Justin Lyle Writing and video from the former Soviet Union
Reuters TV work (example)
This five-minute story about the fourth Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in September-October 2011 (without text) is an example of my work as a field producer at Thomson Reuters TV in Moscow, Russia. (Please follow the links to watch the story with QuickTime player). Reuters: Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art
FILM: Journey of an Eco-Migrant
This ten-minute film follows the story of a man forced to resettle from his native Tkhilvana village in the mountainous Khulo district of Adjara, Georgia, to a village in the Marneuli district of Kvemo-Kartli region, after a landslide made his former home unsafe. Promised a decent house, land for cultivation and water through the state [...]
A Nationalist Epidemic?
Although the Russian Government’s Attitude Toward Ultra Nationalists Seems to Be Changing, Containing Nationalist Sentiment in Russia Is a Difficult Balancing Act The massacre that shook Norway last week raised some difficult questions about the extreme right in Europe and in Russia. Anders Behring Breivik’s slaughter of teenagers at a political summer camp near Oslo [...]
Elective Renewal
Matviyenko’s Move to the Federation Council May Be the Latest in a Government Drive to Rid Russia of Long-Serving Regional Heads Although St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko eventually agreed to accept President Dmitry Medvedev’s “promotion” to head the Federation Council, she did so after five days of deliberation. And two events this week indicate that [...]
Caught Between the Lines
As Long as Distrust Between Georgian and South Ossetian Authorities Blocks Useful Practical Projects, the Local Communities Will Continue Suffering the Most Earlier this month, the Georgian state-run Information Center on NATO set up a new “NATO Corner” at a public school in the Ergneti village, just a few kilometers from the Administrative Boundary Line [...]
Engaging the Rebels
Until Tbilisi Changes Its Attitude Toward South Ossetia and Abkhazia, All Western Efforts to Secure Peace and Stability in the Region Will Fail As Europe looks for ways to sidestep the problematic issue of recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, progress on resolving the conflicts will depend upon a substantive shift in Tbilisi’s attitude toward the [...]
Energy Identities
Azerbaijan’s Energy Resources Are Now More Than Ever the Subject of Intense Competition. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has been busy with energy questions over the last few months. Last week he signed an agreement with visiting European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to provide “substantial volumes of gas” to Europe for the long-term future. Only [...]
Propaganda Prevails
The Russia-Georgia Media War Shows No Sign of Abating in the Face of International Justice. The January 10 decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to strike off more than half the cases filed against Georgia on behalf of South Ossetians and Russian Peacekeepers following the August 2008 War was made for technical [...]
The Enemy Within
Last month’s successful first hearing of a draft law on lustration in the Georgian Parliament is the most recent public move to mark the departure from Soviet and, by extension, Russian influences in Georgia. In both its timing and substance, however, the bill raises doubts about its real purpose. Two decades since Georgian independence it [...]
Javakheti Between two States
The story of the departure of the Russian Dukhobor religious sect from Georgia since independence paints a damning portrait of the integration of the Javakheti region into today’s Georgian state. Tbilisi’s failure to engage the majority-Armenian region of Javakheti in a substantive integration process has left the area caught between two states, to the overwhelming [...]