Join us on a trip back in time to the last years of the Soviet era and the beginning of a period that would test preconceptions about both sovereignty and democracy.
At the end of the 1980s, protest movements across the Soviet Union sprung up, with people in the constituent republics calling for independence. Fed up with the corrupt Soviet regime, protesters demanded an end to Soviet rule and a more equitable society.
Most countries in Current Time's coverage zone tend to pay much more to award gold medal winners than the 2020 Tokyo Olympics' current top medal winner, the United States ($37,500). Though support for national athletics programs may vary, the prestige of an Olympics win remains unchanged since Sovie
Parliamentary elections in Moldova are taking place on July 11 without the cooperation of the breakaway region of Trandniester. Most people in the region have Moldovan passports and can travel to nearby districts to vote, but only a few thousand are expected to do so.
They come from Ukraine, Moldova, and Kyrgyzstan -- and they have been deported from Russia for joining peaceful protests in support of jailed opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. They are now divided from their Russian wives and children.
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan have all opted for Internet shutdowns, but at what cost to their economies? Current Time Digital’s Anna Shamanska explains both the cost-calculations for these shutdowns and their potential long-term damage.
Largely unseen footage of the funeral and official mourning following the death of Soviet leader Josef Stalin is featured in a new documentary, State Funeral, by Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa. It's being shown on Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. The mourning events were held at factories, on collective farms, town squares, and in meeting halls across the Soviet Union.
2019 revealed few bright spots in the media landscape of Current Time’s broadcast zone. The Baltics still top the non-profit Reporters Without Borders’ annual ranking of press freedom in the region, but with concerns raised about Lithuanian security institutions’ newfound ability to shut down media outlets deemed to pose a national security threat. Hopes for independent media Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine have not yet been entirely met, the report found. Meanwhile, the environment for indepe
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned predicting the economic future into a dice roll, but data from the International Monetary Fund suggests some potential trends to watch. Their forecast: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all members of the European Union, will encounter the largest reduction in economic growth, but also the biggest rebound in 2021. Ukraine will suffer more than Russia, but likely experience the same level of comeback.
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