Clare Nuttall in Almaty
Fri, 27th Aug -- Border closures after the Kyrgyz revolution and Kazakhstan's entry into the Customs Union with Russia have presented challenges for Central Asia's hundreds of thousands of bazaar vendors and shuttle traders this year. But the region's multi-billion-dollar bazaar trade has always proved to be enormously flexible.

Nicholas Watson in Prague
Wed, 1st Sep -- Considering that the winner of bne's best equity fund in last year's ranking managed it with a return of just 9.9%, the 78.1% return of this year's winner, the Raiffeisen-Russia-Equities fund, shows just how far and fast the recovery in the region's markets has been.

Derek Brower in London
Mon, 23rd Aug -- The global gas glut, a dampening of demand and the prospect of new domestic supplies has ended the CEE region's energy-security worries.

Robert Smyth in Budapest
Tue, 31st Aug -- It might have taken a while to put together, but the New Hungary Venture Capital Programme and its eight new European Investment Bank-backed funds have made more than €160m available for small businesses located outside the Hungarian capital, with the managers of the various funds now eying up a string of investments.

Samantha Shields in Batumi, Georgia
Thu, 26th Aug -- Batumi, capital of Georgia's tiny autonomous Black Sea region of Adjara, is hoping to capitalize on its position as President Mikheil Saakashvili's pet project to reclaim its 19th century glory days and become an important commercial and tourism hub within the next 10 years.

Nadia Damon in Sofia
Tue, 31st Aug -- Gold has traditionally been a safe haven in times of trouble, so it's little wonder that over the last couple of years private investors and institutions alike have moved to shore up their portfolios with this most tangible of assets.

Nicholas Watson in Prague
Tue, 31st Aug -- Alternative investments embrace a range of products from fine art to hedge funds. As the renewable energy sector develops rapidly across Europe, owning an alternative energy generator is becoming a very accessible and very lucrative example of one.

Guy Norton in Moscow
Tue, 31st Aug -- A breakaway group from Russian hedge fund Kazimir Partners led by Dmitri Kryukov has set up shop on its own as Verno Investment Management and is now drumming up money in Europe, the Middle East and the US.

Nicholas Watson in Prague
Tue, 31st Aug -- The global economic crisis was certainly unkind to Ukraine's major companies, but has proved something of a boon to private equity players who target this upper end of the country's corporate market.

Graham Stack in Kyiv
Tue, 17th Aug -- A visit to Kyiv in late June by Cypriot officials was the latest sign that negotiations are intensifying between a cash-strapped Ukraine wanting to clamp down on tax evasion and Cyprus over a new double tax avoidance treaty to replace an inherited Soviet-era treaty that was extraordinarily favourable to Cyprus.

Clare Nuttall and Ben Aris in Almaty
Thu, 19th Aug -- Predictions that Kazakhstan would be first in, first out of the crisis have proved to be not far from the truth.

Aleksandar Dimishkovski in Skopje
Tue, 17th Aug -- When the construction of a railroad connecting the capitals of Macedonia and Bulgaria began almost 15 years ago, no one expected a century-old idea would take more than a few years to be realized. Nine years after work was halted, no one believes Skopje when it promises it will be finished sometime soon.