Why this website?

I have a passion for travel. This passion is shared by many, as you can tell by the enormous amount of travel stories in the media and online. It made me once think that every place was written about - at least in English and maybe even in Dutch. But then I moved to Russia, the biggest country in the world.

There are many beautiful and interesting destinations in Russia that are barely or not at all covered in English. Luckily enough, I’ve had a lot of time to travel, allowing me to explore the country. That’s when I decided to make The Baltican. It was out of passion for travel: no one paid me to write this, so it fully shows my own experiences and opinions.

Why the name?

Over the last decade I have traveled a lot around the former Soviet Union. Therefore I decided to cover Russia’s neighbouring countries as well. I needed a name that would be unique, sound good and match the region. Baltica is a paleo continent covering parts of what is now Eastern Europe and Russia, Baltika is a Russian beer and the Baltic States are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Out of these words I came up with The Baltican.