Roasting, baking, sweltering. You could fry an egg on my stomach. Yeah, it’s hot in the Baltics this weekend. To be honest, what I would recommend above anything else is to head to the seaside for the day. Like most of Europe, in the August events in the Baltics wind down a bit as pretty [...]

TALLINN — The five-year tradition of the GoLive concert tour, the local rock music tour organized by mobile operator Tele2, has been canceled this year and will not return. The event has brought publicity to local acts such as Tanel Padar and The Sun, Vanilla Ninja, Bedwetters with a cheap ticket price. The tour that [...]

VILNIUS — It’s been a hot one this summer, but Vilnius is reveling in the heat with tourism better than last year’s rock bottom level, a number of festivals and events and consistently sunny, warm weather the northern city usually dreams about. I tried finding an excerpt of translated Lithuanian poetry that described Vilnius in [...]

The Russian pop saga of the New Wave Festival will draw to a close in Jūrmala, but it will be upstaged by Mika. Sort of the male response to Lady Gaga, the British pop star is coming to all three Baltic states over the next few days. Interestingly for a region not known for its [...]

VENTSPILS, Latvia — In recent history Latvia has been in the record books for largest GDP increases and declines as its economy rode the rollercoaster of fortune up and down during the past decade. With this and the current economic doldrums in mind, lively port city of Ventspils decided to put the country in the [...]

RIGA — Budding Latvian pop singer Aisha made a splash across the Baltic in Sweden this weekend, winning the 2010 Baltic Song Contest in Karlshamn. The downbeat song “What For?” which failed to impress Eurovision voters in May fared better in Sweden, perhaps because they understand better than Europeans from more distant countries why a [...]

Does anyone actually like Russian pop music? Well, I already know the answer to that — in the Baltics, all sorts of people. And who am I to judge? So, if you happen to like cheesy Russian pop or shaking your rump to techno beats until dawn, you’re in luck this weekend as all three [...]

RIGA — Would you pay €30,000 for a website with just pictures, text and links? The Latvian Tourism Development Agency unveiled it’s new website latvia.travel this week, and while the site is visually impressive the Latvian press is already questioning its 20,000 lats (€28,200) price tag, also noting its similarity to www.visitestonia.com and questioning the [...]

RIGA — Although it brought more people than ever and featured big names in popular music this past weekend, Latvia’s Positivus Festival apparently did not earn a profit this year, organizers said on Monday. The Positivus Festival, held near tiny Salacgrīva on the northern coast featured Glastonbury headliners Muse as well as the Happy Mondays, [...]

This weekend looks quite similar to last weekend — scorching temperatures, lots of sun and big music events in Estonia and Latvia while Lithuania is more low-key. The obvious highlights are the long-awaited Positivus and Õllesummer festivals in Riga and Tallinn, respectively. Positivus is the more high-profile of the two with Muse, Scissor Sisters, the [...]