Music

Latvian singer Waterflower is serving pure, plant-based pop

Exploration

Rethinking the bonds of brotherhood in Russia’s conservative south

Film

Routes: a humanising look at migrants’ journeys across the Balkans

Follow of the week

Follow @balkan.collective for poetic street photography from South and Eastern Europe

Art & Culture

Journey to the North Pole with this artist’s visual diary

Music

Can you believe? Watch Polish-Chinese musical artist Ai fen’s ethereal ode to the past year

Film

Road to Paris follows the sequin-studded ballroom odyssey of one Ukrainian family in the 1990s

Exploration

Chasing cars: the photographer capturing pockets of peace in Russia’s urban landscapes

Photography

The Russian photographers changing the way we see Siberia

Photography

Portraits of Russia: emerging photographers capture the faces of a young nation

Photography

Friends-for-hire: why are people in Moscow renting companions?

Film

Directed by Garo Berberian, Taniel is a cinematic ode to an Armenian poetic luminary

Books

How Slovene author and adventurer Alma Karlin travelled solo across the globe — and fought the Nazis

Gender

In the Name of Love: the story behind the erotic Latvian self-help guide that brought sex to the USSR

Architecture

The story behind the Vranov dam: the concrete backbone to the Czech Republic’s hidden holiday spot | Concrete Ideas

Books

Wisława Szymborska: where to start with her literature

Travel

9 Moscow restaurants awarded Michelin stars in a first for Russia

Music

Listen to a one-hour techno set from the top of Chernobyl’s sister nuclear power plant

Film

Rhythms of Lost Time: an otherworldly journey in the fight to preserve Tajikistan’s ancient musical rituals

Film

How the discovery of a 1941 amateur 8mm camera roll unearthed the history of Warsaw’s ghetto

Travel Writing

Letter from Bukhara: finding the last vestiges of community in Central Asia’s Jewish heartland

Travel Writing

Uzbekistan, 50 years ago: unearthing an East German family’s travel photos

Travel Writing

Letter from Beirut: a year after devastation, Lebanon’s Armenian neighbourhood rises from the rubble

Books

‘What are our poets smiling at?’ 2 poems by Slovenian poet Aleš Šteger

Fashion

All that glitters: get your hands on sparkling leather jackets by Ukrainian brand Kulakovsky

Music Video

Nunki Bay Starship provides mellow jazz for wandering minds

Exploration

Regolith: an immersive journey into the sound and texture of urban life

Film

50 years of Cheburashka: why the Soviet Union’s best-loved cartoon character is still winning hearts after half a century

Music

Kedr Livanskiy on freeing her true voice — and falling for Lord of the Rings

Exploration

In Ingushetia, young women are reclaiming the threads of an ancient artform

Film

Dead Souls’ Vacation: an intimate look at mental health and contemporary life in Georgia | Film of the Week

Follow of the week

An Instagram tribute to socialist modernist architecture in Odesa, Ukraine’s seaside city

Art

5 Russian media artists rethinking our relationship with the spaces we live in

Special reports

After the fall: 30 years since the end of the Soviet Union

Special reports

This is our Poland: stories of resilience, creativity and change from the heart of Europe

Special reports

Creative Tashkent: the people and places modernising cultural heritage

Art & Culture

12 artworks that shaped Kyrgyzstan’s art scene for the past 30 years

Exploration

Your Yool is a project carving a place for Tatar creativity in global culture

Film

Lana Gogoberidze: the feminist filmmaker at the centre of a Georgian cinematic dynasty

Art

What Makes Another World Possible? A new exhibition looks at how art shapes our societies

Music

This Music Greets Death is a sublime electronic record by Russian artist HMOT

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