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A 5.6 magnitude earthquake, the strongest since 1917, shook Bulgaria's capital Sofia and the perimeter zone of around 100 km last night, followed by a number of strong aftershocks. No victims have been reported so far. The website Earthquake Reports has published live updates and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook were the first ones to spread the news. The hashtag #земетресение (”earthquake”) is used to communicate on the event through Twitter.
Young Bulgarians and guests from Italy, with support of the New Bulgarian University and project “Beautiful Europe” [bg] will meet on May 23 to discuss the “European idea” and what Europe means to Bulgarians at an event called “Blue Night” - an evening dedicated to the European idea [bg]. The event comes just one day before one of the brightest Bulgarian holidays - the Day of Slavic writing and culture.
Activists in Bulgaria have called for national protests against shale gas extraction on May 22. There is a Facebook event [bg] “National protest against shale gas and changes in Forest Law!”. Tensions are growing after The Greens' activist posted a video [bg] showing a secret meeting between the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) representatives and Chevron officials.
In the final segment of the report [ru] on the May 6 protest in Moscow, which ended in clashes with riot police, the Russian state-owned Channel 1 mentioned, among other things, a Spanish draft law [en] criminalizing online organization of public protests, as an example of the “much tougher” treatment of protesters by the “colleagues” of the Russian law enforcement officials “in the countries with the so-called established democracy.”
Sandra Jürs blogged in Estonian about her participation in the Skopje Marathon/Half-Marathon [mk, en] on May 6, 2012.
In this edition we explore the latest work and events in the Global Voices community. We also speak with some friends about the cross cultur... More »
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Based on the Wikipedia list of countries, details.
Veroniaca, I was not able to locate your article but given the caption I fell captive to your statement reagrding Scandinavian influence in Estonia. Obviously, the same would hold true for Russia, Ukraine , Belarus and Poland, amongst a few other countries. The Nordic Vikings proliferated in these areas establishing trade routes and cities, mixed with the peoples and many of them later came to reside in these areas. How could there not be influence?
Ruben Filimonczuk
Actually Ruben, nordic Vikings are quite different than scandinavians, who fought the vikings in the 11th century, (who were located on the east of the baltic sea) establishing the Hanseatic League.
Scandinavians are cultured, civilized people not to be confused with Vikings. Scandinavians and their culture arose from the royal families of Denmark and Sweden.
Then Mike, clarify who exactly were the Vikings?
So nice to bring up this topic. Basically, Estonia was part of Denmark for 120 years (1220s to 1340s) and part of Sweden for 160 years (1560s to 1710/21). The Danish impact is really only in the name of the capital, Tallinn (Danish city). But it also links the Estonians historically to Scandinavian history (the Dannebrog allegedly fell from the heavens during a battle in Estonia). The name Eistland also appears in several sagas. So Estonia was part of the Viking/Scandinavian consciousness.
The Swedish impact is more important because it was under the relatively liberal administration of Imperial Sweden that the first books were published in Estonian, the University of Tartu — which many consider the birthplace of the Estonian national movement — was founded by the Swedes in 1632. So in many ways it was this early Swedish influence that allowed Estonians to later become Europeans (not to deemphasize the role of Estophile Baltic Germans).
Because of this long, mostly positive relationship, Sweden is one of the larger adjacent countries that Estonians feel most comfortable with. That is why, perhaps, the Swedish ambassador Dag Hartelius is doing so well in the Dancing with the Stars competition here on TV this autumn :)