Not so bad

HELLHOLES, infested with fascists and run by Russophobic ethnocrats. That is how some senior Russians and much of the media tends to portray Estonia and Latvia. Certainly not the sort of place you would retire to, in other words. Few have been more forthright in such views than Yuri Luzhkov, until recently mayor of Moscow (where he once banned fascist Latvian sprats from the city's supermarkets). All the more interesting, therefore, to read (link in Estonian) that Mr Luzkhov may be planning to move from Moscow (where he was deposed in a fierce public spat with the federal leadership) to, er, Latvia. Perhaps it is not so bad there after all.