Category Archives: Ukraine
Ukrainian Tears
Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Berichts. It’s been two years since I visited my friends Yaniv and Nastya in Odessa. Because of Covid, we hadn’t had any chance to meet since, but this spring we wanted to make it happen. In … Continue reading
Humanity’s Response to Catastrophes
A symbolic photo, taken in Odessa, Ukraine.
Attack on Odessa
I am currently working on an article about the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, where I was staying in January 2020, until the Corona pandemic called me back home. Because the article will be as comprehensive as you already fear, … Continue reading
Blue & Yellow
When I lived in Ukraine, I poked fun at how many things were painted in blue and yellow, down to rubbish bins and park benches. I wouldn’t do that anymore today. Now, I am happy about every blue-and-yellow flag which … Continue reading
One Hundred Years Ago, Countries were established that have been all but forgotten – August 1921: Baranya-Baja and Tannu-Tuva
Zur deutschen Fassung. Attentive readers of this series know that the maps of Europe and the Middle East were shaped in the years following World War I. For some states, however, you needed a magnifying glass to even find them … Continue reading
“Sovietistan” and “The Border” by Erika Fatland
Hier gibt es diese Rezension auf Deutsch. Do you also have so many travel guides at home for countries you never made it to? I still got a Lonely Planet guidebook for Central Asia, which I bought in 2007. Apparently, … Continue reading
Remembrance with Kebab: Babi Yar
I don’t know what exactly I expected when I went to the site of the largest mass shooting in the Holocaust, but this I didn’t expect. Continue reading
Wait, when was World War II again?
Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels. A strange questions, it seems, especially coming from someone studying history. But the more you travel in the post-Soviet world, i.e. in the countries that became independent after the end of the Soviet Union, the … Continue reading
Two Night Trains to the East
Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels. I am calling them night trains on purpose, not sleeper trains, because when I booked the tickets, I couldn’t discern if there would be a bed, maybe even a shower, or with how many people … Continue reading
How Climate Change will end
Many big issues are at their heart debates between optimists and pessimists – with some pretentious self-declared realists thrown into the mix. This is also true about climate change. Will we develop carbon-neutral technologies? Or can we capture the carbon … Continue reading
The Happy Hermit 