fuck yeah eastern europe

Souvenir shops in Belgrade have something new to offer: mugs, T-shirts, and fridge magnets of Vladimir Putin. The Russian president traveled to the Serbian capital on October 16 to take part in a military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the liberation from the Nazis, when Red Army forces fought side by side with Yugoslav partisans. Serb nationalists see Russia as a protector that supported Belgrade during the Kosovo crisis and has refused to recognize Kosovar independence. 

In Bratislava. 

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, thousands of young women served in the Red Army and partisan forces in Belarus. In the years since, they have been hailed as heroes and role models. 

Photographs by Polish photographer Agnieszka Rayss. 

I really recommend you check out the source and read their stories.

Pumpkins for sale in Latvia. 

Kupari is a village in Croatia on the Dubrovnik Riviera. It's home to the Kupari Tourist Complex, a disused military resort whose grand hotels were heavily shelled and severely damaged, devoured by flames in the Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995). It was subsequently abandoned. Real estate is wholly state owned and is administered by the Ministry of Defence...

The façades of the buildings all show holes caused by shelling or shrapnel. The complete furniture and fittings were carried away or devastated. The entire resort stands poignantly abandoned and deserted on the most beautiful, deep, horseshoe bay of crystal clear waters, looking out to sea through its empty window-eyes.

The pages of Interslavic, the language all Slavs can understand

Supporters carry a huge flag of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic during a ceremony in Donetsk. (AFP/Dominique Faget)

It's a point of pride for Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka: No toilet paper in our sausage.

Lukashenka says that's one thing that makes Belarusian products better than Russian ones.

He told Russian reporters on October 17 that Russia had lowered its food-quality standards after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union "while we, thanks to Lukashenka, retained state standards."

Summary executions have been carried out by both sides of the conflict in Ukraine but the scale of the killings appear to have been “hugely exaggerated,” a report by Amnesty International said Monday.

Based on interviews with victims of human rights abuses, relatives, eyewitnesses and officials, researchers found that some the more shocking Russian media articles relating to “mass graves” were overblown, but the report added that it was difficult to get accurate information from eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces have been battling for control since April.

Meanwhile, a Der Spiegel report on Monday said an official German enquiry into the downing of a Malaysian airlines flight in July had found that pro-Russian rebels were behind the attack. If accurate, it would mark the first time a European intelligence agency had presented evidence on what caused the incident.

“There is no doubt that summary killings and atrocities are being committed by both pro-Russian separatists and pro-Kiev forces in eastern Ukraine, but it is difficult to get an accurate sense of the scale of these abuses,” John Dalhuisen, Europe and Central Asia Director at Amnesty International, said in a press release.

A visit that would have been the first by an Albanian prime minister to Belgrade, the Serbian capital, in nearly 70 years has been postponed after a provocative stunt at a soccer match in Belgrade that fanned ethnic tensions, spurred violence and provoked apparent cyberattacks.

Prime Minister Edi Rama was scheduled to visit Belgrade on Wednesday, the first trip there by an Albanian leader since 1946. The meeting, heralded by Albania and Serbia as a seminal moment for regional reconciliation after a bloody ethnic war in Kosovo in the 1990s, has now been set for Nov. 10.

Both sides said over the weekend that Mr. Rama’s trip to Belgrade would be delayed to allow tensions to subside.

Serbian officials have accused Mr. Rama’s brother, Olsi Rama, of releasing a small drone carrying a nationalist Albanian flag during a qualifying match last week between the two countries for the 2016 European Championship.

In Romania.

Skopje, Macedonia

...“I considered myself part of the Russian culture — my mother is Russian, my father is Ukrainian,” said Aleksey Ryabchyn, a young economist and journalist from Donetsk who is running for Parliament. “I have lots of Russian friends; I like books in Russian; I speak Russian at home. So I am asking myself, ‘Who am I?’ ”

For many, a mental switch was flipped six months ago when the Federation Council in Moscow voted to give President Vladimir V. Putin an open mandate to invade Russia’s smaller neighbor.

“The Russian part of me died on March 1 when I saw the Russian senate allowed Putin to send troops into Ukraine,” Mr. Ryabchyn said. “It was the biggest shock in my life.”

Architecture in Tallinn.

The Russian defence ministry has denied reports that one of its submarines got into trouble in the waters off Sweden.

The Swedish military has been searching the sea since Friday, following what the military said was foreign underwater activity.

It has denied looking for a submarine, and said that it was conducting an intelligence operation.

However, a local newspaper said Sweden had intercepted a distress signal in Russian.

Swedish Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad said the military based its judgement on "not only on current observations, but also on many previous ones from this very area... this is an area of interest to foreign powers".

Soviet submarine sightings during the Cold War caused security alerts in Sweden in the 1980s.