Anatomy of a thud, in Poland
Warsaw seems to revolve entirely around the Palace of Culture, the enormous building that Poles have gradually surrounded with ever taller skyscrapers in an attempt to hide Stalin’s unwelcome gift to the city. It can’t be hidden, moved, or torn down: the Pałac Kultury i Nauki is like a magnet for Warsaw. So in recent […]
The great journey of Volodymyr Zelensky
It’s the story of Volodia – a boy born in the late 1970s in Kryvyi Rih, a mining town in the former Soviet Union – who rose to fame as a TV star in Russia and later Ukraine, before becoming president of his country and the embodiment of its resistance against Vladimir Putin’s invasion. We […]
The priorities of the Danish Presidency, three crucial summits, and Orbán’s exasperating veto
An Unconventional Danish Presidency On Tuesday, July 1st, Denmark will take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union from Poland. The official program will be unveiled by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen about ten days earlier. There will be two main priorities, in line with the Polish semester: defense and security on […]
Romania has chosen Europe – as compass and open window
A green archipelago – that’s the image one of Romania’s official electoral maps evokes. Green stands for pro-Europe, pro-Nicusor Dan, the newly elected president: a mathematician who walks his daughter to school and doesn’t seem particularly dazzled by the trappings of power. It’s a pro-European archipelago on the edge of Europe – and on the […]
A fishing village in the Netherlands, and a refuge called Europe
“Europe, in its history, is contained in this fishing village. Those who flee persecution do not forget. But tolerance is not an achievement. Freedom is not an achievement”. At the heart of Jan Brokken’s latest book lies a small mystery – one that doesn’t concern just the hotel at the center of his story, but […]
Music, movies, dance and good wine. Where the Europeans meet in June
JUNE 14–15, 2025. BRUDNIY PES FESTIVAL / KYIV, UKRAINE Music Sounds Louder Than War The atmosphere at the Brudniy Pes Festival reflects the spirit of wartime Ukraine, responding to Russian aggression with irreverent mockery, biting irony, and incredible creative resilience. “Brudniy Pes” means “Dirty Dog,” or “a street dweller,” and since its first edition in […]
The Berlin workshop where cinema’s most poetic sets are built by hand
In his Berlin workshop, Simon Weisse builds worlds—in miniature. Surrounded by walls covered in sketches, glue, and plastic, entire cities, deserts, space stations, funiculars, and tin trains take shape. They’re not toys, even if they may seem so at first glance. These are miniature film sets, crafted with obsessive precision for some of the most […]