Maria Kugel is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Russian Service.
Twenty-seven-year-old Russian reservist and former police officer Stanislav Bashilov simply climbed a fence on the Russian-Latvian border to get to the West. Staying there has been more difficult.
A new round of EU sanctions is expected to take a bite out of the Belarusian economy. But the measures cutting off exports destined for Europe could also unintentionally be a boon to another Western adversary -- Russia.
The Latvian scientist who developed the drug made famous this week by tennis megastar Maria Sharapova's admission that she used it, despite a new ban, says he doesn't think taking Mildronate, also known as meldonium, should be construed as "doping."
Sergei Dyomin, one of the highest-earning artists in the Latvian capital, Riga, has built his fame around a singular motif -- re-creating Orthodox icons where the saints bear the faces of monkeys. Dyomin, an atheist, insists no disrespect is intended.
