarec)

California Dreamin’: more cinema from Romania

Joining the current wave of Romanian films in European cinema, Cristian Nemescu, who lost his life in a tragic road accident in 2006 aged 26, offers us a vision of a country which he wanted to and will change

by Katharina Kloss // 19/12/07

REVIEW
(Photo: Wydawnictwo Literackie)

New Year reads

Jacek Dukaj, Toni Maguire, Nathalie Rouyer and Christian Semmelroth on our carousel of featured writers

by Maciej Lewandowski // 18/12/07

(Illustration: Henning Studte)

Time of the month

by Amandine Agic // 10/12/07

FOCUS
Second Life contender (Photo: Trendmatcher/ Flickr)

Meru - new Second Life

The alternative to Second Life has Europe in its sights, according to Vladlen Koltun, a 27 year old professor from Stanford

by Adriano Farano // 06/12/07

AGENDA
© Ulf Langheinrich: Hemisphere, 2006–2007 (Photo: ©Jirkac Jansch)

December: pure culture seeker

Berlin sparks and pixels, free Splash electro in Paris, European student cinema festival in Manchester and eat yourself to death in Lodz

by Karsten Marhold & Natalia Sosin // 04/12/07

REVIEW

God bless our babelblogs

From Prishtina to Kiev with our new reporters project, via Istanbul and the US along the comic soundtrack of Europe - by Groucho Marx and Tim Burton

by Natalia Sosin // 29/11/07

(Illustration: Henning Studte)

Suck up

by Enno Dummer // 29/11/07

ANALYSIS
'The beer which tingles so nicely' (Photo: ©Schöfferhofer)

German TV adverts: stEurotypes

In adverts, stereotypes of countries and nations are often exploited to commercialise certain products – a trip through German television

by Jessica Karagöl (+KK) // 28/11/07

ANALYSIS

Mikhail Gorbachev does Louis Vuitton

Politicians in advertising, advertising in politics – an ambivalent relationship

by Isabel Hummel // 28/11/07

FEATURE
Budapest's homeless sleep on a bench (Photo: Spetzi/ Flickr)

Budapest: my solidarity nights

For the fourth year in a row, demonstrators spend a night in a metro station underground passage to highlight their solidarity with the capital's nearly 30, 000 Hungarian homeless

by Dennis Maschmann // 27/11/07

INVESTIGATION
Former Polish plumber campaign (ticondekoga/ Flickr)

Immigration: the plight of Poles in France

Poland has been an official EU country since 1 May 2004. While Poles have the right to move freely around France, things get a lot more complicated when it comes to getting a job

by Sébastien Michel // 22/11/07

MULTIMEDIA

Don't laugh. It's (video) politics

European politicans occasionally star in dramatically hilarious or simply grotesque scenes - are ETA terrorists a great nation? Was the Russian Breznev actually the president of the United States?

by Fernando Navarro Sordo // 20/11/07

ANALYSIS
Histoire-Geschichte, Franco-German history book that made history (Photo: ©Klett editions)

Hungaro-Slovak history textbook: keep dreaming

The project proposed by a joint committee of historians is chalked for the beginning of 2008 but is charged with problematics

by Bálint Ablonczy // 20/11/07

(Illustration: Henning Studte)

Mullet

by Margarethe Padysz // 20/11/07

PICTURES
Vilnius' night

Picturing faith in Vilnius

Vilnius’ landscape is defined by the number of houses of worship scattered throughout it. This reflects the rich heritage Vilnius has with the number of religions that have co-existed together for hundreds of years

by Jorden Van der Ven // 31/10/07

FOCUS
Lithuanian parliament (Photo: Jorden Van der Ven)

Lithuania: a stranger in the south of the north

Since achieving independence in 1990, it has strived to walk steadily on its own. On the eve of reaching adulthood as a self-governing country, Vilnius is like a little girl who has been picked on too many times by her bigger neighbours

by Marta Palacín // 31/10/07

PICTURES

Poles vote abroad in early elections

More than 170, 000 Poles voted abroad in parliamentary elections last Sunday, 21 October. Why did they care? 'We want to go back some day', most said. 'And we want to have something to come back to.'

by Natalia Sosin // 22/10/07

FOCUS
World champion windsurfer Wojtek Brzozowski (Photo: Mateusz Stankiewicz/ Wybieram.pl)

Wybieram.pl – I vote in Poland

In a current government allegedly chosen by a mere 10% of the Poles, celebrities give a face to a new internet campaign - vote because it's sexy

by Natalia Sosin // 18/10/07

FOCUS
(Photo: Jacek Staniszewski)

Don’t rydzysk it – vote abroad!

October parliamentary elections in Poland are rapidly approaching. Can Polish emigrants affect their outcome?

by Hanna Sankowska // 11/10/07

REPORT
Lepper: former Polish agriculture minister accused of corruption (Photo: Panmateusz/ Flickr)

Elections in Poland: the soap opera continues

The electoral campaign for the general elections has begun - two years early

by Katarzyna Dolna i Natalia Sosin // 03/10/07

Man of conviction (Photo: LAV)

Animal protection: Romania the black sheep

Roberto Bennati, vice-president of the Italian anti-vivisection league, on a new European legislation

by Elisa Marengo // 03/10/07

98 year old Margerita at the urns in 2005 (Photo: SusanAstray/ Flickr)

Ukraine crisis and a passive Europe

The fifth elections in three years, the latest by presidential fiat, take place on 30 September. Europe needs to sit up and pay more attention for the country to be an effective stabile democracy

by Thijs Berman/ Anne Dankert // 27/09/07

FEATURE
Let's take it back to the concrete streets (Photo: Natalia Sosin)

Internet mad e-stonia

A toy airport, a medieval city centre with little wood houses and a maritime city which is completely internet savvy

by Natalia Sosin // 13/09/07

REPORT
Tallin’s Bronze soldier in april 2007 (Photo: ©Kalle Kniivilä/flickr)

Citizenship: undefined

A modern, progressive EU member state divided by the linguistic, cultural and educational differences between the Estonians and the Russian minority

by Chris Yeomans // 12/09/07

FEATURE
(Photo: Katharina Kloss)

Tallinn 2011: fairytales spin gold

Estonia is determined to present Tallinn as a dynamic culture capital when it assumes the title in 2011 – even with a grouchy Europe

by Katharina Kloss // 12/09/07

FEATURE
Luxury mile in Tallinn (Photo: Adriano Farano)

Risk factor 'boomtown'

Liberal reforms over the past decade have catapulted Estonia into one of the fastest-growing market economies of the European Union. But can the Baltic tiger keep up on the social agenda?

by Ruth Bender // 12/09/07

FEATURE

Estonian economy: between crash landing and Baltic summer

11% growth, 4.5% unemployment and a lot of liberalism: how the Baltic Tiger catches investors. Inflation means the euro won't be in place before 2012

by Adriano Farano // 12/09/07

PORTRAIT
(Photo: Grégoire Comhaire)

Brussels: chaos for the initiated

The fifth and last in our ‘taxi’ series. In Brussels, you catch them from taxi locations specifically created to this end, at different spots in town

by Grégoire Comhaire // 11/09/07

PICTURES

The eastern punk Svieta Songako

Art is politics. The fourth and last chapter of our portraits of artists who are attempting to resist the ‘cultural Chernobyl’ in a Belarus that is in Alexander Lukashenko’s stranglehold

by Jef Bonifacino // 24/07/07

FEATURE
Digitally generated artist's impression of one of the reading rooms in the planned National Library in Prague, by Jan Kaplicky (Render, Kaplicky Studio)

The future’s a bitter pill to swallow in Prague

The audacious design of the new National Library in Prague unleashes intense debate

by Xavi Hervás Vigueras // 19/07/07

Enki Bilal and his heroine (Photo: JB)

Enki Bilal: 'My cartoons evoke a past out of step with reality'

The Czech-Bosnian cartoonist, 55, weaves between cartoons, cinema and geopolitics, taking his readers on a trip into a futuristic universe where political commitment is key

by Prune Antoine // 07/07/07

ANALYSIS
Re-revolution 2007 (Photo: Antonis SHEN/ Flickr)

Spluttering clockwork orange engine

As Ukraine faces a political crisis, Europe follows its neighbour's events with interest, conscious of the former Soviet Republic’s strategic importance for her energy supply

by Ángel Alonso Arroba // 27/06/07

INTERVIEW
'Throughout history, students have been engaged in struggles for democracy and a just society - Hungary and France in 1968, Poland, Georgia in 2003 (Photo: Oksana Udovyk)

Sergii Oleksiuk: 'It's like a Yanykovich-Yushchenko soap opera'

Three years on, a 23-year-old key figure in the youth movement during the Orange Revolution considers his country's latest stalemate

by Oksana Udovyk // 27/06/07

REPORT
Songs for a conservative, Christian orthodox land (Photo: Natalie Gryvnyak)

Pink revolution

Over 200,000 people flooded Independence Square on 16 June to see British singer Elton John's AIDS-awareness free concert - publicising a dark aspect of Ukrainian society, with estimated adult HIV prevalence of 1.4%

by Natalie Gryvnyak // 27/06/07

Gyorgy Dragoman (Photo: Filip Gaj)

György Dragomán: 'one can really see how a dictatorship functions through the eyes of a child'

The Transylvania-born Hungarian author, 34, uses an unconventional narrator to express the horrors of a totalitarian system

by Natalia Sosin // 22/06/07

Gediminas Urbonas: charting his country's new capitalist identity through art sculpture (Photo: DB)

Gediminas Urbonas: 'There were no real Communist ideas in occupied Lithuania'

The former Soviet soldier, 40, has spent half his life sculpting in Lithuania’s evolving public spaces, prodding the West into understanding what the face of Communism once looked like, and fighting privatisation

by Dionizas Bajarunas // 08/06/07

ANALYSIS
Oil: new Dutch disease? (Photo: Mixmaster/ Flickr)

Energy - new Russian missile?

As it plays an increasingly larger role in the relationship between Russia and its neighbours, is energy supply a way of seeing who is in control of the region?

by Margot Reis // 29/05/07

Louise Lecavalier, Canadian choreographer and dancer (Photo: Angelo Barsetti)

Fabbrica Europa redresses Florence

There's more to Florence than its stuffy museum setting. The Tuscan capital is host to a contemporary art festival, whose lights go out on 31 May

by Maira Bartoloni // 24/05/07

REPORT
Impeaching Mr. President on 19 May: Traian Bsescu in Brussels (Photo: European Parliament)

EU elections shelved in Romania

Bulgaria is holding European parliamentary elections on 20 May, but Romania is delaying their own after PM Triceanu suspended his president. An internal referendum is due on 19 May

by Gellért Rajcsányi // 18/05/07

Engaged director (YK)

'Being Belarusian is fashionable these days'

Visionary film director Yuri Khashchevatsky, 60, is a principal figure of Belarusian dissent. He criticises ineffective opposition, and talks up the new role the Internet plays in the resistance

by Prune Antoine // 18/05/07

REPORT
Tourist hoardes (Photo: LTV)

Prague's got a brand new bag

The Czech capital's tourism flow reached full capacity in 1999, having experienced its boom after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991. Some are unhappy at what they and their city has been left with

by Lam Thuy Vo // 15/05/07

INTERVIEW
David Cerny - speaking openly (Photo: Lam Thuy Vo)

David Cerny: 'president Klaus is a d**k'

The politically engaged sculptor, 40, has been labelled by many as 'the scandal maker'

by Natalia Sosin // 15/05/07

FEATURE
The Hermes on the river Vltava (Photo: XH)

Czech homeless get on board

Prague has installed a new boat as a shelter for homeless people - the people left behind by modernisation within the country

by Xavier Hervás // 15/05/07

ANALYSIS
Vladimir Sanka converted to Islam at 35 (Photo: FAC)

Religion snoozes in Prague

The Czech Republic is renowned as being a predominantly atheist country. Prague is no exception to this rule, even if religious beliefs still make up the laws of the town

by François-Arnaud Casalis // 15/05/07

PANORAMA
National Theatre in Prague (Photo: Alfi/ Flickr)

New wave in theatre

Free from the shackles of Communist oppression, Czech theatre has discovered its own identity, lying somewhere between pop culture and experimental drama. Presenting three portraits of this new generation

by Stéphane Pocidalo // 15/05/07

REPORT
Marija and her lovely ladies (Photo: Indrek Galetin/ Wikipedia)

Eastern Europe dominate Eurovision

Over to Belgrade next year, as Serbian singer Marija Šerifovi, 23, wins the 2007 song contest. Ukraine and Russia came second and third in Helsinki on 12 May

by cafebabel.com // 14/05/07

FEATURE
Vidin: where the second bridge linking Bulgaria and Romania will be (Photo: Jutta Sommerbauer)

Bulgaria and Romania are Laurel and Hardy

The longtime neighbours and latest EU members know precious little about each other

by Simone Böcker // 13/03/07

INTERVIEW
Obscure future for the European energy? (Photo: 
Patryck Net/ Flickr)

'Gas-Opec': alarm bells for Europe

EU President Barroso calls for a common European energy policy, as Russian president Putin amongst others propose a gas cartel

by Nicholas Newman // 13/03/07

FOCUS
Manuela Gretkowska, founder of the newest Women's Party (Photo: Partia Kobiet)

'Poland belongs to its women'

A new Polish women-only party battles traditional stereotypes in a conservative government

by Inga Pietrusiska // 09/03/07

FEATURE
Merkez is big on halal (Photos: Jutta Sommerbauer)

From imam to businessman

Sausages without pork - a Turkish businessman tries conquering the EU

by Jutta Sommerbauer // 05/03/07