Arnold Platon
@Arnold_Platon
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Cartography and data-viz enthusiast. “Hobby-etymologist”. 🇪🇺 Europhile of multiple identities 🇷🇴/🇭🇺 |✸☽︎|. Immigrant 🇫🇷. Was an architect once.
Nice, France
Joined November 2016
My talk at #EUDataviz, about the data gathering and harmonizing work that went into creating the first detailed, pan-EU maps of the European Elections 🗺️, including the one published with @zeitonline. And why it shouldn't be as complicated as it was!. 🔗
"When EU elections happen, maps are either simple…" #EUDataVIZ showing the work of @juliustroeger and team
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There is something in this painting that touches my Eastern-European heart deeply.
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Vaccination 💉 starts today all across the European Union 🇪🇺. Thread 🧵 I'll be updating throughout the day on the first person in each EU member state to get the Covid-19 vaccine 👇.
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@SevaUT olympians in 1896: I'm just a Greek water-carrier. My former superior from when I was in the army convinced me to sign up. I just won the first modern marathon race.
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If the Washington Post was covering the 🇮🇪 Irish War of Independence about a century ago like they are covering the situation in 🇺🇦 Ukraine today. 😒
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There have been various things happening in south-eastern 🇷🇴 Romania with regards to the war in Ukraine. Especially related to railways and ports, mostly for the export of grain. A mildly chaotic, slow moving thread🧵 bringing various info together. 1/?.
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Whan talking about trade, it's a mistake to look only at 🇺🇸 US vs 🇨🇳 China. The 🇪🇺 European Union is also a trade power. I took the liberty of remaking these maps in the same style as @ftdata, to show how including the EU changes our perspective. CC @APHClarkson @jburnmurdoch
How China took over from US. Two brilliant charts from Financial Times (animated version behind paywall):
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Out of curiosity, a comparisson of minimum wages of Eastern European countries in the year of their 🇪🇺 accession:. 🇧🇬 92€.🇷🇴 114€.🇱🇻 121€.🇱🇹 125€.🇸🇰 148€.🇪🇪 159€.🇵🇱 177€.🇭🇺 189€.🇨🇿 207€.🇭🇷 372€.🇸🇮 471€.
Elargir encore l'UE sans harmonisation sociale, fiscale & écologique préalable entrainerait un dumping sans précédent. ❌Le salaire minimum est de 140€ en 🇺🇦, 220€ en🇲🇩 : ce sera une incitation aux délocalisations !. Nous refusons cette concurrence du tous contre tous !
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@andrewmichta Cyrillic is a perfectly valid and beautiful script. Not everything has to be Latin scripted to be modern. Also shout out to Bulgarians, who joined the EU and kept the Cyrillic alphabet. 😎.
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@darioingiusto @CarrefourFrance @LeclercBonPlan @Monoprix Appartement il y a quelque chose similaire chez Monoprix:. "Solidarité Covid-19" 👇
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Me: *moves to France to earn a higher salary and enjoy a better quality of life*. Galaxy brained analyst: this is just like being shot in the back of the head by the SS at the edge of a forest. I am very smart. 🤦♂️.
We definitely do not talk enough about the insane depopulation of Eastern Europe since 1990. Wars, aging, and emigration. In 1990, Ukraine & Turkey were even. Turkey is now double Ukraine's pop. For many countries this depopulation literally surpasses the death tolls of WWII.
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Having executed the Ceaușescus a day earlier, on 26 December, 34 years ago, the Council of the National Salvation Front in Bucharest 🇷🇴 issued "Decree-Law Nº 1" repealing the most hated laws of Romanian communist regime. A short thread on some of these laws.1/🧵
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@StatisticUrban It's because of how the ethnic identities were ordered in the last census. British came before English so ppl in England chose the top option. In 2011 English was first on the list, before British, and this is what the map looked like. (London stays British though)
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Romanian Defense Ministry uses Chad flag emoji in tweet 🫣.
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Opa, Dasymetric Style! 🗺️🕺. The 2019 🇪🇺 European Elections mapped (by winner & turnout), using the 1km² population grid from @EU_Eurostat to exclude uninhabited areas. Third attempt to take into consideration only populated areas, because "land doesn't vote" 1/
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@Goodtweet_man "ancestral superfood". Meanwhile the ancestral societies: "Yo don't give babies honey. Wait a little".
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I know it's been 11 years of being refused Schengen membership but, I don't know why, this time it feels less like politics, and more like straight up pettiness. Especially given Croatia's positive treatment (good for them btw). Just a sad day, for the EU as much as for 🇷🇴🇧🇬.
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Reminds of a joke:.A Frenchman, a Brit & a Transylvanian Hungarian in the 80s are in a contest on having the worst spelling. 🇫🇷: We write "Eaux" but say it "Ó". 🇬🇧: We write "Cholmondeley" but say "Čomlí". TR HU: That's nothing. We write "Târgu-Mureș" but say "Marosvásárhely"
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Reminder that all the Eastern NATO members bordering Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova meet the 2% "protection fee" that Trump is whining about so unless Putin amphibiously invades Bulgaria, we're theoretically covered. (I know we ain't but still, problem's further West)
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Fun fact: no dialect group of Hungarian is entirely within the borders of Hungary, and 3 dialect groups are entirely outside it, including the one I grew up speaking. Another, more detailed map 🗺️
Dialects of Hungarian language.
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@ui_na_dumtsi @images_ai Romanian here. First reaction was: "Of course it exists!". Thrn I saw the user's name. .
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@Fenianmoder More context on how that map was made. Old link yo the project is dead unfortunately.
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I'm so incredibly proud of this!.Here are some screenshots of the general view, the last 3 European Elections plus 2024 in "inhabited areas only" mode. 🇪🇺🗺️🗳️. (Of note: German color scheme is used, so black is center-right and light blue = right wing.)
You might remember how in 2019 we created, together with @zeitonline, the first detailed map of the European Elections 🇪🇺🗳️. This year, we did it again. Mapped 83+ thousand administrative units, in detail, with results for 2024, 2019 and 2014, by EP groups and parties 🗺️
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Morocco, whose Arabic name means "Kingdom of the West" gets its name in most languages from the city of Marrakech, except Turkey, where it's called Fas (after Fez). Austria's name in Czech (Rakousko) and Slovak (Rakúsko) comes from the border town/castle of Raabs an der Thaya
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Eastern Europeans be like:."Can't believe Putin would do such a thing! Just lie about energy supplies. "
If there was any doubt, it is now a full-blown economic war for the entire continent. Putin had always said in the past that energy supplies would be safe. But they are clearly not.
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This reminds me a bit of that time I posted a wedding photo (taken in the 30s) of my great-grandparents & someone asked me if they were Muslims, because the old women were wearing headscarves. They were Catholic Hungarians and there was a priest in the photo. 😅
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And why is this important? Cause Galați is a mixed river+maritime port. So 🇺🇦 grain can come via broad gauge rail directly to port, and can be loaded into transport ships, without other time consuming steps (rail gauge change, or truck intermediaries). 8/.
The points on this screenshot are the cargo ships that are currently waiting to enter the Danube through Sulina 🇷🇴 Romania. They come to collect grain and sunflower oil from 🇺🇦Ukraine in the Danube ports. Some have been waiting for almost 3 weeks.
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The swearing in ceremony of the new 🏴 Scottish Parliament: 🗺️ map of oaths and affirmations taken languages other than English. Some patterns: Doric around Aberdeen, Gaelic mostly in the Highlands and Islands, Urdu in Glasgow.
Arabic, British Sign Language, Canadian French, Doric, English, Gaelic, German, Orcadian, Punjabi, Scots, Urdu, Welsh and Zimbabwean Shona. Fun day at the swearing-in ceremony at the Scottish Parliament!
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@lingerie_addict There's a great Hans Rosling TEDtalk about how his grandma reacted to the family's first washing machine: took a chair, sat down in front and just watched the magic happen. I think about this from time to time.
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🇫🇷 LFI youth wing member:. "We don't give a fk about Eastern [European] countries, they're all fascists". As someone said in the QT a perfect distillation of French far-left paternalism and arrogance towards CEE countries.
Osef des pays de l'est, ils sont tous fachos.
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I'm vehemently against kicking Hungary out of EU, because it's a profoundly regionally destabilizing idea, but I'm 100% for chocking the Fidesz regime financially. Hungarians are pro-EU in polls, but it's time to choose between Orban's theatrics and EU funds.
2⃣FREEZE ALL EU FUNDS: EU-Commission used rule of law conditionality to freeze 5.8bn Euros of EU funds because of rule of law violations. Legal experts say: not enough. 100% suspension of EU funds would be imperative. Top being lenient with Orban. Do it!.
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There is a general trend I see, as the war is accelerating the integration the whole region between 🇺🇦 Odesa, southern 🇲🇩 & 🇷🇴 Galați-Brăila, as well as the maritime port of Constanța further away. I expect news of river port upgrades in the future. 10/.
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Keep thinking of this document, where 27 Roma families, that is 117 human beings in total, adults and children, were sold between two wealthy individuals in mid-19th century Moldavia, for the price of about a head of cattle each. Each one's name recorded. Translation below 👇.
Speaking of selling Roma people: a list of 27 Roma families sold in 1841 Moldova.
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@ziontree There is also the TedTalk where he tells how his grandma, who'd done laundry by hand all her life, just sat down and watched the machine do it's first ever washing cycle.
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But given that the state rail company mobilized teams of workers from the nearby counties, it was clear they wanted to finish the line earlier (the political pressure must be immense). And they actually managed to open the main section 1 month early. 7/.
Romania reopens Soviet-era rail line to aid 🇺🇦grain sales. The rail link connects the Danube River port of Galati to Ukraine to help boost vital grain exports. Ukraine exports grain from Black Sea ports, but they’ve been blocked by 🇷🇺invasion-Bloomberg
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🇪🇸 Spain. Araceli Hidalgo, 96 y.o. from the Los Olmos nursing home in Guadalajara. Second person was a nurse there named Mónica Tapias. Thx @AlmagroSchool 🙏.
🔴 ÚLTIMA HORA. Ya se ha aplicado la primera dosis de la vacuna en nuestro país. Araceli, de 96 años, es la primera mujer vacunada contra la COVID-19 en España #EspecialVacunaRTVE.
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@Timmeko @NicholasDanfort It's not an issue of color ramp. It's an issue that the fundamental premise of the map (that language is a good proxy for ethnicity and implicitly loyalty) is deeply flawed, and in essence a 🇷🇺 propaganda point.
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So basically the vote went (assuming 58/42 split, and rounding):. 25% for Le Pen 👈🚨.17% against Macron.30% for Macron.28% against Le Pen. Worth keeping in mind when people assume / affirm 42% of voters are for Le Pen and her ideas.
- 47% of people who voted for Macron did so to block Le Pen.- 41% of people who voted for Le Pen did so to block Macron
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Every official EU 🇪🇺 account tweeting this like it's some big achievement should really pipe it down. We fulfilled the technical criteria 12 years ago, we got air and sea (lol, how many Schengen boat trips go to Romania?) begrudgingly, for March, and land is still uncertain.
Today is a day of great pride for Bulgaria and Romania. The decision to lift internal air and sea border checks with 🇧🇬🇷🇴 is a major step forward for them and for the Schengen area. Both have worked hard for it. They both deserve it. They will make Schengen even stronger.
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Also an very interesting math problem a lot of people might now know (and which shows why trains are preferrable to trucks). To fill a grain ship 🚢 bound for export, you need either:. 40 trains 🚂 = 1 🚢.50 river barges 🛥️ = 1 🚢.1000 trucks 🚚 = 1 🚢. 15/.
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Half-arsed headline. Should've been:. "Small Ex-Soviet Satellite State Goes Hunting for Arms for Big Ex-Soviet Socialist Republic as the Big Ex-British Union of Colonies dithers on aid".
The “small ex-Soviet satellite state” referred to here is the Czech Republic. What the hell — did this Wall Street Journal headline writer just wake up after 30 years in a coma?! 😂
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🇵🇹 Portugal. António Sarmento, 65 y.o. doctor and director of infectious disease services at the São João Hospital, in Porto. (thx @pedroCsimoes 👍).
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@vanillatary Reading these "Catholicism - serious business 🇻🇦" posts always make me smile. Half my family were/are Catholic, but it's interesting how they related to their Catholicism.
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The languages used in 🇪🇺 @EU_Commission President’s annual State of the European Union speeches 💬 #SOTEU . A thread 🧵 1/
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@dreamfyre0 @mealslaw @_rcx16 @frijoliz Ridiculous for anyone aware of what rural living was/is like. Women did field work, like everyone else. Maybe certain tasks were assigned to one or the other gender, but one could not afford to have the women not work.
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A frightening image from a frightening article. "Iron Guard leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu commemorated with the Nazi salutes on the eve of [Romanian] elections".
Un pusti de 17 ani inconjurat de persoane care fac salutul nazist declara: „Nu știam foarte multe despre Mișcarea Legionară. Sistemul nu prea ne învață despre asta. Adică, știam foarte eronat că ei sunt naziștii români.” .Vin vremuri grele. Link:
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Another bit of good news: the Berezino 🇺🇦 - Basarabeanca 🇲🇩 railway will be reopened in September, helping link 🇲🇩 to the Danube port of 🇺🇦 Ismail, in addition to 🇺🇦 Reni, which is 🇲🇩 main export hub, and over crowded. 9/.
Apart from the missing Romanian railway link in the port of Galați, also a 21km dismantled line between Berezino (UA) - Basarabeasca (MD) needs to be rebuilt. It was already listed as a priority project by both countries before the war.
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🇩🇪 Germany. 101-year-old Edith Kwoizalla from a nursing home in Halberstadt in the Harz hill range. 🔗
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The benefits are very much tangible. The speed of Romania's development has very much accelerated with EU membership. Jesus Christ the state of this paternalistic "analysis".
I think Eastern Europeans are in denial about how bad of a deal EU open borders are for them. You get a few billion dollars in EU money and the intangible prestige of finally being "European.". In exchange, WWII death toll percentages of your young population emigrate out.
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🇷🇴 Romania. Mihaela Anghel, 26 y.o. nurse at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases who was part of the team that received Romania's first Covid-19 pacient. 🔗
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Casually drops an old etymology map
Just found an interesting sentence by St Jerome in which the word he uses for 'church' is "dominicum" (neuter singular of dominicus 'of the Lord'). Dominicum didn't catch on in Latin, but kuriakón, its Greek equivalent, was popular - it's the origin of Kirche, kerk, church, etc.
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Obsessed w/ this pic. People, left to right:. Sadou Soloké, Governor of Agadez Region 🇳🇪. El-Hadj Oumarou Ibrahim Oumarou, Sultan of Aïr 🇳🇪. Josep Borrell Fontelles, 🇪🇺 High Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy. Abdourahmane Aboubacar Touraoua, Mayor of Agadez 🇳🇪.
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The increase in capacity demand due to the war, has revealed chronic underinvestment in port infrastructure. (Keep in mind Romania is also a grain exporting country). An article from yesterday talked about a 5km queue of trucks at the port entrance. 12/.
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The 🇪🇺 European Union on the Political Compass 🧭. Profile of each municipality or constituency according to the infamous political compass, going by the 2019 European Elections. Socially liberal NW vs a largely conservative East. Data: @ches_data .Inspired by: @LoganZT1 .1/
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Now for the good news. On June 6, after having failed to atract good enough private bids, the Romanian railway company decided to repair the old soviet gauge rail link between Ukraine/Moldova and the Danube port of Galați 🇷🇴. Two months of work were planned. 6/
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I always wanted to make a modified version of @MaxCRoser's "World Population Cartogram" with the 🇪🇺 European Union shown as a single entity. So here it is 🗺️👇
The post about the cartogram that shows where the world population of 2018 is at home – 7.6 billion people – was my most read article this year:
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@SecretPidgen Sardinia oscilated as well between blindfolded/headband and left-looking/right-looking
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Explosion at 🇺🇦 Reni, on the Danube, right at the border with 🇷🇴 Romania and 🇲🇩 Moldova. Seems the Russians have decided to target port facilities to sabotage the grain export.
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This map is really something. 🤔
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"On 31 Jan, a team coordinated by Romania's National History Museum has submitted the "Limes Dacicus" dossier to UNESCO for approval. The Dacian Limes was the longest section of Roman land border in Europe, a very complex defensive system with a unique character.". 1/
@Arnold_Platon check this out.
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"With Constanța filling up, shippers are making more enquiries about using [Bulgaria’s port of] Varna in recent weeks. Like in 🇷🇴, the gov't of 🇧🇬 has simplified cross-border rules for trucks carrying Ukrainian import and export cargoes" 👇.
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@APHClarkson Tired: What if some demented militia gets their hands on nukes?. Inspired: What if a nuclear power devolves into a demented militia?.
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What’s the furthest 🧭 North, South, East and West you've been?. North - Berlin 🇩🇪.South - Sousse 🇹🇳.East - Alanya 🇹🇷.West - Lisbon 🇵🇹.
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The languages used in 🇪🇺 @EU_Commission President’s 2021 State of the European Union speeches 💬 #SOTEU in context. A small thread 🧵 1/
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Returning a bit to the 🇷🇴 maritime port of Constanța, works have begun to upgrade 35 railway lines within the port complex which have been abandoned to nature during post-communist decades, as a lot of transport towards the port switched to trucks. 11/.
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Another bit of worrying maths:. Grain, mostly Romanian, exported via the Port of Constanța last year: 🌾 25 tones. Grain waiting to be exported from Ukraine this year: 🌾 22 tones. Ukrainian grain moved so far via Constanța: 🌾 1,5 tones. Seriously, read the @RFERL article!. /16.
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Since it's the last day of February, aka #BlackHistoryMonth in the US, and I saw a similar thread on 🇺🇦, here is a thread on (famous) Black Romanians 🇷🇴. Most have Romanian mothers and African fathers, students in 🇷🇴 during the commie years, and work in showbiz or sports. 1/🧵
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Today I bid farewell to my fluffiest friend, who's been with us ever since we adopted him ten years ago almost to the day. Photo from 2013, shortly after being rescued from a dumpster. He went on to live the big life on the French Riviera. Godspeed! ♥️😺
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As we'll hear a lot about an "Orthodox Christmas truce" 🇷🇺☦️🎄 tomorrow, here's a yearly reminder that "Orthodox Christmas" is not a thing, and depending on the Eastern Orthodox Church, Christmas is either on 25 Dec or 7 Jan or both. Not to mention Oriental Orthodox Churches.
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Public service reminder 📣. It's Easter 🐰 this week for Catholics (blue) and Protestants (purple), but it's *next week* for the Orthodox (red).
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For a very detailed article on the grain situation in Romania, on how harvest, storage and export via Constanța happens, there is an excellentarticle on @RFERL below. Lots of very interesting details on weak points and where the war's putting presure. 14/.
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Thanks to @ticiaverveer & @decimusclaudius I finally visited the Roman theatre in Ventimiglia and the adjacent museum where you have one of only 3 Roman "Swiss army knives".
Without doubt this travellers tool is one of the coolest Roman inventions. The Roman "Swiss Army Knife" has a spoon, knife, fork, spike, spatula and pick allowing the user to even clean between their teeth after eating.
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The Georgescu vote correlates well with places that used to see PNL win, but now that vote collapsed. Transylvania, Bucovina, Prahova, Bucharest-Ilfov, Dobrogea are all former PNL-leaning areas. Iohannis and his boy Ciucă have a huge moral responsibility for this. Curse them!.
Hartă inedită rezultatelor parţiale pe comune / municipii / orașe 👇. #alegeriprezidenţiale2024 #alegeri2024
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Green light has also been given for the modernisation work of the Danube port of Brăila, 10km south of Galați. While I suspect the project might predate the war, I'm sure the process has been expedited due to the conflict. 17/.
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#DuboisChallenge2023 🗺️ .My entry mapping the distribution of Roma (slaves or recent freedmen) in Wallachia in the year 1838 by county. Romania 🇷🇴 marked "Roma Emancipation Day" yesterday, commemorating the end of slavery in Wallachia and Moldavia in 1857.
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Good! Hope that particular person has an excellent and restful time off wherever they chose to spend it.
Just got an out-of-office that says "I will be back on Monday 4 September." Welcome to the EU institutions.
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🇦🇹 Austria. An unnamed 84 y.o. lady, who volunteered, wanting to finally be able to see her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren again.
Die ersten Menschen in Österreich erhielten Covid-Vakzine. . #Covid19 #Impfung #CoronaVirusAT #MedUniWien #Aktuelles.
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@DanielTutt The socialist Romanian woman, thinking about her western counterpart, after she had that better sex under socialism.
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We've often seen 🇪🇺🗳️ European Election results grouped by Member State, or by Eurostat's NUTS regions. But being a 🏛️ Roman Empire fan, here's a weird idea: what if we grouped the latest EU election results by Roman Provinces? How would the provinces vote? 🤔. A thread 🧵1/n
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