Valentin and Mirela are a Romanian couple, aged 57 and 52. They live in Podu Văleni, a small village about 40 km from Bucharest. Theirs is one of those almost invisible stories, on the fringes of society. Valentin used to work as a mechanic and custodian, before a second stroke forced him to retire. Mirela suffers from mental problems and, like her partner, from epilepsy. They receive about 1,780 lei each per month (about 350 euro) from the Romanian state, which they use for medicines, electricity and food.
After the disputed victory of Georgian Dream in Georgia's parliamentary elections, the pro-European opposition is seeking international support to call for a new vote and is mobilizing public protests, though it seems to be aiming for a non-violent parliamentary boycott. Photo and text by Onnik James Krikorian.
Since 1979, Tbilisi has held the Tbilisoba Festival, an autumn celebration that has become a long-standing tradition. A joyful carnival, with street performances, music and dance, culinary specialties and much more. This year, Tbilisoba offered family fun despite the decline in attendance and size. Photo and text by Onnik James Krikorian, from the Festival held on October 5-6, 2024
On 21 December 2023, the new Rijeka City Library was inaugurated in the so-called "T-Palace" in the former Benčić industrial complex. The modern structure, co-financed with European funds, is an integral part of a district that has become an important cultural hub.
Between May and July 2024, Jon Worth, an activist calling for better rail transport in Europe, spent about a month documenting the state of cross-border rail connections in south-eastern Europe, boarding dozens of trains, mostly local, and also crossing or visiting a number of cross-border sections that currently have no active rail services.
Milica and Silvana are neighbours. Milica is Serbian, Silvana is Croatian. They live in Krupa, a small village of about 50 inhabitants in the hinterland of Zadar. We are in the so-called Krajina, the region that in 1991 proclaimed itself a “republic” and was reconquered by Croatia in 1995, causing the exodus of over 200,000 Serbs. Today this area, far from Zagreb and partly depopulated, is among the poorest in the country.
In Albania, a project that aims at boosting tourism in the coastal town of Himarë is putting at risk over 50,000 people living in the Shushica Valley, a tributary of the Vjosa river.
A new research centre has recently become operational in Ljubljana. It is the biotechnology hub of the National Institute of Biology (NIB), created thanks to European funds and inaugurated last February, which seeks to study and provide answers to the environmental challenges that await us. We talked about it here.
Thanks to European Cohesion policies and funds, through the Interreg VA Slovenia-Croatia cooperation programme, two projects were born and developed over time which spanned a period of approximately 15 years: Ride&Bike between 2007 and 2013, and Ride&Bike II, between 2018 and 2021. These projects have transformed the hilly regions between Slovenia and Croatia along the Sava and its tributaries into popular destinations for cyclists, walkers and horseback excursionists. We talked about the project in general here.
Western Macedonia is an inner region of Greece. It is located northwest of Thessaloniki and borders Albania and North Macedonia. It is a relatively little-known area of the country, visited by few tourists.
