Spending Christmas in the Baltic states is a real treat. Photo by Nathan Greenhalgh.

Dear Baltic Reports readers,

I’d like to thank you for using our website as your news source and for the many comments you’ve posted. They’ve often been insightful, humorous or provocative.

Since our Aug. 25 launch, our readership has increased by leaps and bounds. Rest assured we’ll continue to provide the only source of Western-quality news in English about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Next year our coverage will become more in-depth and our publishing even more brisk as our international newsroom becomes better honed.

Of course, none of this would be possible without you, the reader, and we shall continue to respect your trust in us by delivering unbiased, accurate and timely news articles about these three wonderful countries. We have no sacred cows or narrow agenda. We seek only the truth.

On Christmas Day our journalists will more than likely be taking the day off, barring some sort of major catastrophe. But we have a very interesting excerpt from Laima Vincė’s upcoming novel “Broken Charms” that portrays a Christmas celebration by anti-Soviet partisans in post-war Lithuania. While the passage is fictional, it’s based on Vincė’s research on the partisan experience and is a good remainder of everything we can be thankful for, even in this time of crisis.

I hope you enjoy your holiday, and we’ll be back at it on Monday.

Merry Christmas,

Nathan Greenhalgh

Editor

Baltic Reports