

Tamada Tales


An in-house controversy within Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is spilling into the public following the reported refusal of the international news network’s Georgian service to form a partnership with Georgia’s private television stations. The proposal has raised the Georgian staff’s concerns that association with highly partisan local stations could cast a pall on the credibility of RFE/RL’s reporting in Georgia.

Khinkali and Mikheil Saakashvili are among Georgia's best known brands. Combine the two and you get an instant online hit, as was the case with a video filmed by the former Georgian president featuring the iconic, but tricky-to-eat, dumplings.
Ukraine: IDPs Turn to Volunteers, Rather than Government for Support

Nearly a year and a half after war in eastern Ukraine with Russia and Russian-backed separatists forced over a million people to flee their homes — the largest population displacement in Eurasia since World War II — the Ukrainian government still is relying on hundreds of volunteers to provide the response.

At first, it might appear a political statement:
“Pecunia non olet (“Money does not smell”),” staff tells you at a museum dedicated to the history of toilets in Kyiv, Ukraine.
But the motto, which Roman Emperor Vespasian supposedly said after imposing a tax on public urinals, is only another part of the toilet trivia and bathroom paraphernalia on display at this unusual exhibit.

Episode 4
Iconic filmmaker Sergo (Sergei) Parajanov – a man who in his lifetime gained a reputation as the Soviet Union’s Fellini – would have turned 90 today.