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First female US ambassador to Russia to leave her role
First female US ambassador to Russia to leave her role

Yahoo

timea day ago

  • Politics
  • Yahoo

First female US ambassador to Russia to leave her role

The first female US ambassador to Russia is leaving her role after serving through one of the most difficult periods in relations between the two countries. Lynne Tracy, who has been based in Moscow, said she is "proud to have represented my country" in the Russian capital "during such a challenging time". There is no suggestion she has been removed from her role by the administration. The departure of the career diplomat appointed by former president comes as Russia and the United States discuss a potential reset in their ties, which sharply deteriorated after Moscow launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022. President Donald Trump has said there are potentially big investment deals to be struck, but is growing increasingly frustrated that his efforts to broker a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine have so far not resulted in a meaningful ceasefire. In a statement shared by the US embassy in Russia on Telegram, Ms Tracy said: "As I leave Russia, I know that my colleagues at the embassy will continue to work to improve our relations and maintain ties with the Russian people. "I have been inspired by my meetings with Russians who love their country and work every day for a better future. I would like to conclude with lines from Pushkin's poem 'To Chaadayev', which speak of the love for the Motherland that lives in each of us. Goodbye!" The embassy said it wanted to "express our gratitude for her contributions based on consistent diplomacy, deep respect for Russian culture, and dedicated service to the American people". Read more from Sky News: In a statement earlier this month, the embassy said Ms Tracy, who arrived in Moscow in January 2023 and was greeted by protesters chanting anti-US slogans when she went to the foreign ministry to present her credentials, would leave her post soon. She was notably involved in efforts to win the release of US citizens jailed in Russia, and former marine Paul Whelan, who were eventually freed in August 2024 as part of a big East-West prisoner swap. Ms Tracy, who took over from John Sullivan, had previously served as the second-highest official at the US Embassy in Moscow, the deputy chief of mission, from 2014 to 2017. She was the ambassador to Armenia at the time she was nominated to replace Mr Sullivan after he retired. Ms Tracy, who speaks Russian, had also worked at US diplomatic outposts including Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. She majored in Soviet Studies and holds a law degree.

Cairo celebrates Alexander Pushkin 226th birthday, Russian Language Day
Cairo celebrates Alexander Pushkin 226th birthday, Russian Language Day

Al-Ahram Weekly

time2 days ago

  • General
  • Al-Ahram Weekly

Cairo celebrates Alexander Pushkin 226th birthday, Russian Language Day

The Russian Cultural Centre in Cairo celebrated the 226th birthday of Russian poet and writer Alexander Pushkin, as well as Russian Language Day, with a ceremony that highlighted his literary legacy and Russia's cultural ties with Egypt. In a vibrant cultural celebration, the Russian Cultural Centre in Cairo and the Cairo Governorate marked the 226th birthday of the late renowned Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, alongside Russian Language Day. The event took place at Al-Horriya Park, home to the Pushkin statue in Downtown Cairo. Arsenii Matiushchenko, Acting Director of Russian Cultural Centers in Egypt, places flowers at the Pushkin statue. The event highlighted the cultural ties between Egypt and Russia, as well as the timeless relevance of Pushkin's poetry in promoting cross-cultural understanding. The ceremony was attended by Arsenii Matiushchenko, acting director of Russian Cultural Centers in Egypt; Sherif Gad, president of the Egyptian Association of Graduates of Russian and Soviet Universities; Olga Beskilenina, head of the Russian community in Egypt; members of the Egyptian-Russian Friendship Association and the Russian House Youth Club; and professors of the Russian language. During the event, floral tributes were placed at the foot of Pushkin's statue in recognition of his literary legacy. Speaking at the event, Matiushchenko praised Pushkin's enduring influence on the Russian language, described his works as 'immortal,' and emphasized that the poet had shown interest in Egypt's culture and history — a lesser-known but meaningful connection. Meanwhile, Gad highlighted the growing interest in the Russian language across Egypt, citing the existence of 11 departments teaching Russian in Egyptian universities. He also highlighted the growing popularity of Pushkin's works among Arabic-speaking readers, with many of his poems and stories having been translated into Arabic. Larisa Razova, a member of the Coordinating Council of Russian Expatriate Associations in Egypt, explained why Pushkin remains such a powerful symbol of Russian culture: 'He had the rare ability to express the very soul of Russian identity.' The celebration concluded with a series of poetry recitations by students from Cairo University and scholars at the Russian Cultural Centre. They performed some of Pushkin's most beloved works in Russian, showcasing both their linguistic skills and deep admiration for his art. Arsenii Matiushchenko with Sherif Gad with the statue of Pushkin in the background at Al-Horriya Park. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:

Your guide to must-visit main streets in Prince Edward County for a perfect day out
Your guide to must-visit main streets in Prince Edward County for a perfect day out

Hamilton Spectator

time20-06-2025

  • Hamilton Spectator

Your guide to must-visit main streets in Prince Edward County for a perfect day out

If you're like me and love small towns with a vibrant main street, cute shops and unique restaurants, a trip to Prince Edward County will not disappoint. Of course, PEC has a lot to offer from stellar wineries to beautiful beaches — and a wide array of accommodations. But a day of shopping, lunching and strolling the main street is another great way to relax while supporting local business. My girlfriends and I recently made the most of Picton, Bloomfield and Wellington being within close proximity of one another. Here's how you can do it too, in just one day. Main Street in Picton has a wonderful selection of shops featuring everything from books, to kitchen and housewares, to unique thrift items. There is both pay and display street parking available on the street and in a municipal lot, but there is also limited free parking available in municipal lots at 55 King St . and on Mary Street . Books & Company is a must-visit. Not only is there a wide variety of books, gifts, puzzles, toys and more, but the resident cat, Pushkin, adds to the experience at the large but cosy bookshop. It's a treat going into Books and Company in Picton, especially if the resident cat, Pushkin, is nearby. You can also stop by the attached Lily's Café. Here, you can order coffee, sweets and delicious sandwiches. I also bought a beautiful bouquet of dried flowers here. A stroll along Main Street will take you into a variety of different shops, selling goods ranging from affordable to, well, something you might want to save up for. My friends really enjoyed Cylinder Shop , which features the owner's beautiful handmade pottery that's also functional. Local stores lining Picton's main drag offer unique shopping experiences. Cylinder Shop, for example, features locally handmade and functional pottery. Fibre lovers can enjoy Rosehaven Yarn Shop , and there are some beautiful clothing stores, jewelry stores, gift shops and more. It's definitely the largest out of the three main streets we visited. Wellington is located along the north shore of Lake Ontario and boasts many popular wineries. It also has an adorable little street for those of us who love to shop. There is free parking in designated areas along Main Street for up to two hours. By the time you get to Wellington, you may be hungry for some lunch. You're in luck on this small but vibrant Main Street. We tried La Condesa , which serves up authentic small-plated Mexican cuisine and it was delicious. Mexican restaurant La Condesa offers delicious small plates in Wellington, part of Prince Edward County. We had tried to get in the night before, but there was an hour wait. For lunch on a Sunday, we walked right in. I loved the decor, and the Mexican Coca-Cola was a special treat. If you've ever tried it, you know it's better than the same soft drink that is made in North America. Mexican restaurant La Condesa offers delicious small plates in Wellington, part of Prince Edward County. Wellington has some cute shops. One of them, Oak Clothing Co. , also has a coffee shop inside. Wellington in Prince Edward County offers some cute shops and delicious restaurants. Another dining option is Midtown Brewing Co . Plus, you can order a nice cold beer. We went here when we couldn't get into La Condesa the night before. Wellington in Prince Edward County offers some cute shops and delicious restaurants, including Midtown Brewing. The food, especially the fries with roasted garlic and Parmesan, was delicious. We did have to wait for a table on the Saturday night we went without reservations, but only for a few minutes. Wellington in Prince Edward County offers some cute shops and delicious restaurants. This was taken at Midtown Brewing. While we waited, we wandered over to the Drake Devonshire , which is right on the waterfront. This cool place offers food, drink, arts, culture, a gift shop and a place to stay. The beach is just steps from Main Street as well if you'd like to take a dip or take in some fresh air. The drive in to Bloomfield is beautiful with unique homes and gorgeous gardens. Main Street is a great place to do some shopping. There is plenty of free parking on the street and in lots, for a maximum of two hours. One of the first places you will see on the drive in is Slickers County Ice Cream. It's delicious and made with Ontario cream. Note, there is another location in Picton. Slickers County Ice Cream can be found in Picton and Bloomfield. Once you're finished your ice cream, Main Street is filled with cute, unique shops. I've found some great silver jewelry from Casa Lucia and there are plenty of great gift shops and more. My friends found some special items at Kokito . We had to check out the historic Bull Homestead, which has become Handworks & Outside Inn , featuring unique outbuildings where you can buy work by local artists and artisans. The hanging chairs make for a fun photo opportunity. Bloomfield is filled with art and creativity and this is just one of many places to explore if you love art. The Bull Homestead in Bloomfield makes for an interesting photo backdrop while touring around Prince Edward County. The public washrooms are just off the main street. I always like to know where the public washrooms are when I check out a new place. In Bloomfield, they are just off the main drag. Spa lovers, you can finish your day at Wander . It's a new lakeside resort that offers a spa, food and accommodations. If you want to find a place to eat dinner, you can find delicious food in any three of these towns. All of these places offer much more than just the main street. Make sure to check out their tourism websites if you'd like to see more. Learn what Picton has to offer here . Click here for more on Wellington. Visit this website for more on Bloomfield.

The Baltics are rapidly becoming a cauldron of EU growth when other parts of Europe are stagnating
The Baltics are rapidly becoming a cauldron of EU growth when other parts of Europe are stagnating

Irish Times

time07-06-2025

  • Politics
  • Irish Times

The Baltics are rapidly becoming a cauldron of EU growth when other parts of Europe are stagnating

It's not every day you find yourself in the Orthodox church where Alexander Pushkin 's great-grandfather was baptised. There is something calming about these dark, ornate and often windowless churches. The great-grandfather of Pushkin – the man whom many regard as the epitome of Slavic genius – was from central Africa (modern day Cameroon), a fact that adds to Pushkin's image as a romantic outsider. His great-grandfather, captured as a child by the Ottomans and gifted to the Russian emperor, rose to the position of general in Peter the Great's all-conquering army and was baptised in an Orthodox church in the centre of Vilnius, Lithuania 's very Catholic capital city. As befits a country at the crossroads of Europe, through which Napoleon, Charles X of Sweden, Hitler's Wehrmacht and, of course, Stalin's Red Army trampled, Vilnius is a city of ghosts. Before the second World War, it was known as the Jerusalem of the North, home to 60,000 Jews, of whom fewer than 2,000 survived. Today it is the bustling capital of Lithuania, a country that was once the largest state in Europe when it was the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Those halcyon days are evident in the baroque, rococo and the later neoclassical architecture beloved of the Imperial Russians. After all, if you name your top man the Tsar, a Russified version of Caesar, it's not surprising that you'd have a weakness for Roman columns. The Russians were in Lithuania for a long time and, but for a brief period of independence from 1920 to 1941 and Nazi occupation during the war, the Russification of Lithuania continued uninterrupted from 1790 until independence in 1990. Hence Pushkin senior being baptised in Vilnius, where Orthodox churches are common and, for the older generation brought up in the Soviet Union, Russian is the default language. Somehow the Lithuanian language survived; today it is thriving. Yet Russia's presence is palpable, and with the invasion of Ukraine the sense of insecurity is heightened – as it is all throughout the three Baltic Republics of Lithuania and its two northern neighbours, Latvia and Estonia . READ MORE These three small maritime countries face the sea and have been connected with western Europe for centuries. In contrast, Russia is a land power. The Hanseatic influence, tied to Lubeck, Hamburg, London and Amsterdam by the Baltic and North Seas, give the Baltic Republics their Scandinavian feel, not to mention their Catholic and Protestant religion, which distinguishes them from the Orthodox Russians. Economically, these three countries are by far the most successful of post-Soviet Republics, anchoring themselves politically, commercially and militarily to the West, via the EU and Nato . I've yet to meet a person here who doesn't see Nato as a positive. The average person appears to see Nato as an necessary insurance policy, a shield from Russian aggression that the invasion of Ukraine evidenced so dramatically. There is little sympathy for the Kremlin, even or maybe particularly in Latvia which has the largest ethnic Russian minority of the three republics. The war in Ukraine makes their orientation to the West appear – to those I have spoken to at least – all the more logical. What does this shift to western Europe mean for this region economically? There seems to be a different attitude to tech, as I observed on an airBaltic flight between Riga and Vilnius this week: Elon Musk 's Starlink internet was free to all throughout the flight. If there is a technological solution, the Baltics use it and Musk's Starlink is an obvious network. Their view is that if it is good enough for the military, it is good enough for their citizens. Over the past two decades, the standout success of the Baltics has been this embracing of technological possibilities, leading to the creation and fostering of tech companies. Ireland has become home to a significant Baltic diaspora since the early 2000s. These neighbours are not from some backward former Soviet region, but from one of the most dynamic parts of modern Europe Since the founding of Skype in Estonia nearly 20 years ago, the Baltics have been punching far above their weight in tech and entrepreneurship. Dubbed the Silicon Valley of Europe , Estonia now has 10 tech unicorns (including Wise, Bolt, Pipedrive, Playtech, Zego, Veriff and others) in a nation of just 1.3 million . Estonia alone has the highest per capita concentration of billion-dollar tech companies in Europe (and among the highest in the world). Latvia and Lithuania are also nurturing big start-ups. Latvia produced its first unicorn, Printful (print-on-demand ecommerce), in 2021, and has other notable start-ups like airBaltic (an innovation-oriented airline) and fintech platforms. Lithuania, as well as being home to the banking multinational disrupter Revolut, is now home to two unicorns: Vinted (Europe's largest online used-fashion marketplace) and Nord Security (creator of NordVPN). Vilnius has become a fintech hub (hosting the EU's second-largest fintech cluster) and a centre for laser technology and life sciences. [ ECB cuts interest rates by quarter percentage point Opens in new window ] Estonia leads Europe in startups per capita, with 1,100 per million people (4–5 times the European average), and Baltic tech founders are celebrated for their global impact. The World Bank and the OECD often cite the Baltics as models for digital innovation and ease of doing business. As of 2023, ICT contributes around 6 per cent of Estonia's GDP, up from 3 per cent in 2012, and about 7 per cent of its workforce are ICT professionals, the highest share in the EU. Latvia and Lithuania follow close behind and well above the EU average. Around half of all private R&D in Estonia and Latvia is tech-related. As a percentage of European population, the Baltics should have about 1 per cent of EU tech unicorn start-ups; instead they have 12 per cent. Meanwhile, Lithuania leads the EU in the number of fintech licences issued and has thriving tech parks in Vilnius and Kaunas. Lithuania's ICT sector grew 50 per cent in employment over the past decade. They are not only deploying tech to create new companies, the way the government does business here is quite seamless because of mass digitalisation. The problems caused by one Irish hospital not having the medical details of a patient who is being treated in another Irish hospital would never happen here; the entire public sector is paperless. Every government computer speaks to every other one, and to your own laptop. The result of this world-leading e-governance ecosystem is that Estonians can start a company online in minutes and 99 per cent of government services are accessible from home. No queues, no forms, no 'missing in the post' appointments, because one ID card has all the information in one place. Consequently the cost of government bureaucracy has collapsed. This is the future. And yet the region is still captured by the past, most notably the threat of Moscow. [ What does the latest ECB cut mean for borrowers, savers and the broader economy? Opens in new window ] Ireland has become home to a significant Baltic diaspora since the early 2000s, with people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania now making up roughly 1 per cent of the population (based on the 2022 census and a population of 5.15 million). These neighbours are not from some backward former Soviet region, but from one of the most dynamic parts of modern Europe, the Baltic Sea, home to Poland, Europe's most vibrant large economy, Finland and of course Sweden, as well as the industrial north of Germany. Ireland should learn to use the skills, networks and languages of our new residents to cement relations with this part of the world because this is rapidly becoming a cauldron of EU growth at a time when other parts of Europe are stagnating.

Thrilling: Garsington's Queen of Spades reviewed
Thrilling: Garsington's Queen of Spades reviewed

Spectator

time04-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Spectator

Thrilling: Garsington's Queen of Spades reviewed

Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades is one of those operas that under-promises on paper but over-delivers on stage. It's hard to summarise the plot in a way that makes it sound theatrical, even if you've read Pushkin's novella, and I've never found a recording that really hits the spot. And yet, time and again, in the theatre: wham! It goes up like a petrol bomb. With a good production and performers, Tchaikovsky hurls you out at the far end feeling almost hungover – head swimming, and wondering where those three hours went. The cast and staging at Garsington are very, very good. True, you'd expect great things from any production that can afford to cast Roderick Williams (Yeletsky) and Robert Hayward (Tomsky) in what are essentially supporting roles, and the director is Jack Furness, who at his best (like his Garsington Rusalka in 2022) has been responsible for some of the most compelling British opera of the past decade. Furness is on top form here, delivering multilayered storytelling underpinned by subtle characterisation. He has an eye for spectacle, as well as the tiny details that speaks volumes. The Philharmonia is the orchestra, and while they haven't always brought their A-game to Garsington, they've typically responded well to the festival's artistic director Douglas Boyd. Good news: he's conducting The Queen of Spades, and from the first notes – the clarinet's question in the silence; that hot-breathed surge of string tone – it's as tense as a guilty conscience. Cue baleful brass chords, aching woodwinds and those quiet, nagging ostinatos which mean that like the opera's anti-hero Herman (Aaron Cawley), we never really get to relax.

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