Global Voices Online

The Turkish Invasion writes about Victory Day in Moscow: “The metro was crammed with Veterans and their relatives and some younger men were carrying Red Army division banners. At first, I thought that it was another absurdity to carry war banners in Metro but I was then ashamed to realise that those banners would then be used in the park to make up meeting points of the veterans according to their units.”

Recent Links also in Eastern & Central Europe

Belgraded reports that, beginning Dec. 19, “there will be no more visa requirement for Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian citizens if they want to travel to the Schengen territory” - debunks “some visa-free travel myths.” Jana Orsolic thinks “it's too good to be truth” and shares some of her feelings: “…there's no room for silly excuses for something being done badly because of poor us being isolated.”

A few last month's updates at IZO: artist and writer Vagrich Bakhchanyan dies in NYC; Ukrainian artist Aleksandr Gnilitsky dies in Kyiv; a Ukrainian Euro-2012 icon.

Profy cites a report by the Russian division of Microsoft, which claims that the company has lost $1 billion to Russian pirates, but has earned the same amount from legal sales.