#Eastern European Institute for Trade

[eeitonline]

Natural Resources: Maximizing Opportunities in the Face of Limited Access in Eastern Europe

by Eastern European Institute for Trade

Limited access to natural resources has long been a pressing concern for Eastern Europe, as the region grapples with the challenge of securing a stable and sustainable supply of critical materials. Such constraints have the potential to hinder economic growth, exacerbate geopolitical tensions, and jeopardize energy security. However, by adopting innovative strategies and fostering cross-border collaboration, Eastern European nations can effectively overcome these obstacles and capitalize on the opportunities presented by their natural resources.

One such opportunity lies in the expansion of renewable energy production. By investing in alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric power, Eastern European countries can reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels and promote sustainable development (Popescu, 2019). This shift towards renewables also holds the potential to boost job creation, stimulate innovation, and attract foreign investment in the green energy sector (Babcicky & Seebauer, 2017).

Furthermore, the sustainable management of water resources is a critical issue for Eastern Europe, particularly in the context of climate change and increased water scarcity. To address this challenge, regional cooperation and the sharing of best practices in water management are crucial (Araral & Wang, 2013). This can be facilitated through initiatives such as the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR), which promotes the sustainable use of shared water resources among its member states.

Another avenue to maximize opportunities in the face of limited access to natural resources is through the circular economy. This concept entails the transformation of waste materials into valuable resources, promoting the efficient use of resources and reducing environmental pollution (Kirchherr et al., 2017). By adopting circular economy principles, Eastern European countries can not only conserve scarce resources but also generate economic growth and job opportunities in waste management and recycling sectors.

Additionally, the diversification of energy sources is of utmost importance for ensuring energy security in Eastern Europe. By investing in a mix of domestic and imported energy sources, including natural gas, oil, and renewables, the region can reduce its vulnerability to supply disruptions and price fluctuations (EIA, 2017). This diversification can be achieved through the development of regional energy infrastructure, such as gas pipelines and electricity interconnections, which facilitate the integration of energy markets and promote energy trade among neighboring countries (Tagliapietra & Zachmann, 2016).

To conclude, Eastern European nations face significant challenges in terms of limited access to natural resources. However, by embracing innovative approaches such as renewable energy production, sustainable water management, circular economy principles, and energy diversification, the region can effectively overcome these constraints and unlock the full potential of its natural resources.

References:

Araral, E., & Wang, Y. (2013). Water governance 2.0: A review and second generation research agenda. Water Resources Management, 27(11), 3945–3957.

Babcicky, P., & Seebauer, S. (2017). The two faces of market support — How deployment policies affect technological exploration and exploitation in the solar photovoltaic industry. Research Policy, 46(4), 821–838.

EIA. (2017). Europe’s Dependence on Natural Gas. U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Kirchherr, J., Reike, D., & Hekkert, M. (2017). Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions. Resources, Conservation, and Recycling, 127, 221–232.

Popescu, G. H. (2019). Renewable energy in Eastern Europe: Policies, capacity, and future perspectives. Energy Policy, 125, 433–442.

Tagliapietra, S., & Szklo, A. (2019). Renewable energy cooperation in Europe and Africa: A strategic analysis. Energy Strategy Reviews, 23, 101347.

Read more at Eastern European Institute for Trade.

#EEIT #Eastern European Institute For Trade #Natural resources #Eastern Europe Access to resources #Energy security #Renewable energy #Circular economy #Sustainable development

[easterneuropeaninstitute]

The International Hydrogen Power Working Group

The International Hydrogen Power Working Group, which is made up of individuals from the public and commercial sectors in both the United States and Europe, offers a better route for top executives to create global strategic alliances. The group also assists with media relations, networking for infrastructure projects, obtaining project finance, and other issues.

Through the International Renewable Energy Working Group or International Hydrogen Power Working Group, we provide members of the Eastern European Institute for Trade extra domestic and international business development services.

#International Hydrogen Power Working Group #Eastern European Institute for Trade #Renewable Energy #Hydrogen Power

[blueiskewl]

First Ever Human Depiction of Lost Tartessos Civilization Uncovered in Spain

Archaeologists representing Spain’s National Research Council (CSIS) excavating at the site of Casas del Turunuelo have uncovered the first human representations of the ancient Tartessos people.

The incredible results of an excavation that shed light on a mysterious and ancient civilization that flourished in southern Spain several centuries before Christ have been presented by Spain’s National Research Council.

The Tartessians, who are thought to have lived in southern Iberia (modern-day Andalusia and Extremadura), are regarded as one of the earliest Western European civilizations, and possibly the first to thrive in the Iberian Peninsula.

In the southwest of Spain’s Iberian Peninsula, the Tartessos culture first appeared in the Late Bronze Age. The culture is distinguished by a blend of local Paleo-Hispanic and Phoenician traits, as well as the use of a now-extinct language known as Tartessian. The Tartessos people were skilled in metallurgy and metal working, creating ornate objects and decorative items.

Archaeologists from Spain’s National Research Council (CSIS) on Tuesday presented the amazing results of excavation at the Casas de Turuuelo dig in Badajoz, in southwest Spain, as well as the results of the excavation.

Five busts, damaged but two of which maintain a great degree of detail, are the first human and facial representations of the Tartessian people that the modern world has ever seen.

The ornate depiction of the stone busts, as well the inclusion of jewellery (hoop earrings) and their particular hairstyles, resemble ancient sculptures from the Middle East and Asia. 

These “extraordinary findings” represent a “profound paradigm shift” in the interpretation of Tartessian culture, excavation leaders Celestino Pérez and Esther Rodríguez said during the press conference.

Given the scarcity of Tartessian archaeological finds thus far, this ancient society is shrouded in mystery.

Tartessos’ port was located at the mouth of the Guadalquivir river in what is now Cádiz, according to historical records. In the fourth century BC, Greek historian Ephorus described it as a prosperous civilization centered on the production and trade of tin, gold, and other metals.

What is unknown is where the Tartessians came from, whether they were an indigenous tribe with Eastern influences or a Phoenician colony that settled beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar).

The team from Mérida’s Institute of Archaeology believes two of the busts discovered in what is thought to be a shrine or pantheon represent Tartessian goddesses, despite the fact that Tartessian religion was previously thought to be aniconic (opposed to the use of idols or images).

The stone busts’ facial depiction, as well as the inclusion of jewelry (hoop earrings) and their specific hairstyles, resemble ancient sculptures from the Middle East and Asia.

Archaeologists believe that the two goddesses, along with three other sculptures that were significantly more damaged, were part of a stone mural depicting four deities watching over a Tartessian warrior, as one of the defaced busts has a helmet.

The ornate effigies, which are thought to be around 2,500 years old, are also significant for art historians, as Ancient Greece and Etruria (an ancient civilization in modern-day central Italy) was previously recognized as the epicenters of sculpting during this time period.

By Leman Altuntaş.

#First Ever Human Depiction of Lost Tartessos Civilization Uncovered in Spain #Casas del Turuñuelo #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

i just now learned about a recent case where a german man kidnapped and did unspeakable acts to two boys. one was german, one was a refugee. the first one was immediately treated as a missing case, but the second one was not because the cops were afraid the mother was hiding her son to avoid deportation. and the worst part is, that little boy was kidnapped in a government institution (lageso in berlin) where his mother went for help! its infuriating beyond belief.

racism is so deeply engrained in german institutions, its not funny. yet police refuses any reforms or real investigations and deny even the notion - despite mounting evidence - that there is an issue with systemic racism in german police. and we dont have an independent institution to control the cops, you know who investigates their failures and issues? other cops. and we all know how they stick together like literal shit.

but it also made me think about „missing white woman syndrome“. does anyone really care about an eastern european white woman who goes missing while being exploited in the west through prostitution, in the domestic field, nursing, or as a „mail bride“ dependent on her husband? does anyone care about a white woman in the usa going missing from a trailer park? does anyone care about a white woman who was homeless, mentally ill, drug addicted, disabled, impoverished, prostituted, or otherwise marginalised going missing? and do people not care about white men going missing?

and it also made me think about this current trend of oversimplifying and decontextualising racism. one thing i hope we all can agree on is that anti black racism is very persistent. i cant think of a single country where black people are treated preferably over other races, best case is to be treated equally as a black person, and even that is not the case in most countries. but this doesnt just apply to white majority countries. in japan or korea, or under the kafala system in the arabic gulf states, for example, black people are systematically discriminated against and exploited too. white people are also not the only ones guilty of colonialism and imperialism - albeit i dont want to minimise the scale of portugese, spanish, french, british/australin, german, dutch, belgian (neo)colonialism or the north american slave trade.

i dont know its just, everything always has to be put in context and looked at from an intersectional perspective but i feel a lot of people who fault white supremacy for everything dont do that. and dont get me wrong, white supremacy is the root of a lot of inequality and issues, but despite the name its not merely a black and white problem, its complex. for example, even if a roma or jewish person is white, neonazis dont consider them the same race as white people. or i remember my turkish professor once saying, „in turkey im considered white, but in germany im a person of colour“. because race is not just phenotype, it is also culture, nationality, location and ethnicity that matters for who is holding power and privilege.

meanwhile a lot of the same people will refuse to agree that sex matters. or claim that sex - which is a lot less ambiguous than race by the way and nobody argues that mixed race people prove that race is not real or doesnt matter the way they argue intersex people prove that sex is not real or doesnt matter - is a spectrum while chanting „black lives matter“. and i know that black communities do have that conversation about colourism and how whiteness is something even people of colour are supposed to „strive for“, which is why for example the harmful practice of bleaching your skin exists. so it is being acknowledged that race is a spectrum, but some of the same people who rightfully talk about black lives and how blackness is its own social category will call you a bigot for talking about female lives and how being female is a social category.

im not going anywhere with this, just some thoughts that came up regarding discussions on racism and sex and how they intersect too. feel very free to chime in especially as a person of colour obviously!

#mine #rambling

[mariacallous]

In February 1994, in the grand ballroom of the town hall in Hamburg, Germany, the president of Estonia gave a remarkable speech. Standing before an audience in evening dress, Lennart Meri praised the values of the democratic world that Estonia then aspired to join. “The freedom of every individual, the freedom of the economy and trade, as well as the freedom of the mind, of culture and science, are inseparably interconnected,” he told the burghers of Hamburg. “They form the prerequisite of a viable democracy.” His country, having regained its independence from the Soviet Union three years earlier, believed in these values: “The Estonian people never abandoned their faith in this freedom during the decades of totalitarian oppression.”

But Meri had also come to deliver a warning: Freedom in Estonia, and in Europe, could soon be under threat. Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the circles around him were returning to the language of imperialism, speaking of Russia as primus inter pares—the first among equals—in the former Soviet empire. In 1994, Moscow was already seething with the language of resentment, aggression, and imperial nostalgia; the Russian state was developing an illiberal vision of the world, and even then was preparing to enforce it. Meri called on the democratic world to push back: The West should “make it emphatically clear to the Russian leadership that another imperialist expansion will not stand a chance.”

At that, the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin, got up and walked out of the hall.

Meri’s fears were at that time shared in all of the formerly captive nations of Central and Eastern Europe, and they were strong enough to persuade governments in Estonia, Poland, and elsewhere to campaign for admission to NATO. They succeeded because nobody in Washington, London, or Berlin believed that the new members mattered. The Soviet Union was gone, the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg was not an important person, and Estonia would never need to be defended. That was why neither Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush made much attempt to arm or reinforce the new NATO members. Only in 2014 did the Obama administration finally place a small number of American troops in the region, largely in an effort to reassure allies after the first Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Nobody else anywhere in the Western world felt any threat at all. For 30 years, Western oil and gas companies piled into Russia, partnering with Russian oligarchs who had openly stolen the assets they controlled. Western financial institutions did lucrative business in Russia too, setting up systems to allow those same Russian kleptocrats to export their stolen money and keep it parked, anonymously, in Western property and banks. We convinced ourselves that there was no harm in enriching dictators and their cronies. Trade, we imagined, would transform our trading partners. Wealth would bring liberalism. Capitalism would bring democracy—and democracy would bring peace.

After all, it had happened before. Following the cataclysm of 1939–45, Europeans had indeed collectively abandoned wars of imperial, territorial conquest. They stopped dreaming of eliminating one another. Instead, the continent that had been the source of the two worst wars the world had ever known created the European Union, an organization designed to find negotiated solutions to conflicts and promote cooperation, commerce, and trade. Because of Europe’s metamorphosis—and especially because of the extraordinary transformation of Germany from a Nazi dictatorship into the engine of the continent’s integration and prosperity—Europeans and Americans alike believed that they had created a set of rules that would preserve peace not only on their own continents, but eventually in the whole world.

This liberal world order relied on the mantra of “Never again.” Never again would there be genocide. Never again would large nations erase smaller nations from the map. Never again would we be taken in by dictators who used the language of mass murder. At least in Europe, we would know how to react when we heard it.

But while we were happily living under the illusion that “Never again” meant something real, the leaders of Russia, owners of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, were reconstructing an army and a propaganda machine designed to facilitate mass murder, as well as a mafia state controlled by a tiny number of men and bearing no resemblance to Western capitalism. For a long time—too long—the custodians of the liberal world order refused to understand these changes. They looked away when Russia “pacified” Chechnya by murdering tens of thousands of people. When Russia bombed schools and hospitals in Syria, Western leaders decided that that wasn’t their problem. When Russia invaded Ukraine the first time, they found reasons not to worry. Surely Putin would be satisfied by the annexation of Crimea. When Russia invaded Ukraine the second time, occupying part of the Donbas, they were sure he would be sensible enough to stop.

Even when the Russians, having grown rich on the kleptocracy we facilitated, bought Western politicians, funded far-right extremist movements, and ran disinformation campaigns during American and European democratic elections, the leaders of America and Europe still refused to take them seriously. It was just some posts on Facebook; so what? We didn’t believe that we were at war with Russia. We believed, instead, that we were safe and free, protected by treaties, by border guarantees, and by the norms and rules of the liberal world order.

With the third, more brutal invasion of Ukraine, the vacuity of those beliefs was revealed. The Russian president openly denied the existence of a legitimate Ukrainian state: “Russians and Ukrainians,” he said, “were one people—a single whole.” His army targeted civilians, hospitals, and schools. His policies aimed to create refugees so as to destabilize Western Europe. “Never again” was exposed as an empty slogan while a genocidal plan took shape in front of our eyes, right along the European Union’s eastern border. Other autocracies watched to see what we would do about it, for Russia is not the only nation in the world that covets its neighbors’ territory, that seeks to destroy entire populations, that has no qualms about the use of mass violence. North Korea can attack South Korea at any time, and has nuclear weapons that can hit Japan. China seeks to eliminate the Uyghurs as a distinct ethnic group, and has imperial designs on Taiwan.

We can’t turn the clock back to 1994, to see what would have happened had we heeded Lennart Meri’s warning. But we can face the future with honesty. We can name the challenges and prepare to meet them.

There is no natural liberal world order, and there are no rules without someone to enforce them. Unless democracies defend themselves together, the forces of autocracy will destroy them. I am using the word forces, in the plural, deliberately. Many American politicians would understandably prefer to focus on the long-term competition with China. But as long as Russia is ruled by Putin, then Russia is at war with us too. So are Belarus, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua, Hungary, and potentially many others. We might not want to compete with them, or even care very much about them. But they care about us. They understand that the language of democracy, anti-corruption, and justice is dangerous to their form of autocratic power—and they know that that language originates in the democratic world, our world.

This fight is not theoretical. It requires armies, strategies, weapons, and long-term plans. It requires much closer allied cooperation, not only in Europe but in the Pacific, Africa, and Latin America. NATO can no longer operate as if it might someday be required to defend itself; it needs to start operating as it did during the Cold War, on the assumption that an invasion could happen at any time. Germany’s decision to raise defense spending by 100 billion euros is a good start; so is Denmark’s declaration that it too will boost defense spending. But deeper military and intelligence coordination might require new institutions—perhaps a voluntary European Legion, connected to the European Union, or a Baltic alliance that includes Sweden and Finland—and different thinking about where and how we invest in European and Pacific defense.

If we don’t have any means to deliver our messages to the autocratic world, then no one will hear them. Much as we assembled the Department of Homeland Security out of disparate agencies after 9/11, we now need to pull together the disparate parts of the U.S. government that think about communication, not to do propaganda but to reach more people around the world with better information and to stop autocracies from distorting that knowledge. Why haven’t we built a Russian-language television station to compete with Putin’s propaganda? Why can’t we produce more programming in Mandarin—or Uyghur? Our foreign-language broadcasters—Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio Martí in Cuba—need not only money for programming but a major investment in research. We know very little about Russian audiences—what they read, what they might be eager to learn.

Funding for education and culture needs rethinking too. Shouldn’t there be a Russian-language university, in Vilnius or Warsaw, to house all the intellectuals and thinkers who have just left Moscow? Don’t we need to spend more on education in Arabic, Hindi, Persian? So much of what passes for cultural diplomacy runs on autopilot. Programs should be recast for a different era, one in which, though the world is more knowable than ever before, dictatorships seek to hide that knowledge from their citizens.

Trading with autocrats promotes autocracy, not democracy. Congress has made some progress in recent months in the fight against global kleptocracy, and the Biden administration was right to put the fight against corruption at the heart of its political strategy. But we can go much further, because there is no reason for any company, property, or trust ever to be held anonymously. Every U.S. state, and every democratic country, should immediately make all ownership transparent. Tax havens should be illegal. The only people who need to keep their houses, businesses, and income secret are crooks and tax cheats.

We need a dramatic and profound shift in our energy consumption, and not only because of climate change. The billions of dollars we have sent to Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia have promoted some of the worst and most corrupt dictators in the world. The transition from oil and gas to other energy sources needs to happen with far greater speed and decisiveness. Every dollar spent on Russian oil helps fund the artillery that fires on Ukrainian civilians.

Take democracy seriously. Teach it, debate it, improve it, defend it. Maybe there is no natural liberal world order, but there are liberal societies, open and free countries that offer a better chance for people to live useful lives than closed dictatorships do. They are hardly perfect; our own has deep flaws, profound divisions, terrible historical scars. But that’s all the more reason to defend and protect them. Few of them have existed across human history; many have existed for a time and then failed. They can be destroyed from the outside, but from the inside, too, by divisions and demagogues.

Perhaps, in the aftermath of this crisis, we can learn something from the Ukrainians. For decades now, we’ve been fighting a culture war between liberal values on the one hand and muscular forms of patriotism on the other. The Ukrainians are showing us a way to have both. As soon as the attacks began, they overcame their many political divisions, which are no less bitter than ours, and they picked up weapons to fight for their sovereignty and their democracy. They demonstrated that it is possible to be a patriot and a believer in an open society, that a democracy can be stronger and fiercer than its opponents. Precisely because there is no liberal world order, no norms and no rules, we must fight ferociously for the values and the hopes of liberalism if we want our open societies to continue to exist.

[arthurdrakoni]

Flag of the Aztec Empire

This is the flag of the Aztec Empire. It comes from a world where the Aztecs defeated Cortez and his troops. Smallpox still ravaged the Aztecs, but due to the more limited exposed they were able to recover by the time the Spanish sent additional expeditions. It soon become obvious that the empire would need to reform itself if it was going to survive the European colonization of the Americas.   The debate around these reforms leads to social upheavals and rebellions. The empire ultimately survived, but with a Tlaxcalan ruling dynasty. The Tlaxcalans, always one of the more reform minded peoples of the empire, set about instituting serious reforms.   The first reform was the structure of the empire. The provinces became much more centralized in their organization. The emperor still ruled over all, but each province sent a group of delegates to represent the needs of the province in a special council in Tenochtitlan. The priests and priestesses also began to slowly phase-out human sacrifice from the traditional religion of the Aztecs. Trade relations were established with multiple European nations both to gain access to European technology and to play the various powers off of each other.   For the next few centuries the Aztecs would be prosperous and would have good relations with their neighbors. They provided troops to the Federated Provinces of Cabotia during their rebellion against the British Empire. To this day the two nations remain close allies to this day. The Aztecs also maintained good relations with the Incan Empire, which also managed to avoid European conquest. The Aztecs went on to expand their territory to stretch from the American Southwest to the tip of Panama, and even managed to nab a few islands of the Caribbean.   The next major wave of reforms occurred during the 19h century. The Aztecs, much like Japan during the Meiji Restoration, underwent a Westernization process. Though from the Aztecs points of view the term would more accurately be Easternization. Industrialization began to take off, and Western clothing and customs were slowly introduced to improve relations with the great powers of Europe. However, the Aztecs did not completely turn their backs on their traditional culture. Aztec clothing still remains very colorful and incorporates many traditional designs, and nose rings are still somewhat popular for men and women. More traditional clothing is usually reserved for special ceremonies and occasions, such as religious festivals and the emperor's birthday.   The Aztecs also still worship their old gods, and many temples and shrines can be found throughout the empire. On the other hand, secularism is on the rise, and many people only perform the old rituals out of habit and tradition. What was once an empire imfamous for its bloodlust is today known as a thriving center of technology and innovation.  The flag features the colors red and green, which are traditional Aztec colors. The maze pattern is a common feature in Aztec artwork. The red snake is the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, god of the winds and one of the most important gods in the Aztec pantheon.

Link to the original flag on my blog: https://drakoniandgriffalco.blogspot.com/2016/11/flag-of-aztec-empire.html?m=0

#alternate history #alternate history flag #alternate history flags #flag #flags #Aztec Empire #aztec #Aztecs #Nahuas #Nahua #Mexica #Mexico #indigenous #indigenous people #Triple Alliance #Tlaxcala #Tlaxcalans #Flag of the Aztec Empire #alt history #vexillology

[hiddenromania]

Oradea occupies a special place in the history of European architecture and is one of the Art Nouveau capitals of Europe.

The city developed on the Crişul Repede River, between the West Plains and the Apuseni Mountains, taking advantage of an important trade route linking Western Europe to Central and Eastern Europe. During the late 19th century Oradea witnessed an economic boom, largely due to commerce and financial institutions inside Austria-Hungary.

The most impressive are the Sezession-style buildings, real palaces built around 1900. The originality of their architectural expression is completed by a unique ornamentation deployed in stuccos, ceramic decorations and especially the ironworks of interiors.

Photos: Bogdan Popa

#romania #oradea #eastern europe #western europe #central europe #europe #austria hungary #european #archiecture #art nuveau #architectural styles #stucco #ceramics #ironwork #aerial photography #photography #sezession #style #history

[thephoenixandthecrocodile]

My Love for Central Asian Literature Part 1 – Abdurauf Fitrat, Abdulla Qodiry, and Cho’lpon

I’m currently working on a script for my history podcast, the Art of Asymmetrical Warfare, about three Central Asian literary giants: Abdurauf Fitrat, Abdulla Qodiry, and Abdulhamid Sulayman o’g’li Yusunov also known as Cho’lpon and it got me thinking about their influence on my historical interests, reading tastes, and writing style.

If you’re wondering why a podcast about asymmetrical warfare is talking about three Central Asian writers, you should check out my upcoming podcast episode. 😉

How I Became Interested in Central Asian Literature

My interest in Central Asia has been a long time percolating and it was just waiting for the right combination of sparks to turn it into a hyperfixation (sort of like my interest in the IRA). I went to the Virginia Military Institute for undergrad and majored in International Relations with a minor in National Security and my focus was on terrorism. So, I knew a lot about Afghanistan and Pakistan and the “classic” “terrorists” like the IRA, the FLN, Hamas, etc. and I knew of the five Central Asian states (one of my professors was banned for life from either Turkmenistan or Tajikistan and sort of life goals, but also please don’t ban me haha), but my brain bookmarked it, and I went on my merry way. 

Then I went to University of Chicago for my masters, and I took my favorite class: Crime, the State, and Terrorism which focused on moments when crime, government, and terrorism intersect. This brought me back to Pakistan and Afghanistan, but this time focusing on the drug trade which led me to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and their ties to the Taliban and it was sort of like an awakening. I suddenly had five post-Soviet states (if you know me, you’ll know I’m fascinated by post-Soviet states) with connections to the drug trade (another interest of mine) and influenced by Persian and Turkic identities. I was also writing a scifi series at the time that included a team of Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian scientists and officers, so the interest came at the right time to hook my brain. Actually, if you buy my friend’s EzraArndtWrites upcoming “My Say in the Matter” anthology, you’ll read a short story featuring Ruslan, my bisexual, Sunni Muslim, Uzbek doctor who was inspired by my sudden interest in Central Asia.

Hamid Ismailov’s the Devils’ Dance

I wanted to know more beyond the drug trade and usually when I try to learn about a place whether it be Poland, Ireland, or Uzbekistan, I go to their music and literature. This led me to one of my all-time favorite writers Hamid Ismailov and my favorite publishers Tilted Axis Press.

Tilted Axis Press is a British publisher who specializes in publishing works by mainly Asian, although not only Asian writers, translated into English. They publish about six books a year and you can purchase their yearly bundle which guarantees you’ll get all six books plus whatever else they publish throughout the year. I’ve purchased the bundle two years in a row, and I haven’t regretted it. The literature and writers you’re introduced to are amazing and you probably won’t normally have found unless you were looking specifically for these types of books.

Hamid Ismailov is an Uzbek writer who was banished from Uzbekistan for “overly democratic tendencies”. He wrote for BBC for years and published several books in Russian and Uzbek. A good number of his books have been translated into English and can be found either through Tilted Axis or any other bookstore/bookseller. Some of my favorites include Dead Lake, the Manaschi, the Underground, and the book that inspired everything the Devils’ Dance.

Tilted Axis’ translation of The Devils’ Dance came out the same year I was working on my masters, and I bought it because it is a fictional account of Abdulla Qodiriy’s last days while in a Soviet prison. He goes through several interrogations and runs into his fellow writers and friends: Fitrat and Cho’lpon. Qodiriy is written as detached from events while Cho’lpon comes across as very sarcastic, as if this is all a game, and Fitrat is interestingly resigned to the Soviet’s games but seems to have some fight in him. Qodiry distracts himself from the horrors around him by thinking about his unwritten novel (which he really was working on when he was arrested by the NVKD). His novel focuses on Oyxon, a young woman forced to marry three khans during the Great Game. His daydreaming takes a power of its own and he occasionally slips back to talk with historical figures such as Charles Stoddart and Arthur Connolly-two British officers who were murdered by the Khan of Bukhara (not a 100% convinced they didn’t have it coming).

We spend half of the narrative with Qodiriy and the other half with Oyxon as she is taken from her home and thrown into the royal court of Kokand’s khans where she is raped and mistreated and has to survive the uncertain times of Central Asia during the Great Game. She is passed from Umar, the father, to Madali, the son, to the conquering Khan of Bukhara, Nasrullah who eventually murders her and her children. From a historical perspective, I have a lot of questions about Nasrullah because a lot of sources write him off as a cruel tyrant and nothing more which usually means there’s more…Before Oyxon and Qodiriy are taken to their deaths, there is a poignant scene where the two timelines merge into one that will stay with you long after the novel is over.

The book is a masterpiece exploring themes of colonialism, liberty, powerlessness in face of overwhelming might, the power of the human mind and spirit, the endurance of ideas, even when burned and “lost”, as well as being a powerful historical fiction about two disruptive periods in Central Asian history. It’s also a love letter to the three literary giants of Uzbek fiction: Abdurauf Fitrat: a statesmen who crafted the Turkic identity of Uzbekistan, a playwright and statesmen, Abdulla Qodiriy who created the first Uzbek novel (O’tgan Kunar which was recently translated by Mark Reese and can be bought in most bookstores), and Cho’lpon who created modern Uzbek poetry (you can buy his only novel Night translated by Christopher Fort and a collection of his poems 12 Ghazals by Alisher Navoiy and 14 Poems by Abdulhamid Cho’lpon translated by Andrew Staniland, Aidakhon Bumatova, and Avazkhon Khaydarov in any bookstore).

City of Kokand circa 1840-1888, thanks to Wikicommons

All three men were Jadids (modern Muslim reformers) who worked with the Bolsheviks to stabilize Central Asia, helped create the borders of the five modern Central Asian states, and were murdered by the Soviets during Stalin’s Great Purge of the 1930s. It was illegal to publish their work until the glasnost. Check out my history podcast to learn more about the Jadids and the Russian and Central Asian Civil Wars.

From a literary perspective however, Ismailov wrote the Devils’ Dance similarly to Qodiriy’s own O’tgan Kunlar and Cho’lpon’s Night (whereas Ismailov’s other books: Dead Lake and the Underground are more Soviet era Central Asian literature and his newest book the Manaschi is more post-Soviet). Like Qodiriy and Cho’lpon, Ismailov writes about MCs who are not the master of his own fate, but instead are going through the motions of a fate already written, one of his MCs is a woman unfairly caught in a misogynistic system that uses women as it sees fit (although I would argue that Hamid gives his women characters more agency than either Qodiry and Cho’lpon), and he writes about the corruption and inefficiencies of whatever government agency is in control at the time – whether it be a Russian, a Khan, or an indigenous agent of said government. All three books end in death, although only Cho’lpon’s Night and Ismailov’s the Devils’ Dance end in a farce of a trial. Even stylistically Ismailov mimics the rich and dense language of Qodiriy whereas I find Cho’lpon’s style crisper although no less rich for it.

Abdurauf Fitrat’s Downfall of Shaytan

While Ismailov led me down a historical rabbit hole which is captured on my history podcast, I also wanted to see if any of Fitrat’s, Qodiry’s, or Cho’lpon’s work had been translated into English.

So far, I can’t find anything by Fitrat except excerpts in the Devils’ Dance and Making Uzbekistan by Adeeb Khalid (one of my all-time favorite history books by one of my favorite scholars who also happens to be very kind and patience and I still can’t believe I interviewed him for my podcast).

Fitrat wrote a specific play I really want to read called Shaytonning Tangriga Isyoni which Dr. Khalid translated as Shaytan’s Revolt Against God. According to the summary provided by Dr. Khalid it is a challenging take on the Islamic version of Satan’s downfall.

According to Dr. Khalid, in Islamic cosmology God created angels from light and jinns from fire and they could only worship God. When God made Adam, He commanded all angels and jinn to bow before him. Azazel (who would become Shaytan) refused claiming he was better than Adam who was made out of clay. He was cast out of heaven and became Shaytan/Iblis.

Fitrat reimagines Shaytan’s defiance as heroic. He is disgusted by the angels’ submissive nature and God’s ability to create anything and yet he chooses to create servants. Azazel has seen God’s plan to create another being out of clay and have the angels worship him as well, which Azazel sees as a betrayal on God’s part. Gabriel, Michael, and Azrael try to convince Azazel to see reason and instead he brings his grievance to the other angels who are confused. God intervenes and the angels give in, but Azazel continues to defy God. God strips him of his angelic nature, and he turns into Shaytan who warns Adam of God’s treacherous nature and vows to free him and all other creatures from God’s trickery.

Doesn’t it sound amazing?! Fitrat has outdone Milton in terms of completely overturning God’s and Satan/Shaytan’s rules (also no wonder he was marked for execution right? Complete firebrand and pain in the ass (and I mean that with love)) and I really want to read it. So, either someone needs to translate this into English, or I need to learn Persian/Uzbek, which ever happens first, haha (judging on how my Russian is going…)

Abdulla Qodiry’s O’tgan Kunlar

While I can’t find any of Fitrat’s work in English, there have been two translations of Abdulla Qodiriy’s novel and the first ever Uzbek novel O’tgan Kunlar. In English, the title translates as Days Gone By or Bygone Days. There are two translates out there: Days Gone By translated by Carol Ermakova, which is the version I’ve read, and Otgun Kunlar by Mark Reese, which I haven’t read yet but I’ve heard him speak (and actually spoke to him about his translation – thank you Oxus Society) so you can’t go wrong with either one.

O’tgan Kunlar is an epic novel set in the Kokand Khanate in the 18th century and is about Otabek and his love Kumush. There’s also a corrupt official, Hamid who hates Otabek because Otabek is a former who wants to change the society Hamid benefits from. Hamid tries to get Otabek killed for treason because of his reformist believes, but the overthrow of the corrupt leader of Tashkent (who Otabek worked for) saves Otabek’s life. However, the corrupt leader’s machinations convince the Khan to declare war against the Kipchaks people, who are massacred. Otabek and his father vehemently disagree with the massacre of the Kipchaks.

Once Otabek is released and gets revenge against Hamid, he marries Kumush without his parent’s approval and is torn between the two families. His mother hates Kumush and forces him to take a second wife, Zainab. Obviously, things go terribly wrong as Otabek doesn’t even like Zainab and Kumush doesn’t know how to feel about her husband having a second wife. Zainab hates her position within the household and eventually poisons Kumush.

Abdulla Qodiriy thanks to Wikicommons

O’tgan Kunlar is considered to be an Uzbek masterpiece that is central to understanding Uzbekistan. Not only is it a great tragic love story, but it also highlights some of the things Qodiriy was thinking about as he engaged with other Jadids. Just as Otabek argued for reforms especially in the educational, social, and familial realms, the Jadids were making the same arguments. We can also see the Jadid’s struggle with the ulama and the merchants in Otabek’s struggle with Hamid. Qodiry attempts to capture the struggle women went through by writing about the horrors for arrange marriages and polygamy, but Kumush is an idealized version of a woman. She is the pure “virgin” like Margarete from Faust while the other two female characters; Otabek’s mother and Zainab are twisted, bitter woman who hurt those they “love”. One could argue they’ve been corrupted by the society they live in, but they also lack the depth of Otabek and even his father.

One of the most interesting parts of the novel is the massacre of the Kipchaks because it is written as the horror it was and both Otabek and his father condemn the action. His father even claims that there is no sense if hating a whole race for aren’t we all human? Central Asia is a vast land full of different peoples who share common, but divergent histories and while these differences have led to massacres, there have also been moments of living peacefully together. It’s interesting that Qodiriy would pick up that thread and make it a major part of his novel because this was written during the Russian Civil Wars and the attempts to create modern states in Central Asia. The Bolsheviks really pushed the indigenous people of Central Asia to create ethnic and racial identities they could then use to better manage the region and so one wonders if Qodiriy is responding to this idea of dividing the region instead of uniting it.

Cho’lpon’s Night

While O’tgan Kunlar is a beautiful book and Qodiriy is a masterful writer, I prefer Cho’lpon’s Night (although don’t tell anyone). Night was supposed to be a duology, but Cho’lpon was murdered before he could finish the second book. Cho’lpon wrote Night in 1934, after years of being attacked as a nationalist. It was a seemingly earnest attempt to get into the Soviet’s good graces. Instead, he would be murdered along with Qodiriy and Fitrat in 1938.

Night is about Zebi, a young woman, who is forced to marry the Russian affiliated colonial official Akbarali mingboshi. The marriage is arranged by Miryoqub, Akbarali’s retainer. Akbarali already has three wives and, like in O’tgan Kunlar, adding a new wife causes lots of problems in the household. Meanwhile Miryoqub falls in love with a Russian prostitute named Maria and they plan to flee together. While they are fleeing they met a Jadid named Sharafuddin Xo’Jaev and Miryoqub becomes a Jadids. Meanwhile Akbarali’s wives conspire against Zebi and attempt to poison her but she unwittingly gives it to Akbarali instead. Zebi is arrested and found guilty of murdering her husband and sentenced to exile in Siberia. The book ends with Zebi’s father, who encouraged her marriage to Akbarali, is driven made by his daughters fate and murders a sufi master while Zebi’s mother goes mad, wandering the streets and singing about her daughter.

Like Qodiriy, Cho’lpon is interested in examining governmental corruption, the need for reform, and women’s plight, but Cho’lpon is less resolute than Qodiriy. Cho’lpon’s novel is constructed similar to poetry: an indirect attempt to capture something that is concrete only for a moment.

His characters are own irresolute or ignorant of important pieces of information meaning they are never truly in full control of their fates. Even Miryoqub’s conversion to Jadidism is to be understood as a step in his self-discovery. In Cho’lpon’s world, no one is ever truly done discovering aspects of themselves and no one will ever have true knowledge to avoid tragedy.

Cho'lpon courtesy of Wikicommons

It is interesting to read Night as Cho’lpon’s own insecurity and anxiety about his own fate and the fate of his fellow countrymen as Stalin seemingly paused persecuting those who displeased him. While Qodiriy crafted and wrote O’tgan Kunlar in the 1920s, which were unstable because of civil war, but promised something greater as the Jadids and Bolsheviks regained control over the region, Cho’lpon wrote Night during the height of Stalin’s Great Terror, most likely knowing he would be arrested and executed soon.

Both novels are beautifully written historical novels about a beautiful region, but I prefer Cho’lpon’s poetic prose and uncertainty.

Conclusion

Reading the works of Fitrat, Qodiriy, and Cho'lpon not only introduced me to a history I knew little about, but also introduced me to a whole literature I never knew existed. The books mentioned in this blog post are beautiful pieces literature and will challenge how you see the world and how much literature we miss out on when we don't read beyond authors who work in our native tongues.

The canon of Central Asian literature is immense, with only a handful of books and poems translated into English. I hope more works are translated so other people can engage with these books and poems and learn about these writers and the circumstances that shaped them. And, if you haven't, go check out Tilted Axis who are doing amazing work translating books so people can engage with them.

If you're enjoying this blog, please join my patreon or donate to my ko-fi

#central asian history #central asian literature #abdurauf fitrat #abdulla qodiriy #cho'lpon #O'tgan Kunlar #Days Gone by #Night #Hamid Ismailov #the Devils' Dance #Soviet Union #Soviet Central Asia #Uzbekistan

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 2.7

457 – Leo I becomes the Eastern Roman emperor. 987 – Bardas Phokas the Younger and Bardas Skleros, Byzantine generals of the military elite, begin a wide-scale rebellion against Emperor Basil II. 1301 – Edward of Caernarvon (later king Edward II of England) becomes the first English Prince of Wales. 1313 – King Thihathu founds the Pinya Kingdom as the de jure successor state of the Pagan Kingdom. 1365 – Albert III of Mecklenburg (King Albert of Sweden) grants city rights to Ulvila (Swedish: Ulvsby). 1497 – In Florence, Italy, supporters of Girolamo Savonarola burn cosmetics, art, and books, in a "Bonfire of the vanities". 1756 – Guaraní War: The leader of the Guaraní rebels, Sepé Tiaraju, is killed in a skirmish with Spanish and Portuguese troops. 1783 – American Revolutionary War: French and Spanish forces lift the Great Siege of Gibraltar. 1795 – The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified. 1807 – Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon finds Bennigsen's Russian forces taking a stand at Eylau. After bitter fighting, the French take the town, but the Russians resume the battle the next day. 1812 – The strongest in a series of earthquakes strikes New Madrid, Missouri. 1813 – In the action of 7 February 1813 near the Îles de Los, the frigates Aréthuse and Amelia batter each other, but neither can gain the upper hand. 1819 – Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles leaves Singapore after just taking it over, leaving it in the hands of William Farquhar. 1842 – Battle of Debre Tabor: Ras Ali Alula, Regent of the Emperor of Ethiopia defeats warlord Wube Haile Maryam of Semien. 1854 – A law is approved to found the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Lectures started October 16, 1855. 1863 – HMS Orpheus sinks off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189. 1894 – The Cripple Creek miner's strike, led by the Western Federation of Miners, begins in Cripple Creek, Colorado, United States. 1898 – Dreyfus affair: Émile Zola is brought to trial for libel for publishing J'Accuse…! 1900 – Second Boer War: British troops fail in their third attempt to lift the Siege of Ladysmith. 1900 – A Chinese immigrant in San Francisco falls ill to bubonic plague in the first plague epidemic in the continental United States. 1904 – A fire begins in Baltimore, Maryland;[12] it destroys over 1,500 buildings in 30 hours. 1940 – The second full-length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premieres. 1943 – World War II: Imperial Japanese Navy forces complete the evacuation of Imperial Japanese Army troops from Guadalcanal during Operation Ke, ending Japanese attempts to retake the island from Allied forces in the Guadalcanal Campaign. 1944 – World War II: In Anzio, Italy, German forces launch a counteroffensive during the Allied Operation Shingle. 1951 – Korean War: More than 700 suspected communist sympathizers are massacred by South Korean forces. 1962 – The United States bans all Cuban imports and exports. 1974 – Grenada gains independence from the United Kingdom. 1979 – Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since either was discovered. 1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B Mission: Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). 1986 – Twenty-eight years of one-family rule end in Haiti, when President Jean-Claude Duvalier flees the Caribbean nation. 1990 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agrees to give up its monopoly on power. 1991 – Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is sworn in. 1991 – The Troubles: The Provisional IRA launches a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street in London, the headquarters of the British government. 1992 – The Maastricht Treaty is signed, leading to the creation of the European Union. 1995 – Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan. 1999 – Crown Prince Abdullah becomes the King of Jordan on the death of his father, King Hussein. 2001 – Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-98, carrying the Destiny laboratory module to the International Space Station. 2009 – Bushfires in Victoria leave 173 dead in the worst natural disaster in Australia's history. 2012 – President Mohamed Nasheed of the Republic of Maldives resigns, after 23 days of anti-governmental protests calling for the release of the Chief Judge unlawfully arrested by the military. 2013 – The U.S. state of Mississippi officially certifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was formally ratified by Mississippi in 1995. 2014 – Scientists announce that the Happisburgh footprints in Norfolk, England, date back to more than 800,000 years ago, making them the oldest known hominid footprints outside Africa. 2016 – North Korea launches Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4 into outer space violating multiple UN treaties and prompting condemnation from around the world. 2021 – The 2021 Uttarakhand flood begins.

#Events

[chefopera7]

Best Times to Trade Forex

There are many ways to profit from forex trading, but one of the best times to trade is in the early morning hours. The European session overlaps with the US session for three hours in the early morning. This overlap creates an environment that is more liquid and volatile. Important announcements from the Federal Reserve often set the tone for the day. Additionally, more than half of global trades involve the dollar, so any event that affects the value of the dollar is likely to have a large impact on the forex market.

Other times to trade include the U.S./London overlap, which occurs from 8:00am to noon EST. The Sydney/Tokyo market overlaps with the U.S. session at two-three AM EST. These overlaps allow for big news releases to have an immediate impact on currency pairs. You should also make a point to trade USD/JPY and EUR/JPY during this overlap.

Another important aspect of timing is the number of markets in operation. Trading during the time when the most active is most beneficial is the most liquid time to trade forex. Because more than one market is open at any given time, this creates a more dynamic trading environment. This also leads to higher volatility in currency pairs. auto trade fusion forex signals of trading provides a better edge to traders, especially those who use short-term strategies.

Trading during these hours is advantageous because the NYSE shares the same time zone as London. This overlap is particularly important during the morning session. Traders often try to squeeze out a last-minute profit from the news announcements from London. In addition, the average pip movement on major currency pairs is highest during this time. Then, there are other advantages to trading during the NYSE and London sessions. While trading during the NYSE is favorable, it isn't the most optimal time to trade forex.

The best times to trade forex during spring and winter include the two-hour New York session and the Asian session. During spring, the New York session is open from 12 p.m. (GMT) to 2 a.m. in eastern time. The New York session is also open on Sunday afternoon. Individual traders and financial institutions try to regroup from a long pause. But when it comes to the Asian session, you'll find that the Asian session is a bit more active.

As for Mondays, they are also not the best times to trade in forex. In general, Mondays and Tuesdays are less volatile than Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, the latter two are not as liquid as they are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's best to avoid trading on Mondays and Fridays, as the forex market isn't at its peak. It is best to avoid trading during the weekend.

It's important to understand the hours of each session before beginning a trade. The best times to trade forex are when the market is most active and volatile. In the evenings and at night, it is also important to monitor the activity of popular currency pairs. Even if the market is quiet, there's still a chance for some great trades. So it's best to start your trading strategy before the market closes.

#how to trade forex #how to trade forex for beginners #best time to trade forex #forex trader jobs #forex trader salary #copy trade forex #best forex pairs to trade #how to become a forex trader #where to trade forex #how to trade forex with $100 #can you trade forex on robinhood #can you trade forex on webull #how to trade forex on thinkorswim #how to trade gold in forex #average forex trader income #can you trade forex on td ameritrade #forex smart trade #remote forex trader jobs #best time frame to trade forex #forex trader pro

[eeitonline]

United We Stand: The Need for Increased Cooperation in the Black Sea Region

by Eastern European Institute for Trade

Fostering unity is crucial for the Black Sea Region, as increased cooperation holds the key to unlocking the region’s full potential. The Black Sea Region, encompassing countries such as Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, and Turkey, shares cultural, historical, and economic ties. However, a more concerted effort to strengthen these ties and facilitate collaboration can significantly benefit all involved nations (Manoli, 2012).

The region’s strategic position at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, alongside its wealth of natural resources, provides ample opportunities for growth and development. Consequently, an integrated approach to economic cooperation is essential for regional progress (Ayça & Ümit, 2015). To this end, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) organization, founded in 1992, has aimed to transform the Black Sea into a region of peace, stability, and prosperity by promoting economic collaboration and fostering goodwill among member states (BSEC, 2020).

One key area that demands increased cooperation is energy security. The Black Sea Region is a critical energy transit corridor, with its abundant natural resources and multiple pipeline networks supplying Europe with oil and gas (EIA, 2014). Ensuring energy security through diversified supply routes and sources is vital for the region’s stability and economic growth. Enhanced collaboration between regional stakeholders can help mitigate potential disruptions and guarantee energy supplies for all countries involved (Çalışkan & Kapusuz, 2017).

Another sphere that would benefit from closer ties is trade. By removing barriers to trade, enhancing cross-border transport infrastructure, and harmonizing regulations, the region can foster economic growth and improve competitiveness (Aslund & Dabrowski, 2008). Additionally, regional countries can work together to attract foreign direct investment by providing a stable and transparent business environment. A coordinated approach to investment promotion can also help leverage the region’s strengths and address common challenges (Gotev, 2016).

Lastly, the Black Sea Region must work collectively to address the pressing issue of environmental protection. The Black Sea is a unique ecosystem that faces threats from pollution, overfishing, and climate change (BSC, 2017). By implementing joint policies, sharing best practices, and monitoring compliance, the region can effectively tackle these challenges and preserve its environment for future generations (Kıvanç & Güler, 2018).

In conclusion, the Black Sea Region stands to gain significantly from increased cooperation among its member countries. By focusing on energy security, trade, investment, and environmental protection, the region can foster economic growth, improve competitiveness, and ensure a sustainable future. United, the Black Sea Region can achieve much more than it could through individual efforts.

References:

Aslund, A., & Dabrowski, M. (2008). Challenges of globalization: Imbalances and growth. Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Ayça, A. D., & Ümit, E. (2015). The impact of BSEC on economic cooperation among member states. Procedia Economics and Finance, 23, 568–574.

BSEC. (2020). Black Sea Economic Cooperation. Sourced from http://www.bsec-organization.org

BSC. (2017). State of the Environment of the Black Sea. Sourced from http://www.blacksea-commission.org

Çalışkan, E., & Kapusuz, A. G. (2017). The importance of energy security in the Black Sea region. Perceptions, 22(2), 67–89.

EIA. (2014). Europe’s Dependence on Black Sea Energy. U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Gotev, G. (2016). Eastern Partnership countries eye closer cooperation on energy issues. Euractiv.

Kıvanç, A., & Güler, E. (2018). Environmental challenges and prospects for cooperation in the Black Sea region. Journal of Black Sea Studies, 15(59), 123–140.

Manoli, P. (2012). The dynamics of Black Sea subregionalism. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing.

Yılmaz, S., & Erdem, H. (2014). The role of BSEC in regional economic cooperation and its future potential. International Journal of Economic and Administrative Studies, 7(13), 169–198.

Read more at Eastern European Institute for Trade.

#EEIT #Eastern European Institute For Trade #Black Sea Region cooperation #Regional collaboration Eastern Europe #Black Sea Economic Cooperation #BSEC member countries #Eastern European geopolitics #Economic integration Black Sea

[easterneuropeaninstitute]

Eastern European Institute for Trade- Black Sea Nations Trade Missions & Partnership Program

The Black Sea Nations Trade Mission & Partnership Program of the Eastern European Institute for Trade brings together businesses from the Eastern European region prepared to collaborate with trade associations, specialty commercial networks, and regional economic development organizations on mutually beneficial commercial and cultural exchange projects.

#Eastern European #eastern european #Eastern European Institute for Trade

[blueiskewl]

An Ancient Cave Complex Discovered in Kyiv  

Dmytro Perov, a conservationist at Kyiv’s Center for Urban Development, told Radio Kultura that the caves were discovered next to a demolished house that Kyiv housing authorities had deemed unsafe for habitation.

Actually, Dmytro Perov followed his grandmother’s clues.  Perov’s grandmother used to talk about a large stone house next to an old cave, but no one knew its location of it. According to Perov, who had previously examined the area several times, only the front facia of the house remained, concealed by bushes.

The conservationist told reporters that he and his friends decided to go to the old house “on a small expedition to look for caves,” and they discovered an entrance. The first archaeological explorations in the Voznesensky Caves were carried out by Perov and a group of researchers from the Institute of Archaeology last Saturday. Timur Bobrovskyi, an archaeology professor at the Sofia Kyivska reserve, said he was “amazed that such a treasure was found in the center of Kyiv” after spending three hours exploring the cave.

The team discovered pottery fragments from the Late Kyivan Rus’ era, an Eastern and Northern European state that existed from the late ninth to the middle of the thirteenth century, in the cave’s northern section.

Perov wrote on Facebook that the team scoured around 40 meters (131 feet) of caves, including the lower cave complex, which he claims is twice as long as the upper passage and has a series of “radial branches.” The most significant discovery, according to Petrov, was “a set of Kyivan Rus hieroglyphs and Varangian symbols from the Early Rus period,” when the region was under the control of Varangian rulers.

While more investigation is required to confirm it, according to Dmytro Perov, they think that some of the carved symbols may date all the way back to the fifth or sixth centuries BC. He says that “animistic images of animals and graffiti” from the Varyaz period, including the rune Algiz (“chicken’s foot”), were also discovered on the walls. This was an ancient Varangian charm, a symbol of safety and longevity.

Several Hellenic Greek colonies were established on the northern coast of the Black Sea, on the Crimean Peninsula, and along the Sea of Azov between the 7th and 6th centuries BC. The steppe hinterland was occupied by the Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians who traded with the Greek/Roman colonies after a period of control by the Roman empire during the first millennium BC.

Rurik, a Varangian or Viking prince, established the Kyivan state in the latter part of the ninth century. Up until the 13th century, his descendants established and controlled a global trade route to the west. However, the Kyivan state was made up of East Slavic, Norse, and Finnic peoples, making it difficult to determine who left the carved symbols on the cave walls.

#An Ancient Cave Complex Discovered in Kyiv #Late Kyivan Rus’ era #archeology #archeolgst #ancient artifacts #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #ukraine #ukrainian history

[headtopictimes]

BATTERED BY SANCTIONS AND SHAREHOLDER EXITS, IS END NIGH FOR RUSSIAN ‘SPY BANK’ IN HUNGARY?

The clock is ticking for the Budapest-based International Investment Bank as its desperate search for cash or new shareholders looks increasingly hopeless.

February could prove to be a defining month in the more than 50-year history of the Russian-led International Investment Bank (IIB) – one which a growing number of experts point to as signalling the beginning of the end for this strangest and murkiest of financial institutions.

A casualty of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, the IIB’s operations have been holed by the international financial sanctions imposed on Russia and the exit of several shareholders from Central and Southeast Europe since the invasion. This has further undermined the Hungarian government’s balancing act of cosying up to Russia, for example by controversially allowing the IIB to establish its new headquarters in Budapest, while also acting as a member of the EU and NATO.

The bad news began on February 17 with a curt statement from the development bank about a “criminal hacker attack” that had resulted “in an unauthorized mass fake email distribution on behalf of certain IIB officials.”

This was then followed on February 25 by some ominous-sounding comments from Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, who in response to journalist enquiries about the viability of the IIB admitted that “it’s in an extremely difficult situation [and] I don’t know if it’s possible to save the bank.”

On February 27, the independent Hungarian news outlet Hvg.hu, citing internal IIB documents obtained through the anonymous hack, said a senior IIB executive had warned in a letter to the bank’s management in mid-December that the bank could soon face insolvency. The assets of the IIB had been frozen by Euroclear – a Belgium-based financial services company that specialises in settling domestic and cross-border securities transactions – after the Russian invasion. In the letter, the executive predicted “such a severe deficit for the first quarter of this year that even the sale of the loan portfolio would not be enough to make up for it”.

Indeed, the leaked documents purportedly show the bank had already begun casting around for help. According to another letter, the veracity of which hvg.hu could not attest to, the Hungarian minister of economic development, Marton Nagy, who represents Hungary on the board of the IIB, lobbied the Belgian finance minister to unfreeze the assets last autumn. But the bank’s hopes were promptly dashed when, in another letter seen by hvg.hu, the Belgian Finance Ministry dismissed the request, arguing that board members were believed to be connected to the Russian government, hence are subject to the European sanctions.

Banking secrecy

While the IIB continues to insist the leaked documents are “fake”, what’s not in doubt are the bank’s well-documented difficulties since Russia’s invasion.

The bank, often referred to as the “Russian spy bank” in the international media due to its association with spies both past and present (the chairman Nikolay Kosov is son of one of the Soviet Union’s most famous spies Yelena Kosova) is a strange creature.

Set up originally in 1970 as a bank for the Soviet Comecon to foster trade and development, it went into hibernation for two decades after 1990, but was revived by Putin in the 2010s, some claim after Cyprus ceased to be a safe haven for connected Russians and oligarchs looking to stash money abroad.

Reviving the bank’s capital through its existing shareholders from the former Eastern Bloc, the bank styled itself as a smaller version of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and was supposedly engaged “in medium- and long-term financing of projects aimed at supporting the economic development of its member states that would have a significant positive social, economic and environmental impact.”

“The IIB has an authorised capital of 2 billion euros, which makes it insignificant as a bank,” Andras Racz, a renowned Russia-expert and non-resident fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), tells BIRN.

Since the bank’s asset are not audited, nobody really knows how much money IIB really handles, but the bank certainly has two huge assets. “It can handle cash, which raises the suspicion of large-scale money laundering. And its Hungarian headquarters enjoy unusually wide immunity: it can invite as many people as it desires who then can travel freely in the [EU’s visa-free] Schengen Area,” Racz explains.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the IIB’s troubles began almost immediately. Besides its assets being frozen by the EU, it was downgraded to junk by the credit rating agencies Fitch and Moody’s. Then four shareholders – Czechia, Slovakia, Romania and most recently Bulgaria – announced they would quit the bank, making Hungary the only EU country staying on board.

“At the very least, after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the IIB should have been kicked out of Hungary,” Agnes Vadai, an MP and deputy chairman of the opposition Democratic Coalition, tells BIRN. “But, apparently, the Orban government does not want to take any decision that would be uncomfortable for the Russians, they would rather do harm to their own country.”

Hungary has now become the second biggest shareholder in the IIB with 25.2 per cent behind Russia at 45.4 per cent. Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam control around 5 per cent of the shares. With Romania and Bulgaria’s withdrawal later this year, Russia risks becoming the majority shareholder, meaning it will qualify as a Russian bank and fall under EU sanctions.

The mounting problems were discussed at an IIB board meeting on January 30. The bank reported that the “IIB and Russia agreed to gradually reduce the country’s share in the paid-in capital”. This would mean an automatic increase in the shares of other IIB members states and open up the possibility for others to join.

For some, the logical choice would be Serbia. In 2021, the Serbian government signed a memorandum of understanding to become an IIB shareholder, but there is no evidence it has bought any shares. Imre Laszloczki, deputy chair of IIB’s management board, told the business weekly Figyelo at the end of 2021 that Serbia joining would be a natural consequence of the IIB’s European expansion.

“With regard to Serbia, we have carefully examined the capital market, geographical, social and economic aspects, and we can say that this accession is a very logical step in all respects,” Laszloczki said.

BIRN contacted the IIB and the Serbian government for comment on Serbia becoming a shareholder but received no answer. An insider close to the Serbian government told BIRN that Belgrade is dragging its feet over joining the IIB as it tries not to alienate EU countries at a delicate time in Kosovo-Serbia negotiations. Becoming a member of the IIB would further hurt Belgrade’s image and bring very little in return.

In any case, “Serbia could not save the IIB,” Racz says. “It does not have the money to buy up enough shares, and as a non-EU country, it would not strengthen the IIB’s presence in the EU.”

Theoretically, Hungary could increase its shareholding, but the country’s Finance Ministry is avoiding the issue, in public at least. First, Hungary’s budget finances are in a dire state; second, officials are well aware that any money invested in the IIB is far from a safe bet. The downbeat comments from Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, are seen by many as a move by the government to distance itself from the bank’s fate, though there will still be questions to answer about the 74 billion forints (200 million euros) of public money that the government has already invested in it.

Empty coffers

Experience shows that leaving the IIB is easier said than done. The countries that have withdrawn are finding out that they might have to kiss goodbye to their money – leaked internal documents and emails from the hack published by a group of investigative outlets on Monday apparently show how the bank’s management plotted to avoid paying out any money to the four withdrawing EU member states.

The Slovakian Finance Ministry told the Hungarian daily Nepszava it has been notified by the IIB that it is facing difficulty repaying its money and it could take up to 10 years. The Czech Finance Ministry has complained about a hostile attitude from the IIB and has not ruled out turning to the courts.

“Countries which joined the IIB should have known better,” Racz says. “Poland, which left the IIB after the democratic transition, did not get a dime back. There is simply no payback guarantee in the bank’s regulations.”

For many observers, it is still a mystery as to why the Hungarian government, which left the IIB during the first Orban government in 2000 over “a lack of transparency”, decided to rejoin it in 2015.

When Orban sanctioned the IIB setting up its new headquarters in Budapest in 2018, rumour had it that the Russians initially had their sights set on a building opposite the US embassy in downtown Budapest, but following loud protests from Washington, the Hungarian government offered the IIB a posh building on the other side of the Danube.

The suspicions about espionage that swirl around the bank have never gone away despite management’s strenuous denials. At the bank’s launch press conference in downtown Budapest in June 2019, Kosov, the bank’s chairman, said: “There are no spies in the bank. There are 110 of us, we know each other well. There are no Russian spies, and although we have nine nations represented, there are no spies from other countries either.”

Not all journalists present were convinced. After the press conference, several joked that the background material distributed should be used cautiously, especially the flash drive containing information about the bank.

“It was proven that Hungary allowed in spies under the framework of an earlier golden visa program,“ the opposition politician Vadai recalls. “It is highly possible that a new spy centre was set up under the auspices of the IIB.”

Vadai also points to the Russian employees of the IIB enjoying diplomatic immunity and moving freely inside not only Hungary but elsewhere in Europe, a clear risk to European security.

Orban’s government is now in a bind. Allowing the bank to headquarter in Budapest has harmed Hungary’s image among EU and NATO allies, and the country is rapidly developing a reputation as a hub for Russian spying in Europe. Now the money could be gone, too.

Nor would getting rid of the IIB be a simple fix, even if there were the political will. The so-called IIB law – rumoured to have been written in Moscow but passed with a nod by the Hungarian parliament – advocates no Hungarian authority over the bank. The IIB is not subject to any form of financial or regulatory supervision or control, nor it is obliged to implement any form of accounting standards, and its property and assets are immune to any form of legal process. Moreover, the premises are inviolable and the Hungarian authorities cannot enter the building to perform any official duties, the law states.

It seems that the Hungarians will be stuck with the IIB – even if the bank cannot pursue any meaningful financial activity – until the Russians themselves finally decide to leave.

Vadai thinks it’s simpler, though. “All it would take is a law to revoke the agreement about the headquarters – parliament could pass it in a day,” she says, though adding that, for some reason, the highest echelons of the ruling Fidesz party seem to have a vested interest in maintaining it.

[mariacallous]

Last week, amid all the turmoil in the Tory party, there was a brief flurry of interest in the emergence as a candidate for prime minister of the man more than one British reporter referred to as “the Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis”. Lewis was not the Northern Ireland secretary. He wasn’t even the previous holder of the office – he was the one before that.

Likewise, when Rishi Sunak was eventually selected, at least one distinguished British commentator proclaimed him the first person of Asian heritage to become prime minister of a European country. Actually, the first such leader was Leo Varadkar, who became taoiseach in Dublin five years ago.

These are minor slips, and all the easier to forgive when political events are following the vertiginous logic of a fever dream. But they do serve as a reminder that the so-called border down the Irish Sea is not just a trade barrier. There is also a haze of psychological detachment – keeping track of who’s in office in Dublin and Belfast is not, for most people in England, all that important.

Thus, when the actual Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris (the seventh since the Brexit referendum), announced on Friday that he is calling a new election for the devolved assembly, his decision scarcely registered above zero on the Richter scale at Westminster. Small earthquake in Belfast – not many dead. Who really cares that the election will fit precisely Ambrose Bierce’s definition of a road as the path “along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go”?

The politics of Northern Ireland are tiresome enough without this exercise in electoral futility. No one expects the outcome to be significantly different to that of the assembly elections last May. No one believes that the Democratic Unionist party will have any incentive, in the tribal atmosphere of a new election, to soften its insistence that it will not allow the assembly to function or an executive to be formed until the Northern Ireland protocol of the Brexit withdrawal agreement is scrapped. Unless something else happens, they will all be back again in the same frigid halls of Stormont, bedecked perhaps with boughs of holly, but with no Christmas cheer to lighten the political gloom.

Perhaps, then, there really is no reason why anyone on the eastern shores of the Irish Sea should be bothered by it all. Except that the very pointlessness of the election does make a bigger point. For what is going on in this theatre of the absurd is another episode of the Brexit show. The collapse of Northern Ireland’s political institutions, and the breakdown of the internal arrangements envisaged in the Good Friday agreement, are predictable consequences of the DUP’s crazy zeal for a hard Brexit.

Northern Ireland has often been the place where the detritus of British politics – old sectarian attitudes, old colonial habits of mind – washes up and lingers. This is now happening again with Brexit. The great revolution of 2016 has become almost unspeakable in British politics. Boris Johnson’s boosterish babble is silenced; Keir Starmer has excised the B-word from his vocabulary. There is a deep desire not to talk about it. But Northern Ireland is where its political effects are unavoidable.

At the heart of the political crisis in Northern Ireland is the DUP’s inability to take responsibility for the effects of its passionate embrace of the Brexit ultras in London. For the DUP gave birth to the protocol. Its horror is repugnance at the face of its own child. It is this weird reality that makes Northern Ireland currently ungovernable under the arrangements agreed in 1998.

There were – and still are – only three ways to deal with the consequences of Northern Ireland being forced, against the will of its people, out of the EU. One is a hard border on the island of Ireland, which is unacceptable. The second is what Theresa May ended up with in the infamous “backstop” – all of the UK would in effect remain in the single market and the customs union, thus avoiding the emergence of different trading regimes on the two sides of the Irish Sea. The DUP got this outcome from May. The party rewarded her by helping to bring her down and put Boris Johnson in power.

Because of this insanity, there was only one remaining possibility: a so-called border down the Irish Sea. The DUP hates it – and, from a unionist perspective, it is quite right to do so. But by helping to bring down May, it made it entirely inevitable. This, of course, it can never admit. It is left to rail against its own creation and to use the only power it now has, which is to paralyse politics in Northern Ireland.

Instead of calling a patently purposeless election, the British government has to face its own responsibilities in all of this. By threatening to tear up the protocol, and hence resile from the withdrawal agreement, it has merely encouraged the DUP to believe that its historic error can be wished away. It is, in effect, suggesting that the unfortunate people of Northern Ireland can solve the mess of Brexit by voting in a useless election.

They can’t. But Rishi Sunak can – if he faces down the Brexit ultras, recommits himself to obeying international law, and engages in proper negotiations with the EU to make the protocol work better. It is the first test of whether he can begin to make Britain a serious country again.

[globsynbusinessschool]

Kolkata's Top 10 Business Management Colleges for 2024 Batch

Gone are the days when pursuing a general course was enough to access a range of promising career prospects. To advance in one's job, it is, now nearly, obligatory to enroll in a professional program. In terms of professional education, business management programs have emerged as a beacon of a "bright career." So, for those interested in pursuing a BBA/MBA/PGDM in the city, here is a list of the top 10 business management institutes in Kolkata.

Why Pursue Business Management Courses in 2024?

A degree in Business & Management Studies will prepare you for a career in practically any sector. Furthermore, the advent of AI, ML, social media, and so on are just a few areas that have and will business management. Consequently, there is a greater demand for management professionals across diverse job roles in every sector.

If you're still wondering why to pursue a Business Management program in 2024, here's our take.

Lucrative career options

Handsome pay package

Personal growth- soft and hard skills

Better networking opportunities

Development of leadership qualities 

Build own business 

Get industry insights, etc.

The Top 10 Business Management Colleges in Kolkata for 2024 Batch

If you want to pursue a business management course in the coming year, here is a list of Kolkata's top 10 business management colleges for the 2024 batch..

IIM, Calcutta

Since its inception in 1961, the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC) has remained the premier B-School for earning an MBA degree. The first of the country's IIMs, IIMC, is ranked fourth by NIRF (2023). This business school is most renowned for its two-year full-time standard MBA program. Aside from the MBA program, the IIMC provides an array of other postgraduate courses. Due to its educational legacy, top-tier faculty members, attractive placement options, and accreditation by AACSB, AMBA, and EQUIS, IIMC remains one of the most sought-after B-Schools among management aspirants in India. The institute will accept a valid CAT score in the 96-99 percentile range or higher.

Accreditation: AACSB, AMBA, and EQUIS

Membership: India of Community of European Management Schools (CEMS)

Accepted Entrance Exams: CAT/GMAT

IIFT, Kolkata

IIFT, or the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, is an autonomous business school in Kolkata. One of the premier business schools in the eastern part of India, IIFT was founded by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry as an autonomous body in 1963. IIFT has risen in tandem with IIM, Calcutta, and is now regarded as one of the top B-Schools for pursuing several MBA programs such as International Business (available full-time, weekend, and online) and Business Analytics. In 2002, IIFT was designated as a "Deemed to be University," and its key areas of study include International Business Management and Strategy.

Accreditation: AACSB

Accepted Entrance Exams: CAT/GMAT 

Calcutta University- Dept. of Business Management

One of the oldest universities in India, Calcutta University established its Dept. of Business Management in 1976 with the nomenclature of Master of Business Management (MBM) in 2013. Afterwards, the name was changed to Master of Business Administration (MBA). This programme is offered at the Post Graduate Department in the Alipore Campus of Calcutta University with dual specializations in areas like marketing, human resource management, operations management, system analysis, etc. The University of Calcutta has been ranked 12 under the University category by NIRF 2023 and accredited with a Grade A by NAAC. 

Accreditation: NAAC

Affiliation: UGC, AIU, and ACU

Accepted Entrance Exams: CAT/MAT/XAT

Globsyn Business School

Globsyn Business School (GBS) in Kolkata shines bright in the midst of big names is Globsyn Business School (GBS), Kolkata. Standing tall on 8 acres of land on the outskirts of the city, GBS offers 2 PGDM programmes, one general and the other one in Business Analytics, and one MBA (Global) programme in International Business. The PGDM pogrammes are AICTE accredited while the Global MBA course is offered in collaboration with the Malaysia University of Science and Technology or MUST. Along with imparting theoretical lessons, GBS also focuses on providing students with essential industry exposure via its Summer Internship Program. 

Accreditation: AICTE

Accepted Entrance Exams: CAT/MAT/XAT/CMAT/ATMA

IMI, Kolkata

The International Management Institute (IMI) in Kolkata is a branch of the International Management Institute in New Delhi. IMI, Kolkata is embraced by lush nature and has cutting-edge infrastructure. The institutions have AICTE, NBA, and AIU accreditations, and were ranked 70th among the Top MBA Colleges in India by NIRF 2023. They offer three management courses: Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM), Fellowship Programme in Management (FPM), and Executive Fellow Programme in Management (EFPM). 

Accreditation: AICTE, NBA, AIU, AACSB, and AMBA

Accepted Entrance Exams: CAT/XAT/MAT

Praxis Business School

Praxis Business School, Kolkata offers a full-time, 2-year, PGDM course approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). Within India, this business school has been a forerunner in the domains of Data Analytics, Data Science, and Data Engineering. Prospective applicants must take and pass the CAT, XAT, CMAT, MAT, ATMA, GMAT, or GRE tests to be accepted to Praxis's PGDM program.

Accreditation: AICTE

Accepted Entrance Exams: CAT/XAT/CMAT/MAT/ATMA/GMAT/GRE

IISWBM

Like the IIMC and the Department of Business Management at Calcutta University, IISWBM is one of the oldest management schools in the nation, not just in Kolkata. India's first management institute, IISWBM, Kolkata was established in 1953 by the University of Calcutta. The B-School, one of the most prestigious schools in West Bengal, is accredited by the AICTE and affiliated with the University of Calcutta and offers a variety of postgraduate programs in addition to MBA courses on various specializations. 

Accreditation: AICTE

Affiliation: University of Calcutta

Accepted Entrance Exams: MAT/CAT/CMAT/JMAT/GATE/GMAT

Indian Statistical Institute (ISI)

With the mention of ISI, most of us conjure terms like statistics, mathematics, etc., which is not wrong. However, a lot of us might not be aware that ISI, jointly with IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta, offers a PG Diploma in Business Analytics (PGDBA). This institution has received accreditation from the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MOSPI) and recognition from the AICTE. In order to be admitted to ISI's PG Diploma in BA program, applicants must have earned at least 60% in their B. Tech., B.E., M.Sc., or M.Com. program.

Accreditation: AICTE and MOSPI

Accepted Entrance Exams: CAT/GMAT

Institute of Engineering and Management (IEM)

IEM has succeeded in the fiercely competitive city's B-School market. IEM is accredited by the AICTE and NBA and has received a Grade A designation from the NAAC with a score of 3.25. The B-School is associated with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology (MAKAUT), located in West Bengal, and provides both PGDM and MBA programs. These days, aspirants in management are increasingly drawn to IEM's MBA in Business Analytics in addition to other specializations.

Accreditation: AICTE

Affiliation: MAKAUT

Accepted Entrance Exams: CAT/MAT/JEMAT

ARMY Institute of Management (AIM)

Not just meant for ARMY wards but also for general category students, AIM, Kolkata offers a two-year, full-time MBA program with dual specializations. This B-School was established in 1997 by the Army Welfare Education Society (AWES) and is affiliated with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University. To get admission to AIM, one needs to possess a valid CAT scorecard. Having stated that, if an applicant has a current JEMAT Rank card and an MAKAUT Allotment card, they may be eligible for direct admission to AIM.

Accreditation: AICTE and NAAC

Affiliation: MAKAUT

Accepted Entrance Exams: CAT

Conclusion

In conclusion, enrolling in business management courses in 2024 will provide you with a dynamic, pertinent education that will give you the know-how you need to succeed in a constantly evolving corporate environment. To fully reap the benefits of any management degree, it is imperative to make an informed decision while choosing the appropriate business management school. Hence, the list above could be a great starting point for potential business management students to learn more about Kolkata's top 10 business schools for 2024.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is Kolkata a good place to study business management?

Of course, yes. Business management colleges in Kolkata provide high-quality education as well as lucrative job possibilities and industry connections. 

What are the top 5 MBA colleges in Kolkata?

Here are the top 5 MBA colleges in Kolkata:

IIMC

IIFT

IISWBM

Globsyn Business School

IMI

What entrance exams are accepted in top business schools in Kolkata?

Top business schools in the city accept a valid score in any of the following exams:

CT/MAT/XAT/CMAT/JEMAT/etc. 

Which is the oldest business management college in Kolkata?

IISWBM is the oldest management school in Kolkata, along with being the first institute in India to offer an MBA degree.

Is CAT mandatory for an MBA?

For admission to their MBA programs, most top business schools accept a legitimate CAT score. It is, however, not the sole exam that is accepted. Several B-Schools also accept valid scores on tests such as the MAT/XT/CMAT/ATMA, among others.

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