This is it!

There is always an end. To anything within human bounds. It is that way and it has always been so.

Having persevered way longer than  other print English publications in Eastern and Central Europe, The Baltic Times, the Baltics’ longest enduring English news publication that for the nearly 30 last years has been coming in the old-fashioned form of a newspaper – one you can spread widely while sipping your morning coffee, sniff out feeling the palette of printing house paints (something I do since my childhood after picking up a new newspaper issue!), rumble the pages musing and toss on the corner of the table for other family members to read later – now announces that SIA "Baltic News Limited", the publisher of The Baltic Times, ceases publishing the newspaper.

The good news is The Baltic Times Magazine, a glossy quality analytical content magazine, a spin-off of the newspaper, remains – look for the new magazine edition in early April.

Digitalisation, the abundance of free, not necessarily quality content on the internet, and the COVID-19 pandemic made the continuation of the newspaper impossible.

Perhaps like all of you, disheartened in a sense, I totally understand that the outcome is natural, logical and timely.

It would not be right to regret, or try to stop things, including the print newspaper, from vani-
shing and going into history. The rampant pace of technical and technological developments we are now seeing daily is irresistible and, well, there is nothing bad about it

To believe the internet, the first English-language newspaper, Corrant out of Italy, Germany, etc., was published in Amsterdam in 1620, so – hey! – we have just had the 400th anniversary of the memorable event that was omitted by most.

Some other things haven’t lasted that long, have they?

Besides the mentioned reasons, publishing has become extremely costly during the last couple of years – due to the ubiquitous, certainly commendable quest to combat climate change, save Mother Nature and… the tree, which is key in producing paper and also in sustaining and improving the status quo of our environment.

“Linas, to be honest with you, the publishing prices we have now are cosmic – so are the prices we’re paying for paper and, to make things worse, there’s a big shortage of paper – everywhere,” a senior manager of a printing house in Riga told me in late December.

Whatever – we’ll handle it, as The Baltic Times Magazine, not the newspaper, keeps chugging off further!

I’d like to take the opportunity and express my genuine gratitude to all our readers who read the newspaper – constantly or occasionally. 

You helped make us stay what and where we are at the threshold of 2022 – a household name for many.

Also, I’d like to cordially and humbly say ‘thanks a million’ to all the former, current staffers and contributors of The Baltic Times – you made it happen!

I’d also like to personally thank Gene Zolotarev, the publisher of the newspaper, for entrusting me with the editorship of The Baltic Times six years ago. 

As we’re closing the big chapter, we’ll be revving up our gears towards a new edition of The Baltic Times Magazine, due in April.

So, albeit saddened a little bit, I am happy to say that, unlike many other English publications around that ceased publishing for good, we’re continuing the journey on the quite rugged and rough terrain of the publishing business.

So instead of saying ‘Good bye’, I say to all of you quite cheerfully: ‘Stay with us. Talk to you soon!’

A happy New Year! 

Stay healthy, high-spirited and driven by faith.