in the 1980s Soviet vets of the failed Afghan war formed “clubs” that became very violent mafia groups in the 90s. Putin is now creating a supercharged version of this. Russia is experiencing a flood of damaged men being dumped into an already atomized and low-trust society

Plugging this one more time - this eve in Riga, would be lovely to see you there. We will discuss "untranslatable" words in Latvian and English, and much more of great interest. facebook.com/events/s/lea...

The collapse of Noah Smith from 'interesting writer whose occasionally a bit random' into 'complete idiot and mentalist' is one of the most clear cut cases of twitter-poisoning I've seen

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was once Europe's largest state. Much of its population spoke Ruthenian, the elite were increasingly switching to Polish. Lithuanian was still not a literary language - but many Lithuanians believed it to be a form of Latin. deepbaltic.com/2025/11/11/h...

Mēs zinām, ka reizēm klausīties ir ērtāk. 🙌 Tādēļ tagad mūsu pētījumus ne vien rakstām, bet arī stāstām. 👉🏻 open.spotify.com/show/5VX6ucc...

Maybe Keir should demand the heads of major US news networks any time they imply Britain is on the brink of civil war or that we live under sharia law. Or does it not work both ways?

BBC really burying the lede there

I'm giving a talk! At the lovely Valodu Māja bookshop in Riga next Fri. (Hopefully interesting/entertaining) observations about some of the differences between English and Latvian - time for questions/discussion too. Would be a pleasure to see you there www.facebook.com/events/20630...

Some good news - Latvia REMAINS a party to the Istanbul Convention. For now. Facing unprecedented civil society mobilisation, and after the president refused to sign the withdrawal law, the parliament voted to postpone the decision on the Istanbul Convention until after the October 2026 elections.

🔴 Valsts prezidents Edgars Rinkēvičs Saeimā pieņemto likumu "Par izstāšanos no Eiropas Padomes Konvencijas par vardarbības pret sievietēm un vardarbības ģimenē novēršanu un apkarošanu" nodos otrreizējai caurlūkošanai Saeimā.

After receiving a petition signed by more than 62,000 citizens President Edgars Rinkēvičs has exercised his constitutional right to return the law on Latvia’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention to the Parliament for reconsideration. Big protests in support of Convention planned on Nov 6.

I toured farmhouse brewers in Latgale in eastern Latvia back in May, but the region is also home to traditional moonshine.

A great summary of the current and historical political scene in 🇭🇺 from @vsquare.bsky.social. This gets into why Orbán was popular and why he might be nervous for the 2026 elections. vsquare.org/the-era-of-o...

Grok appears to have started offering this false account about eye-witnesses by generating its view from false rumours on X. It began by saying there wasn't evidence then picked up rumour and misinformation and amplified it x.com/grok/status/...

Konservatīvie politiķi: "Tas jau tikai Rīgas liberastu burbulis." Realitāte:

Full credit to Politico for continuing to employ a guy who usually does slightly off Disney characters on ice cream vans as their artist-in-residence.

More than 19,000 active citizens have signed a petition against denouncing the Istanbul Convention. The Latvian Parliament is legally required to review this petition, but they've intentionally scheduled it after the decisive vote. We are protesting this evening. This is our last stand.

Literally one of the greatest soft power brands on planet earth driven into the ground by successive British governments that embrace failure, decline and irrelevance. on.ft.com/3Wq1XIT

I'm quite happy to "take" a small contribution to stopping Ukrainian citizens being slaughtered in their hundreds of thousands.

Currently in Prague, because reasons. I’m struck by how similar the old pubs here are to those in Franconia. You enter U Fleku into a kind of hallway between the two main serving rooms. Just like Schlenkerla, Spezial, Fässla, etc

I’m never quite sure what the ‘woke right’ is, but in my imagination it means someone who includes a land acknowledgement to the local aristocratic landowner in their email signature

Following a first-reading parlt vote supported by opposition parties (and 1 coalition member) with a majority for Latvia pulling out of the Istanbul Convention, the co-leader of the left-liberal coalition partner Progressives says Latvia is approaching a "political earthquake" ir.lv/rubrika/vied...

As Sultana and co know very well, it is perfectly possible to support a people's struggle for national freedom while opposing the govt or political leadership currently at the head of that struggle. They do not apply this here for a simple reason - they do not support Ukraine.

I'm sure this will turn out fine: data from 11 of Russia's 89 federal subjects shows that local govts are drawing down emergency reserve funds to pay military recruiters. Total spending on these boys now nearly rivals the regional budgets for education, healthcare, and other welfare.

"Rozenvalds apstiprināja to, ka Latvijas reputācijas riski starptautiskajā līmenī ir diezgan reāli — Latvija var kļūt par otro valsti pēc Turcijas un pirmo Eiropas Savienības valsti, kas denonsēs konvenciju." www.lsm.lv/raksts/zinas...

That’s it. That’s enough now. Shut the internet down. There is not enough grass in the world to touch to heal this harpers.org/archive/2025...

Reform are favourites to win the Caerphilly by-election but with Plaid hoping to stop them with tactical votes Labour likely to be third. I wonder if the dynamics of this campaign show why 2029 GE (first-past-the-post) might well prove trickier than 2026 (PR) for Reform

When considering Baltic suspicion of Moscow's intentions - often seen as dating, in its current level of intensity, from WWII - worth remembering that just four years separated Soviet Russia signing a peace treaty with Estonia and it trying (chaotically) to overthrow their govt

Excited to see the piece I helped write last year for Lossi 36 about the 1924 attempted coup in 🇪🇪 be republished by @deepbaltic.bsky.social! deepbaltic.com/2025/10/20/w...

This isn't the first reference I've seen to the rise of anti-immigration sentiment in Liverpool, which has tended to be more resistant to it I'd bet good money it reflects the decline of The Sun, and the rise of social media, in driving hard-right messaging www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

#80sTop30 #MusicChallenge 13. The Jam - Town Called Malice "Better stop dreaming of the quiet life/Cause it's the one we'll never know" is such a fantastic opening line.

Next time somebody asks me what Bluesky is like, I'll send them this

I find it weird how people can acknowledge that UK politics is volatile to an unprecedented degree and yet talk very confidently about the shape of an election in 2029. Reform is depicted as a permanent and unstoppable force and Labour as utterly doomed. Doesn't add up to me

"Much of its vocabulary is unfamiliar, as the only other national languages it’s related to are Finnish and, more distantly, Hungarian. It’s even been described as the most difficult Latin-alphabet language for a native English speaker." #DBarchives deepbaltic.com/2019/09/12/d...

Why has no-one written a Latvian-set hardboiled detective novel called ‘Riga Mortis’?

The fantastic Irish author Manchán Magan has recently died 😢 He wrote mesmerising books re engaging people with the myth and history of the land, and skilfully communicated how understanding and connection with nature could catalyse positive change. Though we will miss his voice we cherish his work.

Interesting to see Latgalian added to Google Translate. Wondering how it would cope with the northern forms - this is from a Catholic church in Viļaka in remote N Latgale. Water is "ūdens" in Latvian, "iudiņs" in "standard" Latgalian (quotes used advisedly), here "yudeņs"

feels quite Guardian that this piece doesn't present the move as good news or even neutral news but instead spends about two thirds of its copy running through every single possible reason why a maybe fun thing will be TERRIBLE and AWFUL www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Couldn’t be happier that the Nobel has gone to Laszlo Krasznahorkai. Back in 2012 I tried to astroturf a movement claiming him as the Next Big Thjng but it didn’t take off because he’s too difficult www.theguardian.com/books/2012/j...

An extremely proud day for Hungarians. I just really hope Orbán’s proxies won’t launch a smear campaign, since Krasznahorkai is an outspoken critic of contemporary fascism, far-right politics, and Viktor Orbán himself.

#CountriesInASongOrMovie 🎵 Part Time Latvia 🇱🇻

"Being direct can take many forms, and I note here in passing that Russian Latvian poets like Artūrs Punte and Jeļena Glazova... have made an unmistakable statement by switching to Latvian." deepbaltic.com/2025/10/07/s...

Playfulness, radical openness, resistance to speaking "for the nation", an adoring approach to immediate predecessors, and a more precarious geopolitical situation seeming to prompt more plain-spokenness – Lauris Veips gives an overview of Latvian poetry deepbaltic.com/2025/10/07/s...

"Milei is amazing. It's Thatcherism on steroids. Cutting and slashing. That's leadership" - Nigel Farage Milei would be the "template" for my government - Kemi Badenoch

The airport in the Lithuanian capital was temporarily closed last night due to the sighting of 25 balloons, which were deployed from Belarus. Vilmantas Vitkauskas, chief of the National Crisis Management Centre NKVC, told LRT radio that around 500 such balloons had already been recorded this year.

Don't get to see as much live music as I used to or would like to (many wonderful things about living in the Baltics but doesn't quite compare to Liverpool/Manchester in this respect), but I have now finally seen this completely extraordinary band - in Riga- so I'm quite content

How weird that this should have disappeared from the Telegraph archive...