The Beet’s top five stories of 2025 From hardened borders to fading factories, these dispatches trace how history, identity, and power shape everyday life across Eastern Europe and Central Asiastories5 months ago
The watchman in the valley What the sole resident of Tajikistan’s breathtaking Siyoma gorge can tell us about climate change stories6 months ago
‘Saltivka will never get back what it lost’ How Russia’s war against Ukraine transformed Kharkiv’s hardest-hit neighborhood stories7 months ago
‘Georgians will not accept autocracy’: Former defense minister and diplomat Vasil Sikharulidze reflects on Georgia’s year-long political crisisstories6 months ago
Back to Bukhara How memory, tourism, and the diaspora sustain the last vestiges of Uzbekistan’s Jewish heritagestories7 months ago
Andrei Sannikov on Lukashenko’s latest gambit — and why the West keeps taking the baitnews24 minutes5 months ago
‘The authorities don’t hear us’ The rise and fall of Russia’s women-led demobilization movementstories10 months ago
‘An unusual hobby’ How Central Asian Wikipedians are closing the local-language knowledge gap in the age of AIstories9 months ago
‘Half of my life was spent there’ The human stories behind Vanadzor’s forgotten factorystories8 months ago
Georgia’s democratic reckoning As protests continue and the ruling party crushes dissent, could ex-president Salome Zourabichvili offer a political alternative? storiesa year ago
(National) identity crisis A Moldovan journalist grapples with her home country’s post-independence transformationstories10 months ago
Hunted in Kherson What Russia’s deliberate drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians say about the future of war crimesstories10 months ago
Farewell to the Rohat Tajikistan’s most iconic teahouse falls victim to the capital’s redevelopment crazestoriesa year ago
‘Let’s stop feeding the bear’ In Latvia’s easternmost region, ordinary people navigate growing militarization and a stagnant economy as the border with Russia hardensstoriesa year ago
Vanishing ice, rising risks As Central Asia’s glaciers disappear, a new generation of scientists works to track themstoriesa year ago
‘They tell us to work, but we already do’ Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh face uncertain future as Armenia cuts back aidnewsa year ago
‘Little pieces in a big game’ Moldova’s former reintegration minister, Alexandru Flenchea, explains what losing Russian gas means for breakaway Transnistriastoriesa year ago
Loans for scares In Georgia, a news network’s propagandistic turn and an alleged loansharking scheme lead back to the same London-based firm stories2 years ago
Dispatch from Perloja How the shattering of empires after WWI turned one tiny Lithuanian village into a ‘republic’ storiesa year ago
Dispatch from Issyk-Kul How nationalizing Kyrgyzstan’s largest gold mine won President Japarov the people’s support (for now) stories2 years ago
Dispatch from Pankisi Valley In the aftermath of a controversial election, frustration and fear on Georgia’s rural fringestoriesa year ago
Dispatch from Belgrade Nearly three years after fleeing wartime Russia, Serbia’s Russian émigrés tentatively put down rootsstoriesa year ago
Disappearing coast As the Baltic Sea erodes Latvia’s shoreline, locals grapple with what’s lost to the advancing tidestories2 years ago
The woman behind the windows The life and art of Estonian stained glass master Dolores Hoffmannstories2 years ago
Lena and the Wolfs One family’s story of separation and survival in the Soviet Unionstories2 years ago
Forest gumption In Poland’s ancient Carpathian woodlands, an ‘invisible national park’ promises hope and healing stories2 years ago
