From Gulags to England’s factory – continuing struggle of Baltic workers

The Guardian / 40 min

The gangsters on England’s doorstep

“The speed with which Russia and its satellite countries had been opened up to the market after the Soviet collapse – dismantling the command economy before any safety nets were set up, privatising resources before any civic and democratic institutions had developed – created a huge gap between the wealthiest and the rest of the population.As the communist state disappeared, organised crime flourished, while the wider economy floundered”.

The wave of the lifetime

15 min / the Deadspin

An American Surfer Goes Rogue To Claim The Baltic Sea’s “Last Wave”

” When the wave appeared off the jetty, and whether it was rideable, seemed to be a function of multiple variables. The weather mattered, as did the direction of the wind and the water level, but even more important was the speed of the ship and the weight of its cargo. On the occasions that the conditions cooperated, and the wave near the jetty appeared, it would be larger and more powerful than the beach wave.”

You are not alone

30 min / the Atlantic

Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex?

“Nonetheless, she believes that many students have absorbed the idea that love is secondary to academic and professional success—or, at any rate, is best delayed until those other things have been secured. “Over and over,” she has written, “my undergraduates tell me they try hard not to fall in love during college, imagining that would mess up their plans.”

David against Goliath

15min / roadsandkingdom

FROM LITHUANIA, WITH LOVE

“When I’d asked Rimgaudas about those early days, his response was very different. Actual independence, by most definitions, only came in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. That’s when the chocolates and bananas arrived. But for Rimgaudas, the turning point was almost two years earlier, in March 1990, when Lithuania’s Parliament passed its declaration of independence. From that moment, he said, “we were already free.”

Can music still change the world?

20 min / Dazzed

How techno became the sound of protest in Georgia

“Police posted up, creating a ring around the youth of the city, while outside the cordon, neo-Nazi groups and reactionary agitators circulated – some, it was rumoured, brandishing knives and other weapons. Someone set up a DJ rig among the protestors, and the Giegling crew, who’d been scheduled to perform at Bassiani the night of the raids, started playing to the crowd. “We dance together, we fight together,”became the slogan of the day. It was a message that resonated throughout the international dance community as clubs and DJs around the world voiced their support. The party on Rustaveli went on for two days before it finally petered out.”

Money and the power, our broke system

30min / The Guardian

How Britain let Russia hide its dirty money

“Transparency International published a report last year, which, relying only on public sources of information, identified 160 properties in the UK, together worth £4.4bn, that had been bought by what it called “high-corruption-risk individuals”. Most of those properties were in London, and half of them were within three miles of Buckingham Palace – and that is just a fraction of the true total. “There is currently no credible deterrent in place for money-laundering failings from estate agents,” the report noted.”

30 min / The Guardian

The real Goldfinger: the London banker who broke the world

“All this is hard to imagine for anyone who has only experienced the world since the 1980s, because the system now is so different. Money flows ceaselessly between countries, nosing out investment opportunities in China, Brazil, Russia or wherever. If a currency is overvalued, investors sense the weakness and gang up on it like sharks around a sickly whale. In times of global crisis, the money retreats into the safety of gold or US government bonds. In boom times, it pumps up share prices elsewhere in its restless quest for a good return. These waves of liquid capital have such power that they can wash away all but the strongest governments.”

How past is creating hate between us

the Guardian / 20 min

Poles apart: the bitter conflict over a nation’s communist history

“Andreev was defiant. “Poland and the Polish nation exist today on this land thanks to the Red Army’s victory in that war, at the cost of the lives of those 600,000 soldiers and officers who died here,” he told me. “Those monuments are to them.” On the wall of his office hung photos of a grandfather who died in the war and two grandparents who survived it. “This is a foreign country, and we cannot lay down the law here. But one thing is clear,” he said. “We will not forget this, and we will not forgive.”

That’s why you will never afford anything you always dream about

BBC.com / 7  min

Unlike most millennials norways are rich

“If we keep these components in place then I’m willing to bet everything that I own that we will still be performing at a very, very high level compared to other European countries, simply because we have a way [to deal with] difficulties that is more humane.”

Pavojingi istorijos interpretavimo vingiai

Lžinios.lt / 8 min

Kristina Sabaliauskaitė: kam naudingos audros tarp „liberastų“ ir tautinių patriotų?

„Prisipažinsiu, man tai skamba taip pat, kaip ir „London School of Economics“ doktoranto ruso ištarta frazė, kad Lietuva visada buvo kumečių kraštas, kuris turėtų dėkoti Jakaterinai II už padalijimus ir tapimą Rusijos dalimi, nes tai atnešė kumečiams kultūrą ir civilizaciją. Teko atšauti, kad tik Rusija sugeba atnešti civilizaciją į kraštą, kuris 200 metų anksčiau už Rusiją turėjo universitetą“

Postwar apocalypse now

7min / the Guardian

‘They deserve no mercy’: Iraq deals briskly with accused ‘women of Isis’

” The Baghdad courtroom was bustling with men who were shuffled into a dock in the centre of the room. A group of 12 were sentenced to death by hanging, then escorted back to cells. Next it was Zahraa Abdel Wahab Al Kaja’s turn. Just turned 17 years old, and originally from Tajikistan, she also cradled a baby, whom she had dressed in a hijab, and seemed disorientated.”