Deep Baltic

Last week I took a group to the infamous 9th Fort in Kaunas, Lithuania, which was the site of infamous crimes against humanity. This ended up begging the question: if this is the 9th fort, what about the others?!

Thread.

“I want to tell you a few stories: stories from an old town far up north, far up east, a town by the sea.”
@deepbaltic.bsky.social published excerpts from my translation of “Death in Reval” (Der Tod von Reval, 1939) by Baltic German Werner Bergengruen (1892-1964). deepbaltic.com/2025/08/05/d...

Skursteņslauķi (Chimney Sweeps) - New Year 1907, on the job in 1920s and "Homage to Grīziņkalns", 2021. #Riga #Latvia #Baltics

Death in Reval: The Tallinn of Werner Bergengruen One of the reasons for Bergengruen’s obscurity in Germany today might be that his writing is rich and sometimes too colourful, almost baroque in his descriptions

The tales of the almost forgotten Baltic German writer Werner Bergengruen are full of eerie and unsettling scenes from Estonia's capital, what in this piece Marcel Krueger calls "his macabre love letter to Tallinn"

deepbaltic.com/2025/08/05/d...

Lithuania releases photos of drone that entered its airspace from Belarus The Lithuanian Armed Forces have released photos of a drone, likely a Gerbera-type, which entered Lithuania’s airspace from the territory of Belarus on Monday and was discovered in Lithuanian territor...

🇱🇹 Lithuania releases photos of drone that entered its airspace from Belarus

Playing Leaptiger: Estonian Innovations in Education That in 2025 Estonia would be a global leader across multiple domains is not happenstance, but due to long-term investment

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By: deepbaltic on Thursday, July 24, 2025

View of the Old Town from Gediminas Castle Tower in Vilnius, Lithuania

Gediminas Castle View, Vilnius

Prints: https://jon.framer.art/s/image/84704?source=bluesky

Linnahall Tallinnassa.

Linnahall in Tallinn.

#valokuvataivas #photography

Lithuania Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas steps down after investigations and protests Lithuania Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas stepped down on Thursday following investigations into his business dealings that prompted protests in the Baltic country’s capital calling for his resignation.

BREAKING: Lithuania Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas stepped down following investigations into his business dealings that prompted protests in the Baltic country’s capital calling for his resignation.

An unpainted wooden house in lush, rich, uncut grass under trees. One window is broken.

Abandoned Latvian farm. This is a huge problem in the Baltics: people leaving the countryside. Some go to the cities, some go abroad for work, and some flee the Baltics for safer shores.

Latgale, Eastern Latvia, is one of the poorest regions in Europe.

Kissing Students fountain in Tartu, Estonia.

#photography #photography #tartu #estonia #fotografia #photographersofbluesky

Playing Leaptiger: Estonian Innovations in Education That in 2025 Estonia would be a global leader across multiple domains is not happenstance, but due to long-term investment

"As of mid-2025, schools across Estonia will teach high school students how to operate drones – a subject added to the national defense curriculum in high schools, which was made compulsory in 2023."

deepbaltic.com/2025/07/24/p...

July 24, 1996: Charles Barkley finishes with 16 PTS, Reggie Miller and Karl Malone each score 14 PTS, and Scottie Pippen adds 13 PTS as "Dream Team III" defeats Lithuania, 104-82, in the preliminary round of the Olympics in Atlanta.

Arvydas Sabonis made a pair of 3-pointers for Lithuania.

I'll be periodically contributing pictures and brief write-ups on the weird and wonderful places I end up in 🇪🇪🇱🇻🇱🇹 to this page, Baltics Under the Radar

www.instagram.com/balticsunder...

“Pärt has outlasted political regimes, artistic fashions and shifting trends in composition, yet his work remains strikingly relevant.”

Playing Leaptiger: Estonian Innovations in Education That in 2025 Estonia would be a global leader across multiple domains is not happenstance, but due to long-term investment

From the Tiigrihüpe (Tiger Leap) of the mid-'90s that connected all schools to the web to current efforts to ensure AI is incorporated into lessons, Joel Burke explains how Estonia has managed to stay at the top of continental rankings for education

deepbaltic.com/2025/07/24/p...

Bukovskis–Skarainis–Zariņš, Unbroken, The Salaspils Memorial Ensemble, Riga, Latvia, 1967

Composers Vladimir Martynov and Arvo Pärt (right) in Tallinn, November 1978

(Photographer unknown, possibly Hardijs Lediņš. Collection of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art)

deepbaltic.com/2025/07/08/t...

Ancient DNA solves mystery of Hungarian, Finnish language origins — Harvard Gazette Parent emerged over 4,000 years ago in Siberia, farther east than many thought, then rapidly spread west, study finds.

news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

Kissing black bread: Fine dining on the shores of Estonia's capital At the decentralised foodie hub of Noblessner in Estonian's capital Tallinn, we find the legacy of Black Bread, the only two Michelin star restaurant in the Baltics, and the ghosts of submarines.

The former industrial harbour area of Noblessner became a gastronomic hub over the last decade. The name is a hybrid of the surnames of Emanuel Nobel (nephew of Alfred) and Arthur Lessner, who founded the Russian Empire's flagship submarine factory in 1912. www.euronews.com/culture/2025...

Making Oneself at Home in an Estonian Forest "Man is capable of making perhaps one or two forests “home” over the course of his lifetime; no more. The charm of Estonia’s landscape lies in the fact that we have hundreds of forests made “home”"

"Toponyms are often older than the landscapes themselves: for example, my grandmother referred to our mighty century-old fir grove as the ‘bare pasture’."

deepbaltic.com/2025/07/14/m...

Latvian court overturns decision to revoke TV Rainʼs broadcasting license — Meduza A Latvian court has overturned the decision by the countryʼs National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) to revoke the broadcasting license of the independent Russian-language channel TV Rain.

A Latvian court has overturned the 2022 decision by the countryʼs media regulator to revoke the independent Russian-language channel TV Rain’s broadcasting license.
meduza.io/en/news/2025...

Through the Gaps in the System: Arvo Pärt and the Soviet Underground "Pärt is still widely regarded as an isolated, solitary figure who appeared out of nowhere in 1980s Berlin, his crystalline musical language already fully formed"

deepbaltic.com/2025/07/08/t...

Estonia’s Song and Dance Festival is a celebration of national identity The event demonstrates that a nation can be strong and resolute while also posing no threat.

COMMENTARY: While other countries celebrate their national identity with military parades, Estonia does it with song and dance.

It's a perfect reminder that countries can be strong and resolute, while posing no threat.

Welcome to Maskačka: Stig Stasig's Images of Latvia's Troubled '90s In 1991, Danish photographer Stig Stasig moved to Riga, capital of newly free Latvia. His photos of inner-city life capture a unique moment in its history

A Danish photographer moved to a largely Russian-speaking inner-city district of Riga in 1992, and captured a world on the brink of profound change

#DBarchives

deepbaltic.com/2018/07/20/w...

A notable difference arises between Estonians and many other peoples. Whereas the forest instills a sense of security among the former, Europeans tend rather to experience fear.

#OTD in 1260 at Durbe in present-day Latvia, Samogitians and Semigallians defeated the Livonian Landmeister and Prussian Land Marshal of the Teutonic Order, who were deserted by their Couronian and Estonian auxiliaries

Making Oneself at Home in an Estonian Forest "Man is capable of making perhaps one or two forests “home” over the course of his lifetime; no more. The charm of Estonia’s landscape lies in the fact that we have hundreds of forests made “home”"

Estonian author Valdur Mikita explains how his compatriots make forested landscapes "home", and relates some of the secrets and memories hidden in his local woods

deepbaltic.com/2025/07/14/m...

Through the Gaps in the System: Arvo Pärt and the Soviet Underground "Pärt is still widely regarded as an isolated, solitary figure who appeared out of nowhere in 1980s Berlin, his crystalline musical language already fully formed"

"Most had never heard of Estonia or certainly didn’t know where it was, didn’t think of it as separate from Russia really; Russia was really mapping in the imagination of many onto the Soviet Union as a whole"

deepbaltic.com/2025/07/08/t...

Almost last call: I'm leading a tour exploring the Holocaust in Lithuania and Latvia

I wrote about this extensively in my upcoming book, so this is a bit of a preview.

www.theculturalexperience.com/tours/holoca...