Russia's growing clout in the ex-Soviet region is keenly felt in Latvia.
As the print edition of The Economist notes this week, Russia's neo-imperalist ambitions in the ex-Soviet space have been wrecked on the rocks of reality.
Yet East German women, like many women in the ex-Soviet bloc, tended to embrace change more readily than their menfolk.
Overall demand for Russian gas is outstripping supply; suppressing demand in the ex-Soviet states should make more gas available for export to the more lucrative European market.
Still, his decision to accept the results and to respect a constitutional limit of two terms in office made for a peaceful, democratic transfer of power, a rarity in the ex-Soviet Union.
A better relationship on arms control (including missile defence) and Afghanistan is desirable.But America appears unwilling to cede to the Kremlin the privileged role it seeks in the ex-Soviet states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
More than half the 20 countries with the lowest level of satisfaction with health are in the ex-Soviet Union or eastern Europe though in statistical terms they seem relatively well off.
Lukashenko, who has been in power in the ex-Soviet republic since 1994 and is running for a fifth consecutive term in an election in October, had been motivated by humane principles, his press service said.
A British tycoon is identified by US diplomats as the man at the centre of one of America's worst recent corruption scandals, in which large bribes were allegedly handed over in the ex-Soviet state of Kazakhstan.
"Russia wants to sustain its market position in the whole of Europe and especially in the ex-Soviet bloc countries," said Agata Loskot, a Russian expert at the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw.
Tajik is the sole state language in Tajikistan although Russian is constitutionally recognised as a language of "inter-ethnic communication" and is widely spoken in the ex-Soviet republic, especially in the capital Dushanbe and among the country's educated classes.
