Deep Baltic

Someone wearing a Lithuania Olympics uniform by Issey Miyake. There's a cape across the back that says "Lithuania." Also pleated, flowy sleeves, puffy chest, cinched torso, and close fitting shirt below the waist point. Wearer has metallic pants and white sneakers.

The hood on the uniform is pleated, so it has lines everywhere. The hood is half zipped, so it's covering part of the person's face.

Bunch of athletes in the Lithuania Olympics uniform. The capes across the banks say "Lithuania." There's a Olympics logo on the seat.

Similarly shaped Olympics uniforms for different countries, so they feature different colors in accordance with those countries.

Lithuanian Olympic uniforms by Issey Miyake for the 1992 games in Barcelona. This was Lithuania's first time in the Olympics after gaining independence from the Soviet Union. Fabric was cut and shaped using heat, not scissors or sewing machines.

Concert Hall, Latvia - Volker Giencke Architects

Concert Hall, Latvia - Volker Giencke Architects

#OTD 36 years ago on 5 February 1989 Vilnius Cathedral was reconsecrated as a church, after decades as an art gallery. The emblem on these chasubles is that of the 600th Anniversary of the Conversion of Lithuania in 1987, which couldn't be celebrated in the cathedral

Our Languages and Us – Latvian, Russian, Gagauz, English... "At least back then, there was no room for nuance in Riga. There were Latvians and Russians, and each of them had to choose a side."

"And then, without having taken my eyes off the books’ colourful spines, I finally got it. I was looking for a grāmata. Not a книга but a grāmata. That was how you said “book” in Latvian, wasn’t it?"

deepbaltic.com/2026/02/03/o...

dark figures pacing along the snow-covered main promenade in Kaunas

Lithuania looking Lowry-esque (photo: Andrius Aleksandravičius)

#Lithuania #Kaunas #Baltic #Baltics #Lowry #art #drone #dronephotography #photography

Our Languages and Us – Latvian, Russian, Gagauz, English... "At least back then, there was no room for nuance in Riga. There were Latvians and Russians, and each of them had to choose a side."

Vilis Kasims remembers "growing up bilingual", with two mother tongues – Latvian and Russian – and an even more complicated heritage, rooted partially in the autonomous Moldovan region of Gagauzia, where multiple languages are spoken

deepbaltic.com/2026/02/03/o...

Turkoslavia Journal — Issue 5 — Exchanges A translation journal celebrating Turkic and Slavic languages, loosely defined.

Turkoslavia is a brilliant US-based translation project, and I'm delighted to see my good friend Vilis Kasims in the new issue with a typically fractured take on '90s Latvia - along with a note from me explaining why he's such an interesting writer

exchanges.uiowa.edu/turkoslavia-...

4 days ago Baltic States + UK wrote a letter interpreted as "Baltic Sea closing for shadow fleet".

No sanctioned tanker has arrived since (unusual*) but coming 24-36h the claim will get its first test with 5 sanctioned tankers inbound.

4/ Livonian shares no common origins with Latvian. Once spoken throughout much of the country, Soviet occupation displaced the last pocket of native speakers, who lived in a string of tiny fishing villages in western Latvia. The last surviving native speaker died in 2013, but a revival is underway.

Saying What You Mean: Trends in Recent Latvian Poetry "The younger generation avoids assuming the role of speaking for the nation, a function that writers were expected to fulfil, and often did during the Soviet occupation"

Feed: "Deep Baltic"
By: deepbaltic on Tuesday, October 7, 2025

From the Lost Canals of Vilnius, a counterfactual history #aiart #counterfactualhistory

FIE moved the 2026 European Fencing Championships to France due to Estonia's refusal to allow Russians and Belarusians to obtain visas.

Ahead of the decision to relocate the event, FIE asked Estonia to sign an agreement guaranteeing entry for all participants, regardless of nationality.

Tallinn

What a view

Tallinn 🇪🇪

-15C ❄️

Moving on from "Post-Soviet" States by John Daniszewski

The Associated Press decided in June 2023 to stop referring to the 14 countries that emerged independent of Russian occupation in 1991 countries as “former Soviet republics.” The decision was taken on the advice of our journalists working in the region, and it has been generally well-received.

#OTD 105 years ago the Allied Supreme Council supports de iure recognition of the Republic of Latvia 🇱🇻 #LVdeiure105

Got my copy of the hottest new book in Lithuanian poetry 🇱🇹

Hitler-Stalin-Pact 1939-41
Latvia partly occupied by Soviets:
"there are some 1200 former Polish officers and soldiers interned in four military 'camps in Latvia,
248 civilians placed in two civilian camps, and about 150 civilians taken into private homes"
The Newcastle Sun
@amaragraps.bsky.social

The Cat House in #Riga. Apparently, the cat was placed there with its tail facing towards the nearby Tradesmans' Guild, with whom the house's owner had had an argument.

#AlphabetChallenge
#WeekBforBooks
Day 7 Rundale Palace, Latvia

13 years ago in Tallinn

Incredible interest in aerial photos. This image received 519 likes, many comments, and shares. 64,135 people saw the post in just 14 days—a strong signal of how powerful the aerial perspective can be.

#Estonia #Tallinn #AerialPhotography #lassetur

Underappreciated fact:

The paths and positions of the cable damages around New Years 2026 were to most of Estonia's internet backbone routes.

Had it fully succeeded/happened by accident (lol) Estonia would have been left with a crippled connectivity.

The Third Star Shining: Making Culture in the Latgalian Language "You get used to firsts and onlys when researching Latgalian"

I was also pleased to find an excuse to publish this, about something I've been working on for quite a while - the contemporary culture (films, music, literature, memes) being made in the oft-repressed Latgalian language of Latvia's eastern borderlands

deepbaltic.com/2025/02/24/t...

The Quiet Courtesies of Riga: Learning to Share Space in a Small Capital "For someone arriving from a city where queues are either aggressively policed or completely absent, this gentler discipline can be disorienting"

"If you come from a city where politeness is announced loudly – “Please move down the carriage!”, “Let the passengers off first!” – Riga’s tram etiquette can seem almost too quiet."

deepbaltic.com/2025/12/17/t...

The scars of clear cutting (as opposed to selective cutting of a forest...Usma, Usma parish, Ventspils Municipality, in the Courland region of Latvia.

The scars of clear cutting, as opposed to selective cutting of a forest...Usma, Usma parish, Ventspils Municipality, in the Courland region of Latvia. #nature #geography #ecology #photo

Tõnis Saarts: How Lithuania overtook Estonia In Estonia, there has been virtually no serious discussion about Lithuania's success and the reasons behind it. Instead, a self-assured arrogance prevails, a belief that we will soon reclaim our first...

Interesting piece from a couple of months ago, about something that's become increasingly apparent in recent years - that Lithuania, historically the poorest Baltic state, is on the path to economically overtaking much-vaunted Estonia

news.err.ee/1609779081/t...

Classic Estonian movie 'Dead Mountaineer's Hotel' selected for Berlin Film Festival Grigori Kromanov's 1979 movie "Dead Mountaineer's Hotel" has become only the second Estonian picture ever to be selected in the Berlinale Classics program at the Berlin Film Festival.

Classic Estonian movie 'Dead Mountaineer's Hotel' selected for Berlin Film Festival news.err.ee/1609910857/c...

Lutsi and Livonian: Perspectives on Finnic language orthographies in Latvia This article focuses on three endangered and/or dormant Finnic languages – Courland Livonian, Salaca Livonian, and Lutsi South Estonian – spoken in Latvia at the northern end of the Amber Road and the...

Three of Latvia's Finnic languages – Courland Livonian, Salaca Livonian, Lutsi South Estonian – have developed popular written forms. Read about these orthographies, their development, and how they changed as these communities changed in my recently published article.

tinyurl.com/latviaonthea...

A protest rally in Chicago in 1988 against the Soviet occupation of Lithuania

(Image: Romualdas Požerskis, MO Museum Collection)

deepbaltic.com/2025/12/19/a...

In 1991, the night from Jan 12 to Jan 13, these innocent Lithuanian people were killed by the Soviet troops.

Teenager fatally shot in the back, young woman who was about to marry that summer crushed by a tank, fathers, newlyweds.

And the Nobel peace prize winner in Moscow.

Haralds Sīmanis - Ezers (Latvia, psychedelic rock) (1980)

Haralds Sīmanis - Ezers (Latvia, psychedelic rock) (1980)
https://redd.it/5fbb3e
https://youtu.be/x3oQFfbMrUQ