Discover europe is your daily dose of original tales from across the continent.

Every weekday at 7:00 p.m. CET, we bring you European history that goes beyond the headlines to find the real issues shaping the continent.

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Here is the best of last year’s series.

While the life of Belarusian Olympic sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya would have been more difficult at home, her situation in exile in Poland is far from perfect.

The 24-year-old, who fled the Tokyo Games after Belarusian officials tried to force her on a return flight, told Euronews she now had bodyguards with her around the clock .

Tsimanouskaya, living with her husband in Poland after they both received humanitarian visas, says they check her every move, all day.

“I can’t meet my friends because the guards don’t know them,” Tsimanouskaya told Euronews. “We can do interviews if they are planned in advance, and I can go to train or swim.”

“They say it can be arranged, but I can’t go to the stores or the park. Every time I want to go out, I have to get permission.”

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Croatia is very proud – and possessive – of its sparkling coastline.

Known as “the land of 1,000 islands”, it does not seem willing to cede two (it actually has around 1,244 islands) to neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina.

To date, the two countries claim ownership of Mali Å kolj and Veliki Å kolj, as well as the tip of the Klek Peninsula, which is nearby.

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Whether it is Jean-Marie or his daughter Marine, the Le Pens have for decades been dominant figures at the extremes of the French right.

But, five months before the next French presidential election, a new personality is emerging: Eric Zemmour.

After months of guesswork, the political novice confirmed in November his entry into the race.

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For more than a decade Romanians have grown accustomed to seeing – emblazoned on buildings or on walls next to busy highways – three words ending in red, yellow and blue: “Basarabia e România “.

Bessarabia no longer exists, but at the time it was the territory that Russia and later the Soviet Union occupied between the Prut River and both banks of the Dniester River, as far east as the border. with Ukraine and to the west with Romania.

It is the land now known by another name, Moldova.

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It has been a year since the Polish Constitutional Court further tightened what was already one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

On October 22, 2020, the court ruled that it was unconstitutional for women to terminate their pregnancy even with severe and irreversible fetal malformations, resulting in an almost total ban on abortion in this predominantly Catholic country.

“What happened last year was essentially an example of what happens if a political power destroys the rule of law and destroys the independence of the judiciary,” said Marta Lempart, co-founder of the strike movement. Polish women, insisting that the abortion ban came from an “illegitimate” and “politicized” court.

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On February 28, 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot dead in the street outside a cinema in Stockholm after watching a movie with his wife and son.

Her killer has never been found.

Palme, who ruled Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and from 1982 until his death, was a divisive figure with no shortage of enemies. A vocal critic of the American war in Vietnam and a Cuba supporter of Fidel Castro, he favored the expansion and extension of the Swedish welfare state.

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Hidden behind two apartment buildings in an alleyway in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili’s church doesn’t look like much from the outside.

But for several years his church has pushed for change in conservative Georgia, and it often goes against the grain, pushing back barriers where and when it can.

So when Georgia’s LGBT community faced violent protesters in the streets this summer, for example, the Songulashvili congregation marched in solidarity, condemning the attacks.

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Tensions are mounting in eastern Ukraine, where the military has been at odds with Russian-backed separatists for seven years.

Russia has deployed large amounts of military materiel near the border and fighting has escalated in recent weeks.

Euronews visited Mayorsk in Donetsk where we met Ukrainian soldiers. The town of Horlivka, controlled by Russian-backed separatists, can be seen through the trees. It is an area that has seen an increase in fighting.

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In a city covered in snow five months a year, you wouldn’t blame cyclists for putting their bikes into hibernation during the winter.

But the people of Oulu, Finland, are made of stronger fabrics.

Despite the long, dark and snowy winters, residents continue to cycle to work and school.

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With more than a quarter of a million Afghans and their descendants, Germany has the largest Afghan diaspora in Europe.

Afghans and Afghan-Germans have built a vibrant – so often – neglected community in Germany.

Part of their identity is linked to a longing for home, which has only intensified as the situation in Afghanistan becomes more dire.

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It’s a stern warning about the future of the pandemic: that without global access to life-saving vaccines, COVID-19 is here to stay.

The virus has traveled to every continent and infected more than 100 million people worldwide in just over a year since it was first declared a global health emergency.

Humanitarian activists and experts are sounding the alarm on the wide gaps in the distribution of vaccines between the richest and poorest countries in the world.

Read the entire article.