The World from PRX

eastern Europe

Sacred Spaces
Conservators scan Ukraine’s wooden churches to help preserve them
6:38
The serial number 14810 inside the last piano that Frederic Chopin played and composed on, and that after his death in 1849 in Paris came to his family in Warsaw. 
Music
How an American pianist revived Chopin in Warsaw
A forest burns in the mountains after shelling by Azerbaijan's artillery during a military conflict outside Stepanakert, the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh
Conflict
Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict stifles critical transport development in the region, analyst says
A single protestor holds up an old Belarusian national flag standing in front of a wall of officers holding large riot shields.
Global Politics
Belarus, explained: How Europe’s last dictator could fall
Wearing a beige and black sweater, Belarusian opposition figure Veronika Tsepkalo stands on a roof deck in Moscow while in exile from her country.
Conflict & Justice
Opposition figure calls for ‘new, democratic, open country called Belarus’
Two white men in suits stand at podiums in front of the US and Polish flags
Global Politics
As Poland’s Duda seeks election ‘Trump bump,’ Putin looks to revise history
Writer Olga Tokarczuk appears at a book fair.
Olga Tokarczuk destined to win Nobel Prize, says Jennifer Croft, her translator
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy listens to a translator as he and US President Donald Trump hold a bilateral meeting
Trump scandal threatens to derail Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts
A black and white photo of people going through immigration queues
Immigration
Cuccinelli’s ‘bootstraps’ line reflects historical amnesia of ‘public charge’
Angkor Wat is shown by a pond at sunrise.
Arts, Culture & Media
‘World Heritage’ site selection is Eurocentric – and that shapes which historic places get love and money
A man in a crowd wearing a white T-shirt holds up a sign saying 'Russia get out of Georgia."
Conflict
NATO agreed Georgia would join. Why hasn’t it happened?
Close up of a woman wearing a head scarf in a church near a gold cross.
Religion
Ukrainian Orthodox Church gains independence from Moscow: ‘We have been waiting for this’
A sunset with the silhouette of a mosque and man approaching
Immigration Rewind
How 16 Americans found family, faith and their immigrant roots — generations after their parents left their homelands
Polish protestors demonstrate their opposition to new restrictions for media in front of the parliament building in Warsaw, Poland.
Culture
Poland’s government fines a US-owned TV broadcaster
Kalman Aron began sketching when he was 3 years old. He's now 93, and says if he didn't still paint and draw every day he would "die of boredom."
Arts
For over 90 years, this Holocaust survivor’s art has kept him alive
An Albanian state police officer holds a piece of freshly cut cannabis near the town of Kruja. Most of the pot produced in Albania is grown outdoors, on public land. Growers take advantage of the country’s Mediterranean climate and mountainous terrain.
Economics
Riding along with Albania’s pot police
A Ukrainian service member loads magazines at his position on the front line in the government-held town of Avdiyivka
Conflict
Trump cozying up to Russia? Not in Ukraine.
An investigator works at the scene of a car bomb explosion that killed Maksym Shapoval, a high-ranking Ukrainian official involved in military intelligence, in Kiev
Conflict
In Kiev, assassinations are becoming commonplace
Maja Žirovčić rearranges the hand-painted shoes she's designed with co-founder, Ljudmila Mihajlović.
Arts
Bows and glitter: Young entrepreneurs choose their tools to confront the struggling Croatian economy
An Afghan family walks toward the Hungary-Serbia border on the day the new law takes effect. They will live in a detention center until a decision is made on their claim.
Conflict
‘How will I live there?’ Asylum seekers in Hungary are detained in shipping containers.
A protester sits in front of burning barricades during clashes with pro-government forces at Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine on Aug. 7, 2014.
Economics
Ukrainians worry that Trump will ignore them
Visitors to the new Space of Synagogues memorial place stones in remembrance of the dead in Lviv, Ukraine on Sept. 4.
Culture
Why Ukraine’s newest Holocaust memorial is so important
The the main club house inside Mezhgorye, the residence of Ukraine's ousted president Victor Yanukovych.
Conflict
Ukrainians vowed to turn their ex-president’s estate into a ‘Museum of Corruption.’ But it’s something else now.
The latest photo opp in Kiev: stand where the big Vladimir Lenin monument once stood and say cheese!
Arts
People are lining up to pose as the founder of the Soviet Union in Ukraine’s capital
People come from all over the former Soviet Union for this bathwater with a bit of radon.
Health
Thousands of people are ‘treated’ with radon baths every year in Ukraine
New York City's ‘Little Italy’. Mulberry Street, Lower East Side, circa 1900
Justice
A brief history of America’s hostility to a previous generation of Mediterranean migrants — Italians
A migrant is seen through the fence as he walks before crossing the into the country from Serbia at the border near Roszke, Hungary September 13, 2015.
Global Politics
What’s the matter with Hungary? Writer calls her homeland ‘a depressive country’
Willis Conover
Music
The movement to recognize an American jazz voice unheard at home
Elena Narbutaitė, Menachem Kaiser and Jake Levine, October 15, 2010, preparing bagels for the first public bagel party and presentation of the Vilnius Bagel Project. Yalta Restaurant kitchen, Vilnius, Lithuania.
Food
Bagels disappeared from Lithuania after WWII … but now they’re back
Egg salad for Passover in Drohobych, Ukraine. Loli Kantor remembers this method of cutting an egg in the palm of your hand from her youth. It's part of the Jewish life that she documented in Ukraine.
Belief
The conflict in Ukraine has led to a Golden Age for Jews — though some are still leaving
Greenpeace activists sit chained in front of Chevron's drilling site for shale gas during a protest in the village of Pungesti, Romania.
Conflict
American and Russian energy giants battle over a small Romanian town
Faced with western sanctions, the Kremlin has pushed for a renewed sense of patriotism among younger Russians. At the National Unity Day celebrations in Moscow, students sport buttons that read, "An attack on Russia is an attack on me."
Global Politics
Human rights group Memorial is too ‘inconvenient’ for Putin’s new Russia
Russian Ruble
Finance
What is a ruble and why is it in trouble?
A man walks out of a voting booth at a polling station during a parliamentary election in the village of Fiina near Lviv, on October 26, 2014.
Global Politics
Ukraine — or part of it — delivers another pro-Europe election result
Stefan Baluk (pictured here in 2010) fought for Polish independence in the Warsaw Uprising. He spent much of his time underground, in the sewers. After the war, he was arrested by the Soviets.
Conflict
A Polish resistance fighter remembers fighting in the Warsaw Uprising — from the sewers
The Soviet foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, saying farewell to his German counterpart, Joachim von Ribbentrop (right), after a visit to Berlin during the Nazi-Soviet alliance that lasted from 1939 to 1941.
Conflict
This pact between Hitler and Stalin paved the way for WWII
The Mexican Balkan music band, Polka Madre
Music
Why music from the Balkans is booming in Mexico
The Mexican Balkan music band, Polka Madre
Music
Why music from the Balkans is booming in Mexico
Ambulances arrive following an explosion in Istanbul.
Health & Medicine
Turkey’s doctors fear for their lives … on the job
Brian Dolphin (in fox mask) and his music group Ukrainian Village Voices. The group went caroling door to door to celebrate Koliada, an ancient pagan tradition in Ukraine.
Lifestyle & Belief
Can we choose our ethnic identities based on random obsessions?
Brian Dolphin (in fox mask) and his music group Ukrainian Village Voices. The group went caroling door to door to celebrate Koliada, an ancient pagan tradition in Ukraine.
Lifestyle & Belief
Can we choose our ethnic identities based on random obsessions?
Secretate police records in Romania
Conflict & Justice
A writer retraces her childhood through Romania’s secret police records on her family
Russia's President Vladimir Putin addresses the audience during a March 18th rally and a concert in Moscow called "We are together" to support the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea to Russia. Defying Ukrainian protests and Western sanctions, Russia signed a
Global Politics
Vladimir Putin redraws Russia’s map by annexing Crimea
Anti-government protesters sleep in Kiev's Mikhailovsky Monastery last week.
Conflict & Justice
How a monastery became a symbol of Ukraine’s uprising
Joanna Ebenstein, founder of Morbid Anatomy, in a Krampus mask.
Arts, Culture & Media
Meet Krampus, the guy who really gets you if you’re naughty
Early Ukrainian diplomacy. The Zaporozhian Cossacks reply to the Sultan of Turkey, by 19th century Russian artist, Ilya Repin. Ukraine has always been vulnerable to more powerful neighbors.
Global Politics
Ukraine’s identity crisis is nothing new
Global Politics
Ukrainians find themselves stuck firmly between the EU and Russia
Global Politics
On anniversary of key moment, memories fading about Poland’s traumatic history
Lifestyle & Belief
American Jews reimagine Yiddish Europe during summer trip
Women weightlifters among most popular Egyptian Olympians
Environment
New study finds greater risk of wildfires in U.S. from climate change; others see decline
Global Politics
New Yorkers trying to save lower Manhattan’s history as Little Syria
California-based Cold War museum tries to preserve reminders of bygone era
Global Politics
Far-right conservatives gain ground in France
Yugoslavia, Zaire and other defunct geo names
Global Politics
‘Hate crimes’ plague Staten Island
EU’s climate change commitments shaky
The World in Words
Podcast: Ben Lewis’ History of Communism Told Through Jokes
Greenpeace Says International Agreements Fail to Stem Toxic Traffic
Is the Answer Efficiency?