HOWZAT

Most Cypriot websites dealing with current affairs, such as the Greek Cypriot www.cyprusweekly.com.cy, are very partisan, so if you want to know why the fractious island is split into Greek and Turkish areas, check out the CIA’s world factbook (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook). If you are not scared by squabbling and UN buffer zones, property in the Greek zone is booming (www.cyprus-property-guide.com). Aphrodite was famously Cypriot, as are Alikko and Caher, the local Laurel and Hardy, who hail from the Turkish north. From www.cypnet.com/.ncyprus/culture/theatre/alikko we learn, to our joy, that “Alikko’s lost the goats” idiomatically means “Alikko’s gone bananas”. Ayia Napa has a presence befitting its status as a clubbers’ heaven (www.ayianapa.com), but this year’s Cyprus music story is surely the one about the Gillingham teenager who will be singing Cyprus’s Eurovision entry (news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/3511199.stm).

8 ESTONIA
brings piracy and aristocratic vodka

In 1187, Estonian vikings laid waste to Sweden’s main town, Sigtuna. Baltics Worldwide (www.balticsww.com) says that Estonians always raise this in the company of Swedes. It was also the subject of the first Estonian national romantic opera, Vikerlased (www.ibs.ee/ibs/culture/theatre/img/m.html). Baltics Worldwide explains how modern Estonian pirates wrote the computer file-sharing program Kazaa, and how this heavily wired nation, half of whose citizens bank online, is sometimes dubbed e-Stonia. Another article describes how, assuming that nothing has changed since 1939, Estonia is obsessed with cleanliness and is a great place to seek cycling tips from border guards while dancing in shorts, and for meeting beautiful girls (www.balticsww.com/news/features/george.htm). Talking of which, my friend Christian is going out with Daphne von Buxhoeveden, who, I now discover, is a scion of one of Estonia’s noblest dynasties. They created the elegant 18th-century bottle in which Buxhoeveden vodka comes today (users.skynet.be/esticom).

9 LITHUANIA
brings religious diversity and amber

Lithuania was the last European country to adopt Christianity (1387) and www.wcer.org discusses Romuva, its old pagan religion, in a weedy, all- religions-are-valid way that speaks of its history of being overwhelmed, while www.romuva.lt claims that 0.036% of today’s population are followers. All three Baltic states are low-lying, but Lithuania is the lowest — its highest point, says www.eac2002.lt/en/travel/facts.htm, is Juozapines Hill at a pathetic 294 metres. Museums of Lithuania (www.muziejai.lt) is a great portal — one of many highlights is www.ambergallery.lt/english, devoted to the history of Baltic amber, which has been traded since the Stone Age and is found in pharaohs’ tombs. More recently, Lithuania briefly had a post-communist currency called talonas. When this was withdrawn in 1993, it was turned into lavatory paper (www.balticsww.com/tidbits.htm). Lithuania marches to the beat of its own drum, and I like its style.

10 LATVIA
brings more beautiful girls and a reptile-hunting Nazi

In 1963, says lnjak.org/famous, Latvian-born Marite Ozers became the first naturalised American to win the Miss USA title. Since then, Foreign Affair (www.loveme.com/tour/riga) has joined a list of horrible, slimy introduction services that play up clichés of Baltic beauty. Goldfinger came from Riga (www.007forever.com/books/flemingsbond007.html) and Crocodile Dundee was supposedly based on a Latvian called Arvids von Blumenfelds, from haunted Dundaga, who is memorialised there by a large crocodile statue (sg.travel.yahoo.com/guide/europe/latvia/obt.html). Australian communists think that Arvids was probably Nazi “pond scum” (www.cpa.org.au/garchve5/1106cult.html). This may be true, given the hellish oppression many of the New Euro Ten suffered in the 20th century, and an exemplary government website explains that Latvia recognises no statute of limitations on war crimes (www.am.gov.lv/en/?id=814). This sensible, unflashy website, with its admirable sections on European integration and civil society, best exemplifies the civilised web presence of the hard-won new democracies. For all the typically British “let’s laugh at the funny foreigner” joshing in this Doors guide, we bid the new kids on our block: wilkommen, bienvenue and welcome.

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