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10 January 2025
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Blog archive

Tear down this wall

- Posted by - (1) Comment

 

TEAR DOWN

 

THIS WALL! 

 Ronald Reagan holding a Lithuanian ‘juosta’ that says “I Love Lithuanians”.

Photo courtesy of Rima Jasiukonis Raulinaitis, California.

 

It is today, the 5th of June 2010, exactly six years since former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, died. 

In a week it is 23 years since he held his famous 'Brandenburg Gate' speech, where his appeal to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" 

We will over the next few months bring more articles about what has happened with Lithuania and other nations that lay east of the infamous Iron Curtain after these countries around 1990 finally could celebrate their new-found freedom - after 50 years of merciless oppression.

The article below, which deals with Reagan's life and his importance to the fall of the Iron Curtain and the huge developments Eastern Europe has experienced since that time, is written by Vin Karnila, associate editor of VilNews.

You, dear readers, are hereby invited to indicate YOUR views!

 

Aage Myhre

Editor

 

 

Ronald Wilson Reagan

The Great Communicator

Text: Vin Karnila

 

6 February 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, John/Jack and Nelle (Clyde Wilson) Reagan celebrated the birth of their new son Ronald Wilson Reagan. Little did they know that this child would grow up to be a renowned TV and screen actor, the 33rd Governor of California, the 40th President of the United States and ultimately one of the most prominent people in the global fight against communism?

While the month of February marks the beginning of President Reagan’s career, the month of June marks two other important events of this influential world leader. Sadly, 5 June 2004 marks his passing. 12 June 1987 marks the date Ronald Reagan delivered his famous “Tear down this wall” speech at the Brandenburg Gate, near the Berlin Wall. The speech was a part of the ceremonies commemorating the 750th anniversary of the city of Berlin. While standing in front of what had become to be known as an international symbol of the blight communism was to all societies in the world that cherished freedom, Reagan challenged Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear down the Wall and open the Brandenburg Gate as a symbol of Reagan's desire for increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc.

His most notable quote from the speech;

“There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate.

Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

Mr. Gorbachev -- Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

See and listen to President Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate speech here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtYdjbpBk6A

 

Another memorable quote from the speech;

 “As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner (quote):

 "This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality."

Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall, for it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.”

It is the opinion of many that this speech, while not the initial spark that lit the fires that burned for freedom, for these fires had been burning for many years in many countries in Europe, was the catalyst that turned the fires of freedom into a raging inferno that would engulf all of Europe and eventually lead to the final actions resulting in the restoration of freedom for millions of people in many nations.

As the 40th President of the United States, Ronal Reagan became affectionately known as “The Great Communicator”. The man had incredible ability to convey his messages. While Ronald Reagan could use his oratorical powers to fight communism in very dramatic fashion, his communication skills and his wonderful charisma also allowed him to use some very amusing antidotes and stories as a part of his arsenal in his fight against communism.

One of Reagan’s favorite stories concerned a man who goes to the Soviet bureau of transportation to order an automobile. He is informed that he will have to put down his money now, but there is a 10-year wait. The man fills out all the various forms, has them processed through the various agencies, and finally he gets to the last agency. He pays them his money and they say, ‘Come back in 10 years and get your car.’ He asks, ‘Morning or afternoon?’ The man in the agency says, ‘We’re talking about 10 years from now. What difference does it make?’ He replies, ‘The plumber is coming in the morning.’

As with all great leaders there can always be some controversy. Ironically for Ronald Reagan, his greatest controversy came from his efforts to fight communism, specifically his “Reagan Doctrine” instituted in 1983.

The “Reagan Doctrine” was used to characterize the Reagan administration’s 1981-1988 policy of supporting anti-Communist insurgents wherever they might be. In his 1985 State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan called upon Congress and the American people to stand up to the Soviet Union that he had previously called the “Evil Empire”

 "We must stand by all our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives on every continent"

President Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy broke from the doctrine of “Containment,” established during the Truman administration and was based on John Foster Dulles’ “Roll-Back” strategy from the 1950s. This policy called for the United States to actively push back the influence of the Soviet Union . Reagan’s policy differed, however, in the sense that he relied primarily on the overt support of those fighting Soviet dominance. This strategy was perhaps best summarized in the NSC National Security Decision Directive 75. This 1983 directive stated that a central priority of the U.S. in its policy toward the Soviet Union would be “to contain and over time reverse Soviet expansionism,” particularly in the developing world.

 As the directive noted:

 "The U.S. must rebuild the credibility of its commitment to resist Soviet encroachment on U.S. interests and those of its Allies and friends, and to support effectively those Third World states that are willing to resist Soviet pressures or oppose Soviet initiatives hostile to the United States, or are special targets of Soviet policy."

To that end, the Reagan administration focused much of its energy on supporting proxy armies that were fighting to curtail Soviet influence.

As I stated, the “Reagan Doctrine” still remains as one of the most controversial aspects of Ronald Reagan’s service to the United States and to the world. While doing some research to get some specific dates for this article, I somehow came across a BLOG that had ongoing postings regarding the “Reagan Doctrine”. In this one posting a person had went on and on and on and on about all the people and countries that the “Reagan Doctrine” had opposed and how Reagan should have left his nose out of other country’s affairs, etc, etc. Reading all this I was thinking that WOW twenty seven years later there are still people ranting and raving about this!!! What really caught my attention was the response to this person’ BLOG posting – It read simply “Instead of talking about all the people he opposed why don’t you talk about all the people he (Reagan) supported”

Well here are some comments from some of the people Ronald Reagan supported;

"Czechs should not forget that Ronald Reagan is one reason that they are enjoying their present freedom."
-Czech Daily Newspaper "Mlada Fronta Dnes"

"His [Reagan's] consistent championing of freedom contributed decisively to overcoming the division of Europe and Germany. We Germans have much to thank Ronald Reagan for"
-Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl

 "Somewhere at the turn of the 1980s a number of politicians and others at different points on the globe began moving towards a single goal: the overthrow of the murderous communist system that had the blood of 200 million people on its hands. Reagan was one of the world leaders who made a major contribution to communism's collapse."

-Former Polish President Lech Walesa

"President Ronald Reagan will be remembered in the hearts of all Latvians as a fighter for freedom, liberty and justice worldwide"
-Latvian Pesident Vaira Vike-Freiberga

And from a man that will go down in history as being one of the greatest leaders of Lithuania, one of the people that not only Lithuania but much of Europe can thank their regained freedom for and a man that will be remembered as one of communism’s greatest opponents

"A man died who believed in freedom and changed the world. This is President Ronald Reagan, to whom Lithuania is grateful and will remain grateful for his firm resistance to the Evil Empire, giving us an opportunity for us to regain our freedom and return to democracy."
-Former Lithuanian parliamentary Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis

We have much to thank Ronald Wilson Reagan for. Not only Lithuania and all Lithuanians living throughout the world but all the people of all the countries that suffered for so long under the dark cloud of communism that was forced upon them. It would almost be impossible to list every person, who in their own way fought to remove this dark cloud that blocked the light of freedom from too many parts of the world. What we can do though is honor and give our thanks to some of the people that emerged into the world’s spotlight to oppose communism’s oppression and help restore freedom to so many people in so many countries.

I will leave you with one more quote from “The Great Communicator” and ask you to think of what you can do to preserve freedom for the next generation.

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

 

Su pagarbe

Vin Karnila

Associate editor

 

Category : Blog archive

Sounds of music

- Posted by - (2) Comment

 

SOUND OF MUSIC!

Summer in Vilnius means music of all kinds and categories…

MUSIC OVER THE OLD TOWN 

Darius Rutkys (44), a former guitar player in a rock band, and pianist Justas Šervenikas (22) are

organising a brand new new music festival that will take place here in the courtyard restaurant

Boom-Boom Terasa (Vilnius Street 41), from the 19th of June to the 24th of July.

 

Summer in Vilnius means music of all kinds and categories. If you walk through the Old Town one evening this summer you can be sure to hear jazz, rock, folk or classical music pouring out of the many courtyards, restaurants and concert venues. 

We have below reproduced the programmes of three of the festivals that will take place throughout most of the summer - the first a brand new festival, while the other two have been going strong here since the 1990s.

At the bottom of the page there is also a YouTube reference to a very touching song from the times when Vilnius Old Town was dominated by Litvaks and their distinctive music and songs in Yiddish language. Truly worthwhile listening to…

 

Aage Myhre

Editor

 

 

Boom Boom Terasa

‘MUSIC OVER THE OLD TOWN’

FESTIVAL PROGRAMME  

All concerts take place in the restaurant Boom Boom Terasa (courtyard of the 

Lithuanian Theatre, Music and Cinema Museum), Vilniaus g. 41.

For further information and tickets (also group tickets),

please contact Darius Rutkys at darius@ring.lt

 

Saturday 19 June

Opening Concert:

Denis Matsuyev (Piano)

DENIS MATSUYEV IS ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS PIANISTS OF TODAY

„Rožinio kaspino

Wednesday 23 June

Charity concert:

“Nedelsk!” project.

Friday 2 July

Concert ‘Tango’

Ieva Prudnikovaite

IEVA PRUDNIKOVAITE IS ONE OF THE WORLD‘S MOST TALENTED SINGERS OF TODAY

Friday 9 July

Saxo quartet

“Blattwerk”

A LEADING GERMAN GROUP, ALSO FAMOUS FROM THE KLAIPEDA JAZZ FESTIVAL

Friday 16 July

Schumann creations evening:

Merunas Vitulskis, Justas Šervenikas, Jonas Braškys

THE INVIGORATING SINGER MERUNAS VITULSKIS, PERFORMING IN AN UNUSUAL ROLE, TOGETHER WITH PIANIST JUSTAS ŠERVENIKAS AND ACTOR JONAS BRAŠKIS

 

Friday 24 July

Maxim Fedotov and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra.
Conducter: Robertas
Servenikas

A CONCERT BY THE “RUSSIAN PAGANINI”, MAXIM FEDOTOV, AND THE LITHUANIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, ONE OF THE BEST EUROPEAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRAS.
CONDUCTER: NATIONAL AWARD WINNER ROBERTAS ŠERVENIKAS

 

 

OTHER SUMMER MUSIC FESTIVALS

http://www.vilniusfestivals.lt/index.php?page=apie_en

 

VILNIUS FESTIVAL

 www.filharmonija.lt/.../vilnius-festival/

 

June 3, Thursday, 19.00
Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall
VILNIUS FESTIVAL 2010: Reinventing the Piano
GRIGORY SOKOLOV (piano, Russia): Bach, Brahms, Schumann

June 4, Friday, 19.00
Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall
VILNIUS FESTIVAL 2010: Festival Jazz
BRUSSELS JAZZ ORCHESTRA (Belgium), artistic director, conductor and soloist FRANK VAGANEE (saxophone, Belgium): compositions by Frank Vaganee and arrangements of jazz standards

June 5, Saturday, 19.00
Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall
VILNIUS FESTIVAL 2010: Made in Silence
EDIN KARAMAZOV (lute, electric guitar; Bosnia/Kroatia): Brouwer, Bach

June 6, Sunday, 19.00
Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall

VILNIUS FESTIVAL 2010: Dialogue Between East and West
INCHEON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA (South Korea), soloist SERGEY KHACHATRYAN (violin, Armenia), conductor CHEN ZUOHUANG (China): Woo, Brahms, Tchaikovsky

 

 

 

CHRISTOPHER SUMMER FESTIVAL

http://www.kristupofestivaliai.lt/2010/index.php?tid=&ln=en

IN ANTICIPATION OF THE CHRISTOPHER SUMMER FESTIVAL...

Thursday, June 24, 7:00 pm 
St. Catherine‘s Church (30 Vilniaus St. Vilnius)
Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 Lt

 

 

HAIKU FOR THE SOULS OF THE DEPARTED
CHRISTOPHER SUMMER FESTIVAL OPENING CONCERT

Thursday, July 1, 8:00 pm 
Vilnius Teachers‘ House Courtyard (39 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)
Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 60, 80 Lt

 

 

SACRED MUSIC HOURS. OPENING CONCERT

Tuesday, July 6, 6:30 pm 
St. Casimir‘s Church (34 Didžioji St, Vilnius)

Free admission

 

 

IN THE CITY OF STORIES

Friday, July 9, 8:00 pm 
Vilnius Teachers‘ House Courtyard (39 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60 Lt

 

 

SACRED MUSIC HOURS

Tuesday, July 13, 6:30 pm 
St. Casimir‘s Church (34 Didžioji St, Vilnius)

Free admission

 

 

PIANO RECITAL

Thursday, July 15, 7:00 pm 
St. Catherine‘s Church (30 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 Lt

 

 

NEW IN JAZZ: PORTICO QUARTET

Friday, July 16, 8:00 pm 
Vilnius Teachers‘ House Courtyard (39 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 100 Lt

 

 

SACRED MUSIC HOURS

Tuesday, July 20, 6:30 pm 
St. Casimir‘s Church (34 Didžioji St, Vilnius)

Free admission

 

 

VOICES UNLIMITED

Tuesday, July 20, 7:00 pm 
St. Catherine‘s Church (30 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 Lt

 

 

SACRED MUSIC HOURS

Tuesday, July 27, 6:30 pm 
St. Casimir‘s Church (34 Didžioji St, Vilnius)

Free admission

 

 

CHOPIN JAZZ INN

Tuesday, July 27, 7:00 pm 
St. Catherine‘s Church (30 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 Lt

 

 

NOSTALGIC BOSSA NOVA

Friday, July 30, 8:00 pm 
Vilnius Teachers‘ House Courtyard (39 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60 Lt

 

 

SACRED MUSIC HOURS

Tuesday, August 3, 6:30 pm 
St. Casimir‘s Church (34 Didžioji St, Vilnius)

Free admission

 

 

FADO: PORTUGESE SPELLS

Wednesday, August 4, 8:00 pm 
Vilnius Teachers‘ House Courtyard (39 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 100 Lt

 

 

MELO-M MUSICAL SPARKS

Friday, August 6, 8:00 pm 
Vilnius Teachers‘ House Courtyard (39 Vilniaus St, Vilnius) 

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60 Lt

 

 

SACRED MUSIC HOURS

Tuesday, August 10, 6:30 pm 
St. Casimir‘s Church (34 Didžioji St, Vilnius)

Free admission

 

 

NIGHT CONCERT: WHALE SONGS

Tuesday, August 10, 10:00 pm 
St. Catherine’s Church (30 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 Lt

 

 

ROMANTICALLY CAREFREE

Wednesday, August 11, 7:00 pm 
St. Catherine‘s Church (30 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40 Lt

 

 

THE UNFADING SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Thursday, August 12, 7:00 pm 
St. Catherine‘s Church (30 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

TIckets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 Lt

 

 

ELLA FITZGERALD TUNES

Friday, August 13, 7:00 pm 
St. Catherine‘s Church (30 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 Lt

 

 

SACRED MUSIC HOURS

Tuesday, August 17, 6:30 pm 
St. Casimir‘s Church (34 Didžioji St, Vilnius

Free admission

 

 

NOTHING BUT CHOPIN

Tuesday, August 17, 7:00 pm 
St. Catherine‘s Church (30 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 Lt

 

 

JAZZ BALLADS WITH RŪTA ŠČIOGOLEVAITĖ

Friday, August 20, 7:00 pm 
St. Catherine‘s Church (30 Vilniaus St, Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 Lt

 

 

LINE
CHOREOGRAPHIC INTERPRETATION OF MUSIC

Tuesday, August 24, 12:00 am 
St. Catherine’s Church (30 Vilniaus St., Vilnius)

Tickets: 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 Lt

 

 

SACRED MUSIC HOURS

Tuesday, August 24, 6:30 pm 
St. Casimir‘s Church (34 Didžioji St, Vilnius)

Free admission

 

 

 

 

 

MEMORY OF THE VILNIUS

SOUND THAT ONCE WAS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnAstY693Ik 

 

Vilna: A Yiddish song. Performed by Fraidy Katz.

Directed by Wolf Krakowski

 

Category : Blog archive

Tolerance

- Posted by - (0) Comment

 

 

LITHUANIA – A HAVEN

OF TOLERANCE?

 

 

 

Above: Lithuanian neo-Nazi flag.

Left: 8 May 2010 may prove to have been a good day for Lithuania. This was the day when the Supreme Court allowed the homosexuals conduct their 'gay pride parade', and although the neo-Nazis (left) did their utmost to create problems on the day, this became a day I think may mark a step forward for freedom of speech and democracy in this country.

 

"An idiot threw a stone in the well; forty wise people couldn't get it out." 

(Armenian proverb)

 

I'm worried about Lithuania's mental health. I do not like the all too frequent examples of aggression

I hear about, and I would very much like to see a far more open and tolerant attitude from many groups of the Lithuanian population. It worries me to see that violence, robbery, fraud and economic crimes continue to plague this country. It worries me to see that neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism and homophobia do not seem to subside. Sometimes I feel as though the repressed anger that developed during the many years of Soviet oppression, later mismanagement by corrupted leaders, and finally the financial crisis that has hit this country so extremely hard, now seems to burst out into a sad and worrying sort of ‘retribution’ within certain groups in the population and among some individuals. I am genuinely concerned that this country, that was once characterized by tolerance between races, religions and cultures, now stands on the brink of an internal ‘upraise’ characterized by aggression, xenophobia and lack of interpersonal love and respect.

The gay pride parade which took place in Vilnius two weeks ago, was in my opinion a step in the right direction towards a more open and democratic Lithuania. Admittedly, it took considerable pressure for the march to be permitted, which to us from West Europe, today seems incomprehensible. But the march took place, in spite of protests and attacks by neo-Nazis and others, and that is a good sign. And to compare these two 'movements' in today's Lithuania, I quote a friend:

 

“Neo-Nazis march to show who they hate. Gays march to show who they love.”

'The gays' is a recurring theme when I meet Lithuanian friends. Those of my friends who are strongly linked to the Catholic church, always persistently claim that the Bible does not accept homo-sexuality. My answer is usually that on this and all other areas there are different interpretations and perceptions of what the Bible and other religious Scriptures actually say. I also tend to remind my friends of a phrase from another Bible verse (John 8:7), which for me is far more important:

 

"Let the one without sin cast the first stone." 

I am not trying to say that homosexuality is a sin, only that one should be careful to judge others for anything in life. I also agree with what Arturas Bakanauskas says in his letter to the editor below, that "…if more Lithuanians understood that for many or most gays, homosexuality is not a choice, but something they live with as best they can, the general public would accept it better.

Another group of my friends belong to the more liberal category. They claim to have nothing against the fact that some people prefer sex with their own gender, but what they cannot accept is that the gays seem to have such a great need to demonstrate this orientation openly through parades, etc. My answer is that those with homosexual orientation through their parades are getting more focus on the problem of lack of acceptance and recognition from society and government, and I also think these kind of parades give the gays a good opportunity to get rid of some of the frustration they must feel in not being fully accepted in this country. I also tend to mention that gay parades in western countries usually are very colourful shows that makes one feel happy. To make people laugh and smile is also not to despise, or?

In his book, God’s Playground a History of Poland Part II, British historian Norman Davies states:

 

 “Throughout nearly all its history, Lithuania was more tolerant of Jews and other minorities than most of the neighbouring areas.” 

Let’s have those times of acceptance and tolerance back again…

Aage Myhre

Editor

He without sin, cast the first stone by gretchen meyer

"Let the one without sin cast the first stone."

Category : Blog archive

Do unto others…

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DO UNTO OTHERS…

A REPORT FROM THIS YEAR’S ‘BŪKIME KARTU’

 

Text and photos Aage Myhre

 

 

‘BŪKIME KARTU’ means ‘let’s be together’, and this was exactly what happened last Saturday, the 15th of

May, when around 130 children from five different orphanages and institutions, together with helpers

and volunteers from Lithuania’s international community gathered at a farm 26 km north of Vilnius.

 

ABOVE PHOTO: Ambassador of Great Britain to Lithuania, Mr. Simon Butt, was the patron of this year’s

‘BŪKIME KARTU’, here with a few of the many happy children – at the entrance to the farm and the event.

 

“This event is not just about helping the orphanages. The idea is to give a more important thing to the children – personal attention and care.” 

Ambassador of Great Britain to Lithuania, Mr. Simon Butt

 

 

 

The concept of ‘BŪKIME KARTU’ is that disadvantaged children from orphanages within the Vilnius area

are invited to spend a full day in the countryside, en­joying various activities sponsored by a number of

international companies, institutions and embassies. Joy and happiness are the hallmarks of the day!

 

 

 

 

ZINA’S FARM

‘BŪKIME KARTU’ takes place at an ecologic farm owned and run by a truly fascinating individual, Ms. Zina Gi­neistiene, a farmer and a teacher at Vilnius University. Her farm encompasses a lot of different animals, birds, wooden farm buildings and barns, ponds, rivers and fields. All characterised by a genuine, traditional Lithuanian farm mood, and excitement, not to mention the very special smell of the living creatures and the farm itself…  Zina’s unique farm not only provides a very differ­ent atmosphere and experience, but also plenty of fresh air for the kids and the many volunteers from Lithuania’s international community, throughout this complete spring Saturday, from 9 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon.

 

 

 

Zina Gi­neistiene, the farm owner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VOLUNTEERS

As Ambassador Butt mentioned above: This is not just about traditional means of help, but also about that all of us who belong to the international community here in Lithuania, as well as the state's own institutions, through an event like this can make fair words and monetary assistance into concrete action face-to-face with children who truly need love and attention so very much…  

Our many volunteers have done a fantastic job in this respect. Thanks a lot - to you all. 

 

 

Ambassador Butt and Marius Marčenkovas, Deloitte

 

 

 

Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy,

Timothy P. O’Connor with family

 

Ambassador of Bulgaria to Lithuania, Mr. Ivan Pentchev Dantchev and wife Dobrinka Dobrinova-Dancheva

 

 

ABOVE: This team from the Pennsylvania National Guard (USA) arrived at ‘BŪKIME KARTU’ in the early morning hours to paint the faces of all participating children and continued by playing ‘parachute games’ with the kids. Well done!

Left to right: MSG. Joe Brignola, LTC. Stephen Timmons, William Bobo (U.S. Embassy), SMSgt. Matt Giacobbe, SGM. Paul Mishoe. 

 

BELOW: These five persons have been among the most active participants during the planning period, and

they, together with a number of other volunteers, did an outstanding job also last Saturday. BRAVO!

 

 

  

Irma Ramaskaitė

 

Angelė Čepėnaitė

 

Carlos Brebbia

 

 

Nijole Vrubliauskiene

 

 

 

Vincent Karnila

 


Despite the difficult economic situation various organizations have generously offered their support to the event. It was sponsored by COWI Lietuva, Deloitte, EWMD, International School of Law and Business, Lithuanian Archery Federation, Lankininkų Sporto Klunas, Medicina Magna, Multi dora, Pentland, Radisson Blu Astorija, Reval Hotel Lietuva, Rimi Lietuva, Statoil Lietuva, Tres Mejicanos, Vilties akimirka, Ūkio banko lizingas and others.

In addition to the ‘patron embassy of the year’ – the Embassy of GREAT BRITAIN – the event has also been supported by the embassies of:

BULGARIA, NORWAY, SWEDEN, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, TURKEY and SPAIN.

Thanks a lot!

 

 

 

FOOD!

The lunch programme at noon is a serious challenge.  130 children plus about as many helpers and staff from the police, fire brigade and customs officers must be fed in just one hour. Then, if that’s not challenging enough, every year we try to find new varieties, new menus and exciting chefs from countries around the globe – all with some sort of connection to Lithuania…

This year the choice fell on Mexico, and there is no doubt that it was a happy choice. Jose de Leon Padilla who runs the restaurant ‘Tres Mejicanos’ on Tilto Street in Vilnius, brought some wonderful dishes, luckily not too spicy (for us with tender stomachs)…

 In addition, our dear Lithuanian-American from Boston (an avid barbeque master and co-editor of VilNews) together with Bulgaria's ambassador, saw to it that the Statoil sausages were both grilled and tucked into the sausage buns.

The cakes, ice cream and candies were all well received after the more heavy parts of the lunch mealhad been absorbed - well, it is hardly necessary to embroider more…

 

Ambassador Butt and Gintare Miškinytė are fighting hard to understand the STATOIL sausage principle

The kids loved the Mexican food from Jose de Leon Padilla’s Vilnius restaurant ‘Tres Mejicanos’

 

 

Fantastic cakes from two leading hotels…

Geoff Cohen offered English sweets. A true goodie man!

 

 

 

 

 

ACTIVITIES

 

This year’s ‘BŪKIME KARTU’ participants enjoyed many outdoor activities such as archery, horse riding, a bouncy castle, face-painting, team games, picnic and others. The magician Olegas Rimanas performed

a magic show. The fire brigade, police and customs officers demonstrated some of their equipments and vehicles, and Carlo’s team of students made all kinds of scout games. You’d have to be there to believe…

 

A real magician (I’m not kidding), Olegas Rimanas, performs a magic show

 

The police were once again doing a tremendous job with their dog squad, demonstrating investigation methods and, of course , the cars…

Gytis Milašius coordinated the police activities

 

Not so easy to hit the target…  Still the members of the Lithuanian Archery Federation /

Lankininkų Sporto Klubas do their best to show the kids how to shoot with bow and arrows…

 

 

Lithuania's police, fire brigade and army has for years done great efforts for ‘BŪKIME KARTU’ and it has always been interesting to study the children's reactions in the face of these 'slightly dangerous' institutions. My clear conclusion is that these meetings have been warm and exciting - for the children, but probably also for the institutions. 

This year the army was busy with another event, but the Lithuanian Customs Authority (picture left) stepped in instead - and did a fantastic job of showing the children what they are doing, especially with regard to border controls...

 

WOW! The Vilnius Region Fire Brigade has got a brand new fire truck. Shouldn’t get dirty, though…

 

 

 

The fire department's competition with fire hoses is extremely popular – every year.

       

“Būkime kartu 2010” was the 9th annual event under the umbrella of Vilnius International Club where disadvantaged children from the Vilnius area and volunteers from different organizations gathered together to spend a whole day out, since 2005 in Zina Gineitienė’s ecological farm located 26 km north of Vilnius in the village of Melkio.

Another truly amazing day, full of fun and emotions, came to its end Saturday afternoon at 16:00 this wonderful 15th of May 2010…

 

Aage Myhre,

VilNews Editor – VIC President

‘BŪKIME KARTU’ ORGANISER SINCE 2001

 

 

HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL IN MAY 2011!  

NOW IS THE TIME TO REGISTER AS SPONSOR AND VOLUNTEER…

 

 

TOKEN OF GRATITUDE:

 

‘BŪKIME KARTU’ WAS STARTED IN 2001 IN COOPERATION BETWEEN VIC AND THE

 NORWEGIAN AMBASSADOR KAARE HAUGE AND HIS WIFE AASHILD HAUGE

Category : Blog archive

Būkime kartu

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IT’S AGAIN TIME FOR ‘BŪKIME KARTU’!

 

 

‘BŪKIME KARTU’ means ‘let’s be together’, and this is exactly what will happen tomorrow, Saturday the 

15th of May, when following the tradition of several previous events of same kind, around 120 children

from orphanages and other institutions gather at an ecological farm 26 km north of Vilnius.

 

 

 

 

H.E. Ambassador Simon Butt of

Great Britain is this year’s event patron

The concept of ‘BŪKIME KARTU’ is that disadvantaged children from orphanages within the Vilnius area are invited to spend a full day in the countryside, en­joying various activities sponsored by a number of international companies and institutions. The event takes place at an ecologic farm owned and run by a truly fascinating individual, Ms. Zina Gi­neistiene, a farmer and a teacher at the Vilnius University. Her farm encompasses a lot of different animals, birds, wooden farm buildings and barns, ponds, rivers and fields. All characterised by a genuine, traditional Lithuanian farm mood, and excitement, not to mention the very special smell of the living creatures and the farm itself…  

Zina’s unique farm not only provides a very differ­ent atmosphere and experience, but also plenty of fresh air for the kids and the many volunteers from Lithuania’s international community, throughout this complete spring Saturday, from 9 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon.

 

“Būkime kartu 2010”: A happy event

Tomorrow, Saturday the 15th of May will be painted in bright colours when representatives from foreign embassies, private companies and public institutions led by HE British Ambassador in Lithuania, Simon Butt, will invite more than 100 children from orphanages to the event “Būkime kartu 2010”.

“This event is not just about helping the orphanages. The idea of “Būkime kartu 2010” is to give a more important thing to the children – personal attention and care. Volunteers, some of whom are foreigners, from various organizations such as embassies, private companies and public institutions will spend their time playing, having lunch and sharing knowledge with those kids. Our goal is to make a wonderful and unforgettable day for them” – explains Ambassador Simon Butt, the patron of the event.

The event takes place at the ecologic farm of Zina Gi­neistiene

 

Angelė Čepėnaitė has since the very beginning been of the most active persons behind the event

Carlos Brebbia and his students will again do a fantastic job!

This year’s participants will enjoy many outdoor activities such as archery, horse riding, a bouncy castle, face-painting, team games, picnic and others. The magician Olegas Rimanas will perform a magic show. The fire brigade, police and customs officers will demonstrate some of their equipment and vehicles. The day will be flavoured with traditional Mexican food and desserts of a kind that children love.

Despite the difficult economic situation various organizations have generously offered their support to the event. It is sponsored by COWI Lietuva, Deloitte, EWMD, International School of Law and Business, Lithuanian Archery Federation, Medicina Magna, Multi dora, Pentland, Radisson Blu Astorija, Reval Hotel Lietuva, Rimi Lietuva, Statoil Lietuva, The Teachers' House, Tres Mejicanos, Vilties akimirka and Ūkio banko lizingas and others.

 

As for previous years, Lithuanian Governmental institutions such as Fire and Rescue, Police and Customs departments, and the British, U.S., Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, Argentinean,  Turkish and Bulgarian embassies are actively involved in organizing “Būkime kartu 2010”.

LEFT:

The fire brigade teaches the kids how to use a fire hose, and to play in and with the fire truck gives the kids an experience for lifetime.

RIGHT:

The activity of the police’s dog squad is always one of the most attractive happenings during the day.

 

 

“This has been the best day of my life – we hear this phrase from participating children every year since 2001. It is the best evaluation of our efforts and the reason for us to continue this enjoyable initiative” – adds Mr. Aage Myhre, President of Vilnius International Club and the main project coordinator.

“Būkime kartu 2010” is the 9th annual event under the umbrella of Vilnius International Club where disadvantaged children from Vilnius area and volunteers from different organizations gather together to spend a whole day out, since 2005 in Zina Gineitienė’s ecological farm located 26 km north of Vilnius in the Melkio village. The event will take place from 9.00 AM to 4.00 PM. The total number of participants – kids and helpers – is expected to reach 250.

 

 

Despite the difficult economic situation various organizations have generously offered their support to the event. It is sponsored by COWI Lietuva, Deloitte, EWMD, International School of Law and Business, Lithuanian Archery Federation, Medicina Magna, Multi dora, Pentland, Radisson Blu Astorija, Reval Hotel Lietuva, Rimi Lietuva, Statoil Lietuva, The Teachers' House, Tres Mejicanos, Vilties akimirka and Ūkio banko lizingas and others.

LEFT:

Andrius Koncius and Nijole Vrubliauskiene, COWI Lietuva.

RIGHT:

Torben Pedersen, DELOITTE

 

 

 

Category : Blog archive

Lt president of Columbia

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LITHUANIAN PRESIDENT

OF COLOMBIA?

 

 

antanas mockus 

ANTANAS MOCKUS (his full name is Aurelijus Rutenis Antanas Mockus Šivickas) 

was born 25 March 1952 in Bogotá. His parents were Lithuanian immigrants.

He is a mathematician, philosopher, and politician.

 

 

The story of Antanas Mockus is fascinating. As you will see from the below Washington Post story, Mr. Mockus might become the new president of Colombia, but it is not the first time that this Lithuanian immigrant has caught the world’s attention. He has earlier been mayor of Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, for two (non-consecutive) terms, during which he became known for springing surprising and humorous initiatives upon the city's inhabitants. These tended to involve grand gestures, including local artists or personal appearances by the mayor himself — taking a shower in a commercial about conserving water, or walking the streets dressed in spandex and a cape as Supercitizen. The impact of Mockus on the development of Bogotá is described in a documentary film released in October 2009 with the title CITIES ON SPEED - Bogotá Change. It is promoted as being "the story of two charismatic mayors, Antanas Mockus and Enrique Peñalosa who, with unorthodox methods, in less than 10 years turned one of the world's most dangerous, violent and corrupt capitals into a peaceful model city populated by caring citizens. With Mockus and Peñalosa and key members of their staff as first hand witnesses, the film uncovers the ideas, philosophies and strategies that underlie the changes in Bogotá and which are now being exported to cities worldwide."

 

Politically astute outsider Mockus making ground in campaign for president of Colombia

 

By Juan Forero

Washington Post Staff Writer 
Friday, May 7, 2010

BUCARAMANGA, COLOMBIA -- Colombians have long known Antanas Mockus for his antics, such as the time he mooned an auditorium full of rowdy students during his stint as a university president. And how he got married atop an elephant.

Then there were the occasions during his two terms as Bogota mayor when he donned a spandex suit and became Super Citizen to lecture residents about civics.

Some have called him "a little strange," as Mockus acknowledged Thursday in an interview. Soon, Colombians may be calling him president.

Polls increasingly show that Mockus, who is the son of Lithuanian immigrants and whose trademark is an Amish-style beard, might just win the presidency in elections to succeed Alvaro Uribe, a U.S.-backed hard-liner who was prevented from running for a third term. A first round of voting takes place May 30, with a second scheduled next month if no candidate wins 50 percent.

Political analysts and commentators call Mockus's rise a political phenomenon because he differs so markedly in style and substance from Uribe, who marshaled more than $6 billion in U.S. aid to batter the rebel forces that have plagued Colombia. That gave Uribe a 70 percent approval rating, and pundits predicted that his natural heir, former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos, would easily sweep to victory.

Mockus, a 58-year-old former mathematician, likes to say that he is not anti-Uribe but post-Uribe. He has said he would continue popular policies, such as the fight against armed groups, but also pledges to bring civility and transparency to government.

"People are thinking to themselves, 'I am good, and I see myself in this leader, who even appears naively good,' " said Mockus, speaking in a bulletproof 4x4 transporting him to a campaign stop in this northern city. "It is like the people feel the need to believe in a process that calls for people to be good."

Mockus's running mate is a former mayor of Medellin, Sergio Fajardo, also a former mathematician. Two other former Bogota mayors, Luis Eduardo Garzon and Enrique Pe?alosa, campaign alongside them, hammering home the message that they offer technocratic competence and honesty.

'New politics'

Mockus's campaign managers say his administration would contrast sharply with what critics call the downside of Uribe's government: confrontation and scandal, including revelations that the secret police spied on opponents and helped hit men kill leftist activists.

Mockus, who heads the Green Party, has run a shoestring campaign, relying on students adept at getting the word out through Facebook and Twitter.

"People in Colombia are tired of corruption, old-style politics, and Mockus and Fajardo are now trying to represent this new politics," Andres Pastrana, a former president, said in a recent interview.

That Aurelijus Rutenis Antanas Mockus Sivickas would have much of a chance in this country of 45 million would seem surprising, at least on the surface. In some ways, Colombia is an insular, inward-looking country that does not have the immigrant tradition common in other Latin American countries. Colombians rarely elect populists for high office, let alone charismatic, anti-establishment types who are eccentric or prone to sometimes bizarre behavior.

Analysts say that despite his outsider status, Mockus is a savvy political operator. But he is also the natural anti-politician: He gives long, pedagogic answers, laced with references to Kant and Kierkegaard.

He is not afraid to cry in public or acknowledge mistakes. He has also disclosed that he has Parkinson's disease, though doctors say it is not debilitating.

As mayor, he once took a shower on television to push water conservation. He also used mimes to teach Bogota's notoriously discourteous drivers to obey traffic laws.

To his detractors, everything associated with Mockus smacks of naivete and optimism, like the sunflowers that are the symbol of his campaign. Those critics say that Colombia still faces serious threats from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), its largest rebel group.

"The FARC are waiting for Aug. 7 to have a big party," Andres Felipe Arias, a former Uribe ally, said, referring to the date of the presidential inauguration. "You do not confront the challenge of the guerrillas with mimes and sunflowers."

Mockus responds that he will continue to use the armed forces, which have received training and funding from Washington, to battle the rebels and drug-trafficking in the world's biggest cocaine-producing country. "My philosophy is not to stop things unless there's a sign of something being unproductive," he said.

As mayor of Bogota, a city of 8 million, he invested heavily in police and instituted new tactics, resulting in a dramatic drop in homicides and winning public praise from Uribe.

Mockus also refused to parcel out posts to supporters or meet with municipal officials and council members known for corruption. He raised taxes on the rich and instituted unpopular measures such as closing bars at 1 a.m. to cut down on drunken driving and violence. (It worked.)

What he said he cannot fathom, though, is obtaining results at any price. He referred to one scandal that has plagued the Uribe administration since 2008: the killing of peasants by army units looking to beef up combat death statistics and win favor with their superiors. "That is an act that reflected on the deterioration of the morals of a part of society," Mockus said.

Instead, he often speaks of the sanctity of life, leading followers in chants of "Life is sacred. Life is sacred." He said that Colombians, after years of war, must learn how to stop hating.

"I don't want to run a government laced with hate," he said. "The guerrillas may make me indignant, and I will fight them. But I will not hate them."

 

Category : Blog archive

Flower power

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FLOWER POWER!

 

In the 1960s, several new suburbs started developing in Vilnius, and it is today

estimated that more than 70% of the city’s population lives in blockhouses.

Above: View from Antakalnis towards the (by then) new district Žirmūnai.

Photo: Antanas Sutkus, 1964

 

Many foreigners think that the majority of townspeople in Lithuania live in dreary grey Soviet blockhouses. They are right, but of course only to a certain extent. What most people in the West do not know, though, is that the Lithuanians and other peoples in Eastern Europe are living a double life. For while blockhouse apartments in the urban peripheries are the city dwellers habitat through the winter months, the gardens houses take over as the families’ main homes once the snow is gone. These gardens are in Lithuanian language called a ‘sodas’ and the very garden house a ‘sodo namas’.

Most garden houses are built on land plots just outside the cities. Most were built during the Soviet era, when many city dwellers were given free land by the authorities. This principle is well known in the west, as the so-called allotment gardening principle, but while it has a limited scope in the west, it is in this country and other East European countries very popular and widespread.

Allotment gardens are characterised by a concentration in one place of a few or up to several hundred land parcels that are assigned to individuals or families. In allotment gardens, the parcels are cultivated individually, contrary to other community garden types where the entire area is tended collectively by a group of people. The individual size of a parcel ranges between 500 and 1000 square meters. The individual gardeners are normally organised in an allotment association.

The 1980s saw the peak of the ‘sodas’ boom with virtually every affluent family in the country having a ‘sodas’ of their own or spending weekends and holidays at friends' ‘sodai’. Often ill-equipped and without indoor plumbing, garden houses were nevertheless the ultimate solution for many working class families to having an inexpensive summer retreat. Having a piece of land also offered an opportunity for city dwellers to indulge themselves in growing their own fruits and vegetables.

The collapse of the Soviet Union saw the return to private land ownership. Most gardens have since been privatized and Lithuania is now one of the world nations with the largest number of owners of second homes. The growth of living standards in recent years allowed many ‘sodas’ owners to spend their discretionary income on improvements. Thus, many recently built ‘sodo namia’ are fully equipped  houses suitable for use as permanent residences. The market-oriented economy transformed the ‘sodas’ into an asset, which generally reflects the prosperity of its owner and can be freely traded in the real estate market.

 

It was in the 1960s that the allotment gardens outside the major cities of Lithuania really took off. My in-laws

garden ('sodas' in Lithuanian) is a very good example. Their 'sodas' has over the past 30 years evolved

into an incredibly lush, green oasis where family and friends very much enjoy the summer months.

My in-laws were among those who were allocated a land plot outside of Vilnius. Here, they have over the last 30 years developed a truly wonderful oasis of fruit trees, vegetable fields, berry bushes and a fine garden house that has gradually become more and more a house you really can live in the year around.

 

This is a garden where it really grows during the

summer months - in greenhouses and in the fertile soil.  

It is when I come out to my in-laws garden that I really understand that Lithuanians at the bottom of their hearts are genuine farmers who know how to cultivate the rich Lithuanian soil into marvellous harvests.

It is out here I think I'm starting to understand more of the folk soul of this country.

 

 

 

 

Saslykai - cubes of meat, marinated and prepared over a fire indoor or outdoor

– is always the most popular ‘sodas’ meal. 

There are those who say that Lithuanians are cold and unapproachable people. But those who say that have never been on a visit to a 'sodas'. For here is rife not only for flowers, but also people. When you come out here you will experience unique friendliness, neighbourliness, and much good humour. You will smell the food cooking in the fireplace fires or out on the many ‘saslykai’ barbecues. You will hear laughter, and in the evening you will see family after family unite around the dinner tables to enjoy the food that was just prepared on the flames, along with newly picked, fresh vegetables, berries and fruits.

 

What could be better than enjoying a tasty garden meal with good friends?

My children love their grandparents' garden. Here they can run happily barefoot in God's free nature.  Here they can play with their many good friends from last summer. Seen through children's eyes who cannot wait to have the season’s first dive into the river, the Neris River not far away, offers a quiet pool which is very well suited to swimming when the ice has gone and the temperature outside has become blazingly high.

It is not always easy to explain why Lithuania is such an incredibly special place on this Earth. But words are not really necessary if you first get out to a 'sodas' area outside one of the nation's cities. Do not miss the opportunity. Summer is here. Right now…

 

Aage Myhre

Editor

 

My kids simply love playing in their grandparents’ garden oasis.

Category : Blog archive

Look to Norway

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LOOK TO NORWAY 

  

When I came to Lithuania for the first time, almost 20 years ago, the country's political leadership was in the process of drafting the new law book that would be the legal framework for the modern democracy this country was supposed to become after all the years of Soviet occupation. Our small delegation from Norway suggested that one simply could translate our Norwegian legislation, of a free and functioning democracy, but Lithuania's politicians chose not to follow our advice, and used instead many years to develop their own laws. This country's leaders have, for better or worse, an extensive belief in their excellence and ability to reinvent the wheel even when it would have been so much easier to seek advice and help from good neighbours. 

Many Norwegian delegations have appeared over the 20 years that have elapsed since that time. They have come and gone without seeing the relationship between Norway and Lithuania thus has become particularly warm or close. In several instances, I know that the Norwegians have travelled back home, headshaking. One example is the delegation that three years ago came here to give advice on how Lithuania could solve its energy situation after the closure of the Ignalina nuclear power plant. The energy nation Norway was not listened to, and we all know what is now the situation in this country. 

But it's not too late to seek cooperation with Norway, in many areas, and I encourage Prime Minister Kubilius and his government to take such a chance seriously this time. Norway is one of the world's richest countries, and also a neighbouring country that in many fields can both understand and help to find solutions to the many challenges still facing Lithuania. The telephone conference between our two foreign ministers (see below) might serve as a new beginning of an improved climate of cooperation, and I sincerely hope that Lithuania now seizes the opportunity to develop a systematic structure for a very close cooperation with Norway.

The time of emergency and aid is over. Now we need pragmatic, bilateral action.

A good and close cooperation must naturally involve benefits to both parties, and I can imagine many areas where that may be possible. Let me mention a few: 

ENERGY

Norway is an energy nation of world format; in oil, hydropower, wind power, solar energy and energy efficiency. Lithuania is in the process of developing their own systems, but could move infinitely faster forward by collaborating with Norwegian companies and institutions. 

INDUSTRY

I see it as likely that many Norwegian companies could outsource much of their production to Lithuania. What we need is a skilled professional, who knows Lithuania’s opportunities in manufacturing, who can travel around Norway to discuss possible cooperation projects with Lithuanian companies.

SHIPPING / OFFSHORE

A Norwegian friend of mine produces fittings for ships and oil platforms here in Lithuania. His company has also teams of Lithuanian workers who travel around the world to furnish ships or platforms. An area that could have been expanded to a considerable extent and scope.

AGRICULTURE

In the interwar years Denmark and Lithuania competed to be leaders in northern European agriculture. Today, agriculture in countries like Denmark and Norway at a very high level, whereas Lithuania desperately needs new investment and new technology. A collaboration with Norwegian farmers and agricultural organizations could come to mean endlessly much in this process. 

FISHERIES

A Norwegian friend of mine is the director of a fish factory in Klaipeda. The owner is the Bornholm company Espersen. The factory was built new in Klaipeda's Free Economic Zone a few years ago. Now an extension of the factory is underway. This is an excellent example of how Lithuanian labour can do a good job for a company that processes fish for European markets.

 

TOURISM, COURSES AND CONFERENCES

I am convinced that Lithuania would attract many more Norwegian tourists if they had a person or a group of professional sales people that toured throughout Norway with presentations of what Lithuania has to offer. Not least, this applies to the training and conference sector, which is incredibly large in Norway. Lithuania should clearly be able to come up with very attractive and competitive offers. 

 

Another example: The Reval hotels in Lithuania are Norwegian-owned, and a close collaboration with the owner, the Linstow group, should be investigated further. 

 

SCHOOLS

 

The Lithuanian school system desperately needs improvement, and collaboration, school-to-school, with Norway, would undoubtedly be useful. I got an excellent example of how useful such cooperation can be when a few years ago I visited the headmaster at the Birštonas Secondary School, Alvydas Urbanavičius. This school, having 800 students, is famous throughout Lithuania for its high level of education. When I asked the headmaster about the reason for this his reply was cards and cash, "We were very lucky to be 'adopted' by a Danish school already in the early 1990s, and the Danes taught us how to run a modern school and also gave us important funding so that we could avoid many of the problems that other Lithuanian schools and the very educational system here is still fighting with." 

 

In terms of higher education, Norway is otherwise heavily involved in Lithuania already. The ISM Universities (University of Management and Economics) in Kaunas and Vilnius, for example, are owned by Norwegian BI (Norwegian School of Management). 

 

But there is much that can be further developed in many levels and learning areas. 

 

HEALTH

A very large number of Lithuanian physicians and other health professionals are today working in Norway. Maybe there could be an idea if one instead tried to find forms of cooperation between Norwegian and Lithuanian health care so that this country would not be completely drained for health professionals for the benefit of rich Norway? Norway has a very important task to fulfil in this aspect, and it should be imposed on Norwegian health policy makers to take this issue far more seriously.

 

CULTURE, SOCIETY

 

Lithuania has a wonderful culture that should be experienced by a large number of Norwegians. An extensive cooperation between the cultural sectors of our two countries would mean microns for both parties. As an architect, there is much on my heart to find help to preserve the great Lithuanian wooden houses and other old architecture, and I hope the right institutions in Norway would be ready to help…

 

During my visit to Lithuania in January 1991, while the Soviet troops surrounded the Parliament and the TV tower in Vilnius, our Norwegian delegation brought with us a letter from Oslo's mayor confirming that Oslo was ready to be Vilnius' first sister city in the west. Later, many Lithuanian and Norwegian cities, municipalities and counties have established friendship agreements. But in most cases only with words, little action. 

Now is the time for action. 

I hope PM Kubilius and his government this time will understand that Norway is a land of opportunity.  Also as Lithuania's closest friend and ally. A comprehensive and professionally planned cooperation plan on many levels should now be prepared.

We have no time to lose. 

Aage Myhre

Editor

 

Roosevelt’s ‘Look to Norway’ speech

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

 

Haakon VII of Norway

King Haakon VII of Norway

 (1872 – 1957)

Reigned from 1905 to 1957

 

 

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt

(1882 – 1945)

In office from 1933 to 1945

 

The "Look to Norway" speech by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was given during the handover ceremony of the Royal Norwegian Navy ship HNoMS King Haakon VII at the Washington Navy Yard on 16 September 1942.

 

 

In the speech the President said:

"If there is anyone who still wonders why this war is being fought, let him look to Norway. If there is anyone who has any delusions that this war could have been averted, let him look to Norway; and if there is anyone who doubts the democratic will to win, again I say, let him look to Norway."

 

The speech served as an important source of inspiration to Norwegians fighting the German occupation of Norway and the rest of Europe as well as for the resistance fighters of other small countries during World War II

 

 

The speech also made an impact on Norwegian-Americans and the rest of the American public's opinion on the struggle in Europe. The impression of the Norwegian's situation had been severely damaged by an article by the American reporter, Leland Stowe, who happened to be in Oslo on the day the Germans marched into the city. He witnessed shocked Norwegian civilians standing around watching the Germans march down the parade street Karl Johan’s gate. He interpreted the shock as indifference and acceptance on the part of the Norwegian population and wrote a stinging article in Time and several newspapers which severely damaged the American public's opinion of the Norwegian resistance and therefore their motivation to help Norway and Europe. The speech corrected that impression.

 

The speech is still referenced and quoted today.


In a speech on 13 April 1940, the President had already praised the Norwegian resistance. Roosevelt's interest in Norway was in part due to the good relations established by the Norwegian Crown Prince and his wife, Princess Martha, and the Norwegian ambassador to the U.S., Wilhelm Thorleif von Munthe af Morgenstierne.

 

In 2005 the ceremony, including the speech, was re-enacted to mark the centenary of diplomatic relations between Norway and the United States.

 

 

Last week: Lithuanian and Norwegian

foreign ministers discussed cooperation

 

jonas.jpg 

Jonas Gahr Støre, Norway

  

Audronius Ažubalis2.jpeg 

Audronius Ažubalis, Lithuania

 

Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis and Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre, who could not come to Lithuania due to the cancelled flights in Europe, discussed issues of bilateral relations, cooperation in the Baltic Sea region, economy and international security during a teleconference that was held on 19 April. 

During the conversation, Minister A.Ažubalis stressed the advantage of the European Economic Area (EEA) and Norwegian Financial Mechanism that functioned successfully in Lithuania for the period 2004-2009. The Minister expressed trust that a similar agreement would be signed for the period 2009-2014.

“Norwegian Grants 2004-2009 were very popular in Lithuania. The number of applications was twice as big as the amount available for Lithuania. These projects are important to us not only economically, as they also strengthen the relations between Lithuania and Norway,” the head of Lithuania’s diplomacy said.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister thanked J.G.Støre for the support of Norway to the European Humanities University based in Vilnius, and asked for continuous Norway’s support to this University.

Ministers A.Ažubalis and J.G.Støre discussed bilateral trade and decided that the Lithuanian-Norwegian economic relations could be intensified even more in the future. The Ministers agreed that it would be efficient to organize information campaigns and to use high-level bilateral visits for holding business missions.

In 2009, the Norwegian and Lithuanian trade turnover amounted to 1.233 billion Litas. The trade balance was positive and reached 803 million Litas. Lithuanian exports to Norway in 2009 amounted to 1.018 billion Litas, and imports reached 215.69 million Litas.

The Ministers also discussed the Nordic-Baltic cooperation. Minister A.Ažubalis suggested considering to launch a group of wise men, which would be comprised of representatives from eight countries (NB8). This group would set further Nordic-Baltic cooperation guidelines on common identity, foreign policy, energy, environmentally friendly technologies, etc.

“The Nordic-Baltic cooperation needs to find fresh inspiration and ideas to become more effective,” Minister A.Ažubalis said.

The Ministers discussed Lithuania’s Presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), prospects for the organization’s activities in the future, Lithuania’s preparations to chair the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2011. The Ministers discussed ways to make the OSCE activities more effective and the OSCE-anchored dialogue on the future of European security (the Corfu Process).

Minister A.Ažubalis conveyed an invitation to the Norwegian Prime Minister to attend the Summit of the Baltic Sea States due on 1-2 June in Vilnius.

Lithuania holds the Presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States since July 2009. In June 2010, Norway will take over the Presidency from Lithuania.

The Ministers discussed preparations for the meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers on 22-23 April in Tallinn, and NATO’s new Strategic Concept. The ministers agreed that NATO had to remain an effective transatlantic defence organization.

During the conversation, the Ministers agreed to decide in the short run on the date of J.G.Støre’s visit to Lithuania.

 

Global financial meltdown? Not in Norway

 

One European nation has escaped the worldwide financial meltdown and recession.  It’s Norway, which saved its money - rather than spent - through the boom years. As a result of frugal financial management, Norwegian housing prices and consumption are on the upswing and interest rates are affordable.  Norway’s fiscal responsibility of its income from enormous oil and gas reserves has allowed the Scandinavian nation to build one of the globe’s largest investment funds.


After large deposits of gas and oil were discovered in the mid-1970s, Norway didn’t go on a spending spree, and channelled its revenues into a state investment fund.  The government - with very few exceptions - can spend only four percent of those revenues annually.  “By the end of this year, I guess we are approaching $400 billion U.S.,” according to Amund Utne, a director general of Norway’s Finance Ministry.  Do the math, and that adds up to $400 billion in a nation whose population is 4.5 million.

 

Beyond its oil and gas revenues, strict banking regulations - tightened after a banking crisis in the early 1990s - shielded Norway from the credit crisis.  Norwegian banks made loans wisely and stayed away from exotic investments and financial products over the past decade.  “They (the United States) got all the bright guys to make all kinds of fantastic products.  Very creative.  And it turned out it was maybe not the best solution in the end,” Utne said, with typical Norwegian understatement.  “I think Norwegian banks are not as creative.  In this situation, it may be good to be somewhat boring.”


Norway also was immune from the housing bubble.  According to Bjorn Erik Orskaug of DnB NOR, Norway’s largest bank, “Housing prices are back up.  Consumption is up.  Banks are lending normally to the household sector and interest rates are staying low.”

 

17 May is Norway’s Constitution Day

 

17 May celebration at Karl Johan’s street in Oslo.

The Royal Palace in the background.

 

The Norwegian Constitution Day is the National Day of Norway and is an official national holiday each year. Among Norwegians, the day is referred to simply as syttende mai (meaning May Seventeenth), Nasjonaldagen (The National Day) or Grunnlovsdagen (The Constitution Day), although the latter is less frequent.

The Constitution of Norway was signed at Eidsvoll (a small town 60 km north of Oslo) on May 17 in the year 1814. The constitution declared Norway to be an independent nation.

 

The celebration of this day began spontaneously among students and others from early on. However, Norway was at that time under Swedish rule (1814 - 1905) and for some years the King of Sweden was reluctant to allow the celebrations. For a couple of years in the 1820s, king Carl Johan actually forbade it, as he thought the celebrations a kind of protest and disregard —even revolt— against Swedish sovereignty. The king's attitude changed slightly after the Battle of the Square in 1829, an incident which resulted in such a commotion that the King had to allow it. It was, however, not until 1833, that anyone ventured to hold a public address on behalf of the day.

 

After 1864, the day became more established, and the first children's promenade was launched in Christiania (today’s Oslo), in a parade consisting only of boys. It was only in 1899 that girls were allowed to join in the parade for the first time.

 

By historical coincidence, the Second World War ended in Norway just nine days before that year's Constitution Day, on May 8, 1945, when the occupying German forces surrendered. Even if The Liberation Day is an official flag day in Norway, the day is not an official holiday and is not broadly celebrated. Instead a new and broader meaning has been added to the celebration of Norwegian Constitution Day on May 17.

 

The day focused originally on the Norwegian constitution, but after 1905, the focus has been directed also towards the royal family.

 

A noteworthy aspect of the Norwegian Constitution Day is its very non-military nature. All over Norway, children's parades with an abundance of flags form the central elements of the celebration. Each elementary school district arranges its own parade with marching bands between schools. The parade takes the children through the community, often making stops at homes of senior citizens, war memorials, etc. The longest parade is in Oslo, where some 100,000 people travel to the city centre to participate in the main festivities.

 

 

Category : Blog archive

Lithuanian footsteps in South Africa

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LITHUANIAN SOUTH AFRICA

Text and photos: Aage Myhre

 

 

It is considered that around 90% of the approximately 80,000 Jews living in South Africa are of

Lithuanian descent (the so-called Litvaks), which thus constitutes the largest pocket of Litvaks

in the world! You are hereby invited to learn more about this unique Jewish community that

still holds Lithuania alive in their hearts, museums and synagogues.

 

 

 

For the tens of thousands Litvaks who came to South Africa during the years 1860 –

1940, the Cape Town harbour was the first glimpse they had of their new homeland.

 

 

The Jewish Museum in Cape Town is more Lithuanian than Lithuania itself.

 

 

Lithuanian footprints

 

in South Africa

Text and photos: Aage Myhre

 

 

The Jewish Museum in Cape Town offers visitors a journey back in time. Most museums do. The striking feature of this museum, however, is that the journey to the past also brings us to a completely different part of our world, from Africa's southern tip to a seemingly modest little country far to the north, to a country where around 90% of South Africa's Jewish population has its roots (there are today about 80,000 Jews in South Africa).

 

The museum's basement is dominated by a village environment (shtetl) from the late 1800s. A few houses are reconstructed in full scale, and you can clearly see how people lived and co-existed at the time. The village is called Riteve. It was recreated in the museum on the basis of entries made in the 1990s by a group of experts who went from South Africa to Lithuania to find traces of the family of the museum's founder, Mendel Kaplan. 

 

The village is called Rietavas in Lithuanian. It is there to this day, less than a half hour drive from Klaipeda, at the highway direction Kaunas and Vilnius. The Kaplan family emigrated from here in the 1920s, while the village's population was still 90% Jewish. Today, no Jews live in Rietavas. 

 

A stroll among the house-models in the Cape Town museum's basement is like walking around in a part of Lithuania, almost more Lithuanian than Lithuania itself. This impression is becoming no less strong when I discover that the café that is a part of this comprehensive Jewish complex in Cape Town, is also named after the founder's home town in Lithuania, and that the older part of the museum is a replica of a Vilnius synagogue. This synagogue was built in 1863, and was the first ever built in South Africa. 

 

The museum and Café Riteve are just two of the elements of an extensive complex of Jewish-related buildings here in Cape Town's incredibly beautiful botanical garden, so if you first come here, I recommend that you take your time. Worth a visit is the Great Synagogue from 1905, the Gitlin Library (including a large collection of books in Yiddish that the Litvaks brought with them on the long sea voyage from Lithuania to Cape Town), and the Cape Town Holocaust Centre (see below).

 

Lithuanians dominate the Jewish community in South Africa

 

Lithuanians dominate the Jewish community in South Africa to an extent seen in no other country. Casino magnate Sol Kerzner (1935 - ), communist leader Joe Slovo (1926 – 1995) and veteran anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman (1917 – 2009) make an unlikely trio but have in common that they are all of Lithuanian descent.

 

Like their Lithuanian ancestors, whose political ranks included wealthy capitalists, zealous Zionists, prominent religious scholars and committed communists, South Africa's Litvaks, have spanned the political spectrum. On the left stands Slovo, the former head of the South African Communist Party, who was born in Lithuania in 1926 and came to South Africa at the age of nine. On the right stands Kerzner, a flamboyant businessman who built the famous casino resort Sun City (north of Johannesburg) and founded the entertainment and leisure giant Sun International.

Jewish emigrants from Tsar occupied Lithuania are generally thought of as having fled the persecution and poverty for the safe shores of America. A much less known story is that of the many Litvaks who travelled to South Africa. Many of these migrants came from the Kaunas region (Kovno in Yiddish), but many also came from towns such as Palanga, Panevėžys, Rietavas and Šiauliai.  

Many travelled via the Liepāja port in Latvia on ships bound, via the Baltic Sea and (after its opening in 1895) the Kiel Canal shortcut, for English east coast ports. From there, they travelled overland, usually via London, to Southampton to embark for Cape Town.

This movement of people was not accidental: a whole business existed to cater for them, from the ticket agents in Kaunas or Vilnius, to shipping lines such as the Wilson Line shuttling between Liepāja and Hull, to the Poor Jews’ Temporary Shelter in London which housed and orientated many of the trans-migrants, to the Castle Line and the Union Line which specialised in the route to South Africa.

And like any successful movement of people, it became self-perpetuating, as the new South Africans sent home letters, and money, encouraging others to follow suit. The first countrywide Union of South African census in 1911 indicates a population of 46,919 Jews, a majority of whom were Litvaks. By 1921, the Jewish population had risen to 62,103, but with more of a shift in gravity towards the gold-mining and commercial centres of Witwatersrand in the Transvaal area (which accounted for 33,515). 

What this means is that a great many of those North Americans and British with Litvak ancestors are likely to have kin in South Africa. There are many good sources for Jewish family history research in Lithuania and prospects of success are often favourable, as long as the place of origin within the country is known or can be identified.

 

The extraordinary story of Sammy Marks (1843 – 1910) from Taurage

 

The entrepreneur Samuel Marks was born in the Lithuanian district of Taurage in 1843. He was one of the very first Litvaks to arrive on African shores. He came here via England in 1868 and began his career by hawking cheap jewellery and cutlery in Cape Town. Later he moved on to Kimberley where he went into business with his brother-in-law Isaac Lewis and Jules Porges. Together they formed the French Diamond Mining Company. 

Following this, Lewis and Marks decided to relocate to the Eastern Transvaal where they established the African and European Investment Company. This company proceeded to become a major Rand finance house with controlling interests in several gold mines. Mr. Marks had become a leading magnate and one of South Africa’s richest men.

An example of his many success stories is one of the companies he started, theZuid-Afrikaanscheen Oranje Vrystaatsche Mineralen en Mijnbouvereeniging, which became the basis of the town Vereeniging. Marks also developed the Viljoen’s Drift coal mine and encouraged the expansion of the Witbank coalfields.

Sammy Marks was also a close friend and admirer of South Africa’s State President Paul Kruger (who is often called the father of the Afrikaner nation) and a popular figure within the Transvaal business community. It was Marks who advised Kruger to build a railway line from Pretoria to Lorenco Marques. He served as a senator in the Union Parliament from 1910 until his death in 1920 in Johannesburg.

Worth a visit is the Sammy Marks Museum north of Pretoria and Johannesburg. The museum building, a splendid Victorian mansion dating from 1884, was the residence of Marks, whose significant contribution to the industrial, mining and agricultural development of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek has given him an outstanding position in South African history, so very far away from his birthplace in Taurage, Lithuania…

 

Click here to read more about the exceptional history of the Litvaks in South Africa :

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/South_Africa.html

 

 

Some of today’s Litvaks in South Africa

 

Let me introduce you to some of my good friends in South Africa. Most of them are second and third generation Litvaks (plus one single first-generation Litvak). There is also a small colony of Lithuanians who have moved down here the last 20 years. My conclusion is that Lithuania and the Lithuanian spirit is alive and present, even in modern South Africa.

 

SAM (SHMUEL) KEREN

 

BORN IN PABRADE, LITHUANIA, IN 1934. A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR

 

 

Sam's life story is worthy of a screenplay. His autobiographical book, 'Mulik the Zulik', says it all. Sam was the only person of his family able to escape the Holocaust in Lithuania. A Polish neighbour family acted as if he was their son and managed in this way to smuggle him out of Lithuania during the war. The rest of his family was executed.  After WWII, Sam managed to get to Switzerland, and later to Israel. But it was South Africa that was to become his new homeland, in the 1960s. Here he has done well in business and private. Sam visits Lithuania and his home-place Pabradė every summer since the 1990s. He likes Lithuania, but is still sceptical of Lithuanians and their involvements in the killing of Jews during the Holocaust. I took the above photo of Sam in his office in downtown Cape Town. On the walls hangs many of the memories from his enormously challenging youth. The image he shows me is of the tombstone he installed on his mother's grave a few years ago. In Pabradė village, Lithuania.

 

JEANETTE JEGGER

 

FILM PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR. PREPARING A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT LITVAK LITHUANIA

 

 

 

Jeanette completed an MA in Film Production at the University of Bristol, UK, in 2000 and, upon returning to South Africa, realised that the only way to make a film was to get out there and do it. And so, with the support of friends and other grassroots filmmakers, she made Krisimesi, also exploring children’s unique perspectives, which has, in its different versions, screened at various international film festivals and won several awards. She teaches film and has a production company with Matthys Mocke.

During my meeting with Jeanette she told me much about her so far only visit to Lithuania. She told me about when she came to Kaunas to try to find the house where her ancestors lived, and how nervous the woman who now lives in the house became when Jeanette knocked on the door, and the fantastic three days that followed when she and the woman, a known Lithuanian artist, afterwards sat down in mutual trust and dialogue…

 

 

PROFESSOR MILTON SHAIN

 

DIRECTOR OF THE ISAAC AND JESSIE KAPLAN CENTRE FOR JEWISH STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN

 

Professor Shain excuses himself, mildly and courteously, as he welcomes me in shorts this December day. "It's really all in the middle of summer here," he says as he leads me into the facilities he is the head of, here at the “Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Cape Town”. And it is by his crowded desk that I get to know so much more about the amazing relationships between his ancestral homeland, Lithuania, and the intellectual South Africa he represents. So, dear reader, if you want to know more about Jews in South Africa, you should definitely read Milton's latest book “Jews in South Africa”.

 

RICHARD FREEDMAN

 

DIRECTOR OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN HOLOCAUST FOUNDATION, CAPE TOWN

 

 

Richard meets me at the entrance to the Holocaust Centre in Cape Town. I was expecting a man that would put the most emphasis on the many tragic events of the Holocaust in Lithuania and in Europe in general. Richard is, after all, a Litvak himself. But what he instead emphasizes, is that there are an infinite number of comparison points between the Holocaust in Europe and the apartheid in South Africa. "Whites who look down on blacks, Nazis who look down on Jews, people who think themselves better than others, aren’t they all of the same kind?", he asks…

 

 

 

KIM FEINBERG

 

 THE ‘JEWISH TEA MOTHER’ AND HER RENTLESS FIGHTS AGAINST HIV-AIDS IN SOUTH AFRICA

 

 

The Christmas trees are beautifully decorated in the district of Rosebank, Johannesburg, this summer afternoon in December. I am slowly strolling around when I suddenly see an energetic white young lady in the middle of a crowd of black youths. It turns out that she is a genuine Litvak, and that she is the head of the organization 'Tomorrow's Trust', which in recent years has become a leading institution in the fight against AIDS-HIV in South Africa.

 

Kim is the one who some years ago walked out of the movie ‘Schindler’s List’ filled with a sense of purpose. “I just thought, ‘I have to do something. I spoke to my rabbi and then started my own oral history project,” she explains.

 

What an amazing person and determination. Her name is Kim Feinberg, soon 50 years old, still young forever.

 

 

RUTH RABINOVWITZ

 

THE LITVAK MEDICAL DOCTOR WHO REPRESENTS THE ZULUS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN PARLIAMENT

 

 

An unlikely Zulu, Ruth Rabinowitz represents the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party in the South African parliament!

 

I meet Ruth in the library of the Johannesburg Grace Hotel to talk about her unusual life and political career. And Ruth tells an almost incredible story. About how her Litvak family, many years ago, became close friends with the Zulu king and his family. She tells about her medical background, but first of all, she focuses on the circumstances for Africa's largest tribe, the Zulus, that today includes three million people, almost as many as the number of inhabitants in Lithuania, the country her ancestors came from (if to count only the present, local population of Lithuania, of course)…

 

THE HONORARY CONSULS OF LITHUANIA TO SOUTH AFRICA

THREE SUCCESSFUL ATTORNEYS - ALL LITVAKS

 

 

 

 

 

 

RAYMOND JOFFE

Honorary Consul of Lithuania, Johannesburg


ALAN B. SCHMIEDT

Honorary Consul of Lithuania,  Cape Town

 


IVOR FEINBERG

Honorary Consul of Lithuania, Pretoria

 

Here they are. Lithuania's three musketeers in South Africa: Raymond, Alan and Ivor. Three skilled lawyers, all of them genuine Lithuanian Jews. It is these three who make up the front line in terms of current relations between Lithuania and South Africa. It is these three who help facilitate Lithuanians arriving to Africa's southern areas, and they are also the ones constantly informing South Africans about the wonderful country called Lithuania.

 

They were, some years ago, recommended as consuls by the Lithuanian ambassadors to Israel. Israel? Yes, believe it or not, but the fact is that Lithuania does not have its own ambassador to the country having the largest pocket of Litvaks in the world… The Lithuanian ambassador in Tel Aviv must serve Israel, Cyprus and South Africa altogether. But then, in turn, the ambassadors we've had so far have done a good job. It was, as an exemplary example, the very capable Lithuanian ambassadors Romas Misiunas and Alfonsas Eidintas who recommended these three smart guys we today are naming Lithuania's three musketeers in South Africa.

 

I have had the pleasure of meeting all three of them several times, both here in Lithuania and in South Africa, and I know that they all burn for stronger ties between our two countries. But I've also heard them talk about how sad it was to experience the Lithuanian Constitutional Court rule that Lithuanian citizens around the globe could no longer be registered as Dual Citizens. They feel, as I do, that it is terribly sad to see nowadays Lithuania burn bridges instead of seeking renewed contact with its fantastic diasporas around the world. In this aspect, sadly, every day that passes is a day lost…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rietavas and the

 

 

Kaplan family

 

 

 

The impressions from the Jewish Museum in Cape Town were as glued to my memory. So in August last year I decided to visit Rietavas, the village the Kaplan family emigrated from almost 100 years ago. I had expected to find proud traces of the family; a museum, a memorial, or maybe even something more sophisticated… But I got terribly disappointed. What struck me, then and there, was that this was almost like coming to Salzburg without seeing Mozart mentioned at all... 

 

What a shame. I took some pictures and went from there with bowed head. Mendel Kaplan, by far the wealthiest and certainly one of the wisest Lithuanians ever, was not mentioned with a single word or symbol in the very home village of his own family...

 

When I came back to Vilnius from Rietavas that August evening, I sent my photos and comments to Dr. Kaplan in Cape Town. This is what he replied a few days later:

 

 

Dear Mr Myhre,

I thank you for your correspondence on Riteve and your complimentary remarks about our family.

When President Landsbergis was surrounded by tanks and holed up in parliament I visited him with my wife and friends in the building and established a very warm relationship.  I hope he is still well and I remember the fact that his wife was responsible for saving a number of Jews during the Second World War.

Yours sincerely

Mendel Kaplan

 

 

Mendel Kaplan (1936-2009) died of a stroke three months after he sent me the above message. In the obituaries that followed, leading Jews stated that Dr. Kaplan was a man who could be termed “the father of the South African Jewish community.”  They wrote that he had served as a leadership capacity in several Jewish organisations, that he was involved in the establishment of the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town and was also one of the first founders of the ‘City of David Archaeological Excavation Project’ in Israel.

 

Born in Cape Town, Dr. Kaplan had qualified both in law and with an MBA, survived by his wife, four children and grandchildren.

 

I never met Mendel Kaplan face to face, but I was told that there had been much for him to celebrate in his 73 years of living: The steel company Cape Gate had been transformed from a modest business selling products like wrought iron and garden benches into a vast conglomerate producing its own steel; becoming one of the largest privately owned companies in South Africa, an expansion largely orchestrated by Mendel and his brother Robert.

 

Dr. Mendel Kaplan, a world leading Litvak philanthropist, lawyer, writer and business magnate passed away just four months ago. His ties to and care for Lithuania were strong and impressive. Isn’t it time for Lithuania to offer a proper response?

 

 

 

 

Rietavas at the time Mendel Kaplan's parents lived here (around 1900).

 

 

 

Old wooden buildings

in today’s Rietavas (August 2009).

 

 

 

Lithuanians settling in

 

South Africa

 

after1990

 

If to compare with the more than 70,000 Litvaks living in South Africa, the numbers of Lithuanian expatriates of today are very modest. But there are a few of them, and I want to tell you all a little bit about Jadvyga Kazlauskiene from the village Vievis between Vilnius and Kaunas. Jadvyga emigrated to South Africa mid 1990s with her daughter, now 20 years old. She started her career down under as a waitress in a Johannesburg restaurant, but began gradually to climb up the career ladder after she came in contact with the property industry in South Africa's main city and most densely populated area.

 

My personal impression is that Jadvyga's success started the day she met her current manager and boss, property queen Wendy Machanik (along-standing with Jadvyga in the above photo). Wendy is an amazing Litvak with phenomenal successes within real estate brokerage in the Johannesburg area for many years (hi Wendy, are the pictures still hanging there, in correct positions?).

Last time I saw Jadvyga and her family was at her home village Vievis, here in Lithuania, on a very cold winter day just a few weeks ago, when they all came here to bring their beloved mother to her final rest. The contrast between warm Johannesburg and freezing Lithuania must have been enormous. When the funeral was over, I thought that now one more link between Lithuania and South Africa had been cut. How often will Jadvyga come back up north now when her mother is gone? 

But maybe there is something we can do to keep the ties and connections alive, all of us who love both Lithuania and South Africa? Please feel free to write me with your suggestions and ideas…

Aage Myhre

Category : Blog archive

Lithuanian footprints

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LITHUANIAN FOOTPRINTS

IN THE WORLD SOILS

(and vice verse)

 

 

  

This footprint is hanging framed on the wall right here, behind my computer

screen. I got it as a birthday present from my young employee, Irmantas, 

several years ago. He was still an architect student back then, and had

made this picture of his own footprint in the sand dunes of Nida.

Irmantas died of a stroke three years ago, barely 30 years old. 

He left his young wife and a child. To his memory.

 

Aage Myhre

 

 

Dear VilNews Readers, 

If all goes as planned, we will once or twice per month over the year ahead (maybe years) take you on some phenomenally fascinating footprint journeys. The destinations are located around the globe, in all continents, as well as various places in Lithuania. 

The objective and goal for each journey will be to find footprints and traces of Lithuania - at different locations around the world - as well as traces of foreign influence, activities and peoples here in Lithuania. 

I think many of you will be astonished learning more about the huge variety of distinctive Lithuanian footprints existing in the soils of almost every corner of our world, as well as the many exceptionally interesting traces of other countries peoples and cultures here in Lithuania. 

Some of the footprints are centuries old and sometimes hard to spot after having been exposed to wind, weather and sometimes conscious or unconscious oblivion.  Others are clear, visible and significant even today. 

Common to all the prints is that they help to tell the story of a wonderfully fascinating nation and a people that during the past millennium have been through so unbelievably much, for better and worse.  Though the Lithuanian people are really not just one people but a facetted range of people from many very different nations and cultures. 

Lithuania is a nation where only about 50% of the population lives in the very country, while the other half is scattered throughout all corners of the earth. But those who live outside the country are of course as much Lithuanians as the present residents, and it is perhaps now time to combine the international and local Lithuania into a unique, powerful unification? Maybe is it now the right moment to start significant bridge-building, reconciliation and renewed cooperation? 

One side of the case is the human, cultural and historical aspect. Another aspect is that there are so many sharp minds out there that should all now, immediately, be invited to participate in restoring and developing a solid, united Lithuania. 

I hope VilNews can be of some help, not only to identify and describe footprints, but also in bridging some of the gaps.

Our objective is to provide a forum and a voice for the international Lithuania. Many of you are already active contributors to this multilateral task, and I hope this is just the beginning of a dialogue and a cooperation that can be further enhanced over the years to come.

Today I invite you to South Africa (see attachment), and I think it will amaze many of you to learn that there are so many extraordinary and outstanding Lithuanian footprints and stories to find there, so far away from the motherland, at the completely other side of the globe... 

 

Aage Myhre

Editor

 

* The production and release of our 'footprint issues’ will depend on how successful we will be in raising share capital for the planned JSC 'VilNews'. So far, the development looks rather good, but I will once again urge you all to consider investing in this planned media company. We are targeting a worldwide group of around 50 individuals, groups of individuals, organisations, and entities, each investing $2,000 as shareholders of the company. The shareholders will also be invited to function as a resource and response group for VilNews.

The whole point is that VilNews should represent a broad and solid group of Lithuanian related people and entities from all parts of our earth, so that we together can contribute to the improvement of our common, international Lithuanian nation on a broad and smart basis.

We are currently only interested in principle feedback, and expect no binding commitments before a detailed business plan is presented.

 

RESPONSE FROM ALGIS RATNIKAS IN CALIFORNIA

You may add me to your list of potential investors. I think that your Internet media idea is very timely, very exciting and could garner large support from the sizeable Lithuanian diasporas. An expanded VilNews project could include features from Lithuanians and notes on Lithuanian events from around the world. It could also promote contacts for travelers, cultural events and performances, and tie in to the activities of the widespread state diplomatic embassies.

 

There is great potential here. Good luck.

 

Algis Ratnikas

Timelines of History

California, USA

Category : Blog archive

Economic crysis

- Posted by - (4) Comment

 

You think Greece has problems?

Try Latvia or Lithuania 

The following is an article by Prof. Michael Hudson, president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term

Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Research Professor of Economics at the

University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Prof. Jeff Sommers, co-director of the Baltic Research

Group at ISLET and visiting faculty at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga.

 

While most of the world’s press focuses on Greece (and also Spain, Ireland and Portugal) as the most troubled euro-areas, the much more severe, more devastating and downright deadly crisis in the post-Soviet economies scheduled to join the Eurozone somehow has escaped widespread notice.

No doubt that is because their experience is an indictment of the destructive horror of neoliberalism – and of Europe’s policy of treating these countries not as promised, not as helping them develop along Western European lines, but as areas to be colonized as export markets and bank markets, stripped of their economic surpluses, their skilled labor and indeed, working-age labor generally, their real estate and buildings, and whatever was inherited from the Soviet era.

What also was inherited, of course, was an extreme reaction against centralized Soviet planning. The result was the political equivalent of Newton’s Third Law of Motion: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As a victim of Soviet ideology, Latvia did not say farewell to ideologies as such, but rather swung to the opposite extreme. After the Soviet collapse it felt compelled to adopted the neoliberal ideology.

But this is twenty years later now. For reasons beyond comprehension, the country now sticks to that ideology which has just devastated the Western economies. Latvia itself is experiencing one of the world’s worst economic crises – indeed, demographic as well as economic. Its 25.5 percent plunge in
GDP over just the past two years (almost 20 percent in this past year alone) is already the worst two-year drop on record.  The IMF’s own rosy forecasts anticipate a further drop of 4 percent, which would place the Latvian economic collapse ahead of the United States’ Great Depression The bad news does not end there, however. The IMF projects that 2009 will see a total capital and financial account deficit of 4.2 billion euros, with an additional 1.5 billion euros, or 9 percent of GDP, leaving the country in 2010.

Moreover, the Latvian government is rapidly accumulating debt. From just 7.9 percent of GDP in 2007, Latvia’s debt is projected to be 74 percent of GDP for this year, supposedly stabilizing at 89 percent in 2014 in the best-case IMF scenario.  This would place it far outside the debt Maastricht debt limits for adopting the euro. Yet achieving entry into the eurozone has been the chief pretext of the Latvia’s Central Bank for the painful austerity measures necessary to keep its currency peg. Maintaining that peg has burned through mountains of currency reserves that otherwise could have been invested in its domestic economy.

Yet nobody in the West is asking why Latvia has suffered this fate, so typical of the Baltics and other post-Soviet economies but only slightly more extreme. Nearly twenty years since these countries achieved freedom from the old USSR in 1991, the Soviet system hardly can be blamed as the sole cause of their problems. Not even corruption alone can be blamed – a legacy of the late Soviet period’s dissolution, to be sure, but magnified, intensified and even encouraged in the kleptocratic form that has provided such rich pickings for Western bankers and investors. It was Western neoliberals who financialized these economies with the “business friendly reforms” so loudly applauded by the World Bank, Washington and Brussels.

Far lower levels of corruption obviously are to be desired (but whom else would the West trust, if not the kleptocrats?), but dramatically reducing it would perhaps only improve matters up to the level of Estonia’s road into euro-debt peonage. These neighboring Baltic counties likewise have suffered dramatic unemployment, reduced growth, declining health standards and emigration, in sharp contrast to Scandinavia and Finland.

Joseph Stiglitz and other economists in the West’s public eye have began to explain that there is something radically wrong with the financialized order imported by Western ideological salesmen in the wake of the Soviet collapse. Neoliberal economics certainly was not the road that Western Europe took
after World War II. It was a new experiment, whose dress rehearsal was imposed initially at gunpoint by the Chicago Boys in Chile. In Latvia, the advisors were from Georgetown, but the ideology was the same: dismantle the government and turn it over to political insiders.

For the post-Soviet application of this cruel experiment, the idea was to give Western banks, financial investors, and ostensibly “free market” economists (so-called because they gave away public property freely, untaxed it, and gave new meaning to the term “free lunch”) were given a free hand in much of the Soviet bloc to design entire economies. And as matters turned out, every design was the same. The names of individuals were different, but most were linked to and financed by Washington, the World Bank and European Union. And sponsored by the West’s financial institutions, one hardly should be surprised that they came up with a design in their own financial interest.  

It was a plan that no democratic government in the West could have passed. Public enterprises were doled out to individuals trusted to sell out quickly to Western investors and local oligarchs who would move their money safely offshore into the Western havens. To cap matters, local tax systems were created that left the traditional two major Western bank customers – real estate and natural infra-structure monopolies – nearly tax free. This left their rents and monopoly pricing “free” to be paid to Western banks as interest rather than used as the domestic tax base to help reconstruct these economies.

There were almost no commercial banks in the Soviet Union. Rather than helping these countries create banks of their own, Western Europe encouraged its own banks to create credit and load down these economies with interest charges – in euros and other hard currencies for the banks’ protection. This violated a prime axiom of finance: never denominate your debts in hard currency when your revenue is denominated in a softer one. But as in the case of Iceland, Europe promised to help these countries join the Euro by suitably helpful policies. The “reforms” consisted in showing them how to shift taxes off business and real estate (the prime bank customers) onto labor, not only as a flat income tax but a flat “social service” tax, so as to pay Social Security and health care as a user fee by labor rather than funded out of the general budget largely by the higher tax brackets.

Unlike the West, there was no significant property tax. This obliged governments to tax labor and industry. But unlike the West, there was no progressive income or wealth tax. Latvia had the equivalent of a 59 percent flat tax on labor in many cases. (American Congressional committee heads and their lobbyists can only dream of so punitive a tax on labor, so free a lunch for their main campaign contributors!) With a tax like this, European countries had nothing to fear from economies that emerged tax free with no property charges to burden their labor with taxes, low housing costs, low debt costs. These economies were poisoned from the outset. That is what made them so “free market” and “business friendly” from the vantage point of today’s Western economic orthodoxy.

Lacking the power to tax real estate and other property – or even to impose progressive taxation on the higher income brackets – governments were obliged to tax labor and industry. This trickle-down fiscal philosophy sharply increased the price of labor and capital, making industry and agriculture in neo-liberalized economies so high-cost as to be uncompetitive with “Old Europe.” In effect the post-Soviet economies were turned into export zones for Old Europe’s industry and banking services.

Western Europe had developed by protecting its industry and labor, and taxing away the land rent and other revenue that had no counterpart in a necessary cost of production. The post-Soviet economies “freed” this revenue to be paid to Western European banks. These economies – debt-free in 1991 – were loaded down with debt, denominated in hard currencies, not their own. Western bank loans were not used to upgrade their capital investment, public investment and living standards. The great bulk of these loans were extended mainly against assets already in place, inherited from the Soviet period.
New real estate construction did indeed take off, but the great bulk of it has now sunk into negative equity. And the Western banks are demanding that Latvia and the Baltics pay by squeezing out even more of an economic surplus with even more neoliberal “reforms” that threaten to drive even more of their labor abroad as their economies shrink and poverty spreads.

The pattern of a ruling kleptocracy at the top and an indebted work force – non- or weakly unionized, with few workplace protections – was applauded as a business-friendly model for the rest of the world to emulate. The post-Soviet economies were thoroughly “underdeveloped,” rendered hopelessly high-cost and generally unable to compete on anywhere near equal terms with their Western neighbors.

The result has been an economic experiment seemingly gone mad, a dystopia whose victims are now being blamed. Neoliberal trickle-down ideology – apparently being prepared for application to Europe and North America with an equally optimistic rhetoric – was so economically destructive that it is almost as if these nations were invaded militarily. So it is indeed time to start worrying about whether the Baltics may be a dress rehearsal for what we are about to see in the United States.

The word “reform” is now taking on a negative connotation in the Baltics, as it has in Russia. It has come to signify retrogression back to feudal dependency. But whereas feudal lords from Sweden and Germany ruled their Latvian manors by the power of landownership, they now control the Baltics by their foreign-currency mortgage loans against the region’s real estate. Debt peonage has replaced outright serfdom. Mortgages far in excess of actual market values, which have plunged by 50-70 percent in the past year
(depending on housing type), also are far in excess of the ability of Latvian homeowners to pay. The volume of foreign-currency debt is far beyond what these countries can earn by exporting the products of their labor, industry and agriculture to Europe (which hardly wants any imports) or other regions of the world in which democratic governments are pledged to protect their labor force, not sell it out and subject it to unprecedented austerity programs – all in the name of “free markets.”

Two decades have passed since the neoliberal order was introduced, and the results are disastrous, if not almost a crime against humanity. Economic growth has not occurred. Soviet-era assets have simply been loaded down with debt. This is not how Western Europe developed after World War II, or earlier for the matter – or China most recently. These countries pursued the classical path of protection of domestic industry, public infrastructure spending, progressive taxation, public health and workplace safety
regulations, legal prohibitions against insider dealing and looting – all anathema to neoliberal free-market ideology.

What is starkly at issue are the underlying assumptions of the world’s economic order. At the core of today’s crisis of economic theory and policy are the all but forgotten premises and guiding concepts of classical political economy. George Soros, Professor Stiglitz and others describe a global casino economy (which Soros certainly enriched himself by playing) in which finance has become detached from the process of wealth creation. The financial sector makes increasingly steep, even unpayably high claims on the real economy of goods and services.

This was the concern of the classical economists when they focused on the problem of rentiers, owners of property and special privilege whose revenues (with no counterpart in any necessary cost of production) led to a de facto tax on the economy – in this case, by imposing debt on it. Classical economists recognized the need to subordinate finance to the needs of the real economy. This concern was the philosophy that guided U.S. banking regulation in the 1930’s, and which West Europe and Japan followed from the 1950s through the 1970s to promote investment in manufacturing. Instead of checking the financial sector’s ability to engage in speculative excess, the United States overturned these regulations in the 1980s. From a bit below 5 percent of total U.S. profits in 1982, the financial sector’s after-tax profits rose to an unprecedented 41 per cent in 2007. In effect this zero-sum activity was an overhead “tax” on the economy.

Along with financial restructuring, the main item in the classical tool-kit was tax policy. The aim was to reward work and wealth creation, and to collect the “free lunch” resulting from “external” social economies as the natural tax base. This tax policy had the virtue of reducing the burden on earned income (wages and profits). Land was seen as supplied by nature without a labor-cost of production (and hence without cost value). But instead of making it the natural tax base, governments have permitted banks to load it down with debt, turning the rise in land’s rental value into interest charges. The result, in classical terminology, is a financial tax on society – revenue that society was supposed to collect as the tax base to invest in economic and social infrastructure to make society richer. The alternative has been to tax land, monopolies and asset-price gains. And what tax collectors have relinquished, banks now collect in the form of a rising price for land sites – a price for which buyers pay mortgage interest.

Classical economics could have predicted Latvia’s problems. With no curbs on finance or regulation of monopoly pricing, no industrial protection, privatization of the public domain to create “tollbooth economies,” and a tax policy that impoverishes labor and even industrial capital while rewarding speculators, Latvia’s economy has seen little economic development. What it has achieved – and what has won it such loud applause from the West – has been its willingness to rack up huge debts to subsidize its economic disaster. Latvia has too little industry, too little agricultural modernization, but over 9 billion lati in private debt – now at risk of being shifted onto the government’s balance sheet, just as has
occurred with the U.S. bank bailouts.

If this credit had been extended productively to build Latvia’s economy, it would have been acceptable. But it was mostly unproductive, extended to fuel land-price inflation and luxury consumption, reducing Latvia to a state of near debt serfdom. In what Sarah Palin would call a “hopey-change thing,” the Bank of Latvia suggests that the bottom of the crisis has been reached. Exports finally have begun to pick up, but the economy is still in desperate straits. If current trends continue there will be no more Latvians left to inherit any economic revival. Unemployment still stands at more than 22 percent. Tens of thousands have left the country, and tens of thousands more have decided not to have children. This is a natural response to saddling the country with billions of lats (Latvia’s currency) in public and private debt. Latvia is not on a trajectory toward Western levels of affluence, and there is no way out of its current regressive tax policy and anti-labor, anti-industry and anti-agriculture neoliberalism being imposed so coercively by Brussels as a condition for bailing out Latvia’s central bank so that it can pay Swedish banks that have made such unproductive and parasitic loans.

An statement often attributed to Albert Einstein quips that “insanity [is] doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Latvia has employed the same self-destructive anti-government, anti-labor, anti-industrial, anti-agricultural “pro-Western” Washington Consensus for almost 20 years, and the results have become worse and worse. The task at hand now is to liberate Latvia’ economy from its neoliberal road to neo-serfdom. One would think that the path selected would be the one charted by the classical 19th-century economists that guided the prosperity we see in the West and now also in East Asia. But this will require a change of economic philosophy – and that will require a change of government.

The question is, how will Europe and the West respond. Will it admit its error? Or will it brazen it out? Signs today are not promising. The West says that labor has not been impoverished enough, industry has not been starved enough, and economic the patient has not been bled enough.

If this is what Washington and Brussels are saying to the Baltics, imagine what they are about to do to their own domestic populations!

Category : Blog archive

ARROGANCE, IGNORANCE AND AN AIRPORT COMPARISON

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Lithuania’s Prime Minister, Andrius Kubilius.

 

Arrogance and ignorance are not particularly positive characteristics of anyone, and I understand it well if some of our VilNews' readers, who see that I use these words together with a picture of our Prime Minister, predict that I will now be criticising him. So let me hurry to say that these two words are meant for all questionable behaviours seen performed by our governing forces since 1990, not solely for Mr. Kubilius.

 

I must admit that I over the past 20 years have seen a few Lithuanian leaders whose arrogance and belief in their own excellence in some cases have prevented progression and good development for Lithuania. Still today I miss leaders who are good at listening to their own Lithuanian people, wherever in the world they live, and I miss leaders able to inspire and be unifying figures and good examples for the nation they are appointed to serve. Leaders able to lead, not only manage.

 

I have also very much been missing to see our leaders seek advice from other countries; to learn from mistakes and experiences these nations went through during the years when Lithuania was still under Soviet rule. Instead, time after time, we have seen Lithuanian leaders trying to reinvent the wheel..

 

PM Kubilius' profound measures for savings and cuts during the very serious financial crisis Lithuania now experiences, is for me an example of just that. In my opinion, the type of medicine he has been using is to compare with putting the brakes on for a car that already stands still, or closing the tap when the well is already empty. Western European countries have the background and resources to make cuts. Lithuania and other Eastern European countries are, after the long Soviet-era economic mismanagement, not in such a fortunate situation. Here most of the resources should have been spent on finding new fuel for the car and fresh spring water for the well. 

 

Being a Norwegian, I believe Norway and the other Scandinavian countries would have been willing to stretch to great lengths to provide help and advice for the crisis-hit Lithuania and the two other Baltic States. But they had to be asked.

 

Our Lithuanian leaders should refrain from arrogance and avoid ignorance by seeking advice where good help and advice is to find, domestic and internationally. Can they do that, there is every reason to foresee a bright future for this nation.

 

The Lithuanian people deserve exactly that. They have suffered enough.

 

THE AIRPORT COMPARISON

 

old_3.jpg

 

Vilnius Airport’s terminal building from 1954 was built during Stalin’s last years

and still remains the airport’s main face towards Vilnius City. 

To make my above point more understandable, I will in the following compare post-war Lithuania to Vilnius Airport. Why?  Well, they have more in common than you may think; metaphorically, symbolically and representatively for what has been going on here from WWII till today. 

The old airport terminal was built in the years after the war, in typical Stalin style characterised by robust constructions and materials very hard to remove. The building was completed a year after his death, in 1954. After that, the airport remained more or less unchanged through the following 40 years, with Soviet Aeroflot as the sole operator until Lithuania's independence in 1990/91.

 

The airport was extended in the 1990s. This is the ‘monster’ that for many

years greeted (scared) airline passengers who came to visit independent Lithuania…  

In the early 1990s, the airport was starving for total renewal. A public face and symbol of the now free, independent and internationally oriented Lithuania was urgently needed. The new airport should become the pride of the new democracy and an important hub for international airlines that one thought would bring hordes of visitors to the country.  Not least was it estimated that the majority of the many who had emigrated to America, Australia and other countries now would move back to their homeland and contribute actively to the country’s reconstruction.

It was therefore not long before the airport management and the transport ministry chose a group of architects and other experts to travel around the world to look at leading international airports. The airport in Vilnius should be designed on a top global level. Back in Vilnius the architects drew day and night on what would become the country's new pride, and a couple of years later the 'masterpiece' was completed.

But what a tragedy. The architects and the airport authorities had in their arrogance and self-delusions of excellence thought that to visit some prominent international airports would be a good enough background for designing and building the new terminal building. They had not bothered to seek advice from international experts. The result became a new Vilnius Airport that was confusingly similar to misguided Soviet designs, and came to be viewed rather negatively as ridiculous by the international travel industry. 

The 'airport monster' in Vilnius emerged not as a glorious example of a great country developing well, as it had been planned, rather as a symbol of a country where arrogance and ignorance prevented them from learning important lessons from other countries.

And it's probably just here we find the most obvious similarity between the past twenty years’ development of the airport and the country's authorities; this that those at the helm have been so convinced of their own excellence that they haven’t cared to seek advice from others.

This can, of course, to a certain extent be understood, as this country through so many years was imposed to 'advices' from others that they no longer wished to accept any outside help when the new times came. Probably that was why we in the 1990s got a parody of an airport. Perhaps this is also a contributing factor why this country's population now suffers so much from excessive and unfair tightening measures rather than enjoying stimulus packages of the kind that have led people in other countries through the crisis along a far more smooth path?

In 2007 a new extension stood ready. The previous ‘monster’ was hidden

behind modern materials and design. Lithuania’s face to the world had finally

reached a level of maturity, hiding many of the old sins, but only artificially.

 

When the 2000s arrived it began to be understood by Lithuania’s leaders that membership in the EU would not only entail benefits, but that they also had to do something for their own part, and when the Schengen Agreement was under preparation it became clear that the Vilnius Airport had to be extended. This new construction was performed quickly and efficiently. There could be no doubt that both the country's architects and contractors had learned very much since the 1990s.

So, what characterises Vilnius Airport now in 2010?

A) The core element is still a building in Stalin Style. It is also this old building's façade that appears towards the side of Lithuania and it is on this side that the taxi drivers still do their best to cheat naïve foreigners and others.

B) On the side facing the runway and the international world, there was in the 1990s conducted an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to make a building that both functionally and symbolically should be a showcase of the proud new democracy. 

C) In the 2000s, the building from the 1990s was tucked away between the Stalin building and a new extension that was much better adapted to modern requirements and design ideas. But also this new building is just to a certain degree characterised by measures necessary to make the airport functional and representative of modern times. To mix old and new can often be complicated. To hide old sins behind new façades is more artificial than a sign of real improvements.

So the parallels between Vilnius Airport and post-war Lithuania are quite obvious, aren’t they?

The essential question then, is obviously what is now needed to achieve real change? My opinion is that there as soon as possible should be built a new airport where neither Stalin nor the monsters of the 1990s are given space or influence. We need a solid world-class airport as a proud new symbol of a progressive country - with outstanding leaders and project managers in charge – leaders accepting neither arrogance nor ignorance, neither during the planning and construction phase nor during the operation period.

My comparison between the airport and the nation is still valid. Perhaps, now, the idea of openness and transparency, plus the ability and willingness to listen and learn from others, would not be too bad?

Aage Myhre

Editor

 

ARROGANCE, IGNORANCE OR…?

 

 

AIRPORT TAXES 2009 - 2010

 

When Kubilius' government took over in late 2008 they decided to keep the country’s airport charges at a very high level, and to triple the VAT for hotel accommodation. The result was that several international airlines dropped Lithuania as a destination and the number of travellers and hotel stays fell dramatically. Tens of thousands lost their jobs, and the country lost much needed tax dollars. 

 

2009 was the year when Lithuania celebrated the 1000-year anniversary of its name. It was also the year when Vilnius was the European Capital of Culture. Despite those positive incentives, the number of visitors to Lithuania became far lower in 2009 than in 2008, primarily due to the government's decisions described above. This year, however, the airport fees are reduced considerably and the airlines are finally returning, one year late. But what a sad story isn’t this, for a whole industry and the country.

 

 

New York Times

 

 

WHAT AUSTERITY LOOKS LIKE

 

The New York Times wrote about Lithuania last week. The article presents a good and balanced analysis of what's happening in our crisis-ridden country. It says that Kubilius' comprehensive savings measures now appear to give results as the decline in the economy has stopped, but the article also tells of a nation where the people are suffering more and more because of these measures:

 

“Faced with rising deficits that threatened to bankrupt the country, Lithuania cut public spending by 30 percent — including slashing public sector wages 20 to 30 percent and reducing pensions by as much as 11 percent. Even the Prime Minister, Andrius Kubilius, took a pay cut of 45 percent.

 

“The psychological toll has been immense. Suicides have increased in a country where the suicide rate of 35 per 100,000 is already one of the world’s highest, local experts say.

 

The NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/business/global/02austerity.html

Category : Blog archive

Easter magic

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Vilnius: Three crosses on a hill by kidkaribik.

 

HILL OF THREE CROSSES, VILNIUS

 EASTER MAGIC

 

 

Easter Sunday 1991 represents one of the most magical moments I've ever experienced in my life. The date was the 31st of March, and I wandered through the Old Town of Vilnius together with the one who would later become my wife. A couple of months earlier I stood together with Professor Vytautas Landsbergis in the Lithuanian Parliament building and looked out at the Soviet military forces and the tens of thousands of Lithuanians who were there with their bonfires and primitive tools to protect the Parliament. I had seen the coffins of the thirteen brave individuals standing outside the Cathedral in Vilnius, and I had seen how a whole people gathered in grief and despair over the USSR's new assault on this small nation and the innocent civilians who so bravely sacrificed their lives for their home country.

 

 

File:Burial ceremony of January 13 events victims in Vilnius (2).jpg

- - Burial ceremony of 13 January events victims in Vilnius, 1991 - -

laidotuves 5a by alfredasfoto.

 

What made the strongest impression on me while we walked around in the Old Town this Easter day in 1991 was the fact that the Lithuanian people again had gathered in large flocks in and outside the city's many Churches. There was far from room enough for all indoors, so the Churches had hung out loudspeakers for the congregations and audiences to follow the church services even from a distance. Grief was still noticeable, but now it was the renewed hope and faith in an independent Lithuania that first and foremost characterized the mood. It was just fantastic to see so many people gather to listen to sermons and sing hymns, but first of all unite in joint prayers for a new future for their beloved homeland.

Today, nineteen years later, the speakers are taken down from the churches’ walls. There is now plenty of room inside for all who wish to attend Easter church services. 

But Easter is celebrated! Over the entire country, Lithuanians follow their ancient traditions, as described below. I have personally experienced many warm and happy such celebrations with my family here. The magic of 1991 is not present in the same way anymore, but the strong traditions are still magical in their own way. 

My children love to participate actively with grandfather when he decorates the Easter eggs of the year (he also keeps an amazing collection from previous years, great artist as he is), and enthusiasm is always great when we roll and break eggs before we finally sit down to enjoy the adventurous Easter meal. The good, long lasting traditions are some of the most distinguishing characteristic of this country, and Easter is perceived as the most distinctive of all holidays celebrated throughout the year. 

I wish you all a Happy Easter!

 

Aage Myhre

Editor

  

Sveikiname Jus su šv. Velykom!
Tegul kartu su pavasariu į Jūsų namus ateis ramybė, šiluma, džiaugsmas ir tikėjimas.
 

Vin Karnila

Associate Editor

 

LITHUANIA’S VELYKOS (EASTER) TRADITIONS

laidotuves3a by alfredasfoto. 

The word for Easter, Velykos, has been borrowed from Byelorussian and means "important day." The word is very accurate because Easter is the year's most solemn feast in Lithuania. Easter is not only the feast of Christ's Resurrection, but also nature's awakening from the winter's sleep.

The early Eastern morn, just before dawn, abounds with magical power. Much of this magic is concentrated in flowing water. Bathing in such water before sunrise prevents all boils, sores, rashes and other skin ailments. If it rains on Easter morning, it is necessary to stand bareheaded in the rain to ensure good growth. Small children who want to grow quickly are reminded of this.

As the sun rises on Easter morning, it "dances" swaying from side to side and changing colour: from green to blue, to red and then golden yellow. This phenomenon can be seen by rising before dawn and watching for the sun's first appearance on the horizon.

Earlier everyone went to the Resurrection services. If on the way you passed a woman, you'll have an accident. To avoid calamity it was necessary to turn around, return home and then take another road to church.

In Lithuania the Easter morning procession was usually conducted around the church. It was very solemn: church flags were held high, girls strewed flowers, the choir and all the people sang, alternating with a brass band, and the church bells pealed loudly. Three turns were made while singing the Lithuanians' favourite Easter Hymn Linksma diena mums prašvito (A Happy Day Has Dawned for Us). After the services, a blessing was made over the Easter food which was arranged in baskets decorated with greens and placed on the altar-rails.

At the conclusion of the liturgy in Church, the people hurried home. In fact, all large and small roads, every path was the scene of races: whoever arrived home first would be successful all year and would complete all work on time. Even persons walking tried to pass those ahead and reach home first. It is not surprising that accidents happened during such races. Perhaps that is why it was said that a woman met on the road brings disaster (someone had to be blamed!).

At home, Easter breakfast was eaten. The meal began when the homemaker peeled a blest Easter egg, cut it and gave a piece to every member of the family. This was done so that peace and love would always reign within the family and everyone would live in harmony. Afterward, a variety of other dishes were consumed: meat, sausages, and cakes. On Easter it was necessary to eat well and to satiety, to "recover from Lent" because of the fast all through Lent. If the area had poor families with no Easter food, their neighbours shared what they had and brought the disadvantaged families everything they need to be satisfied and happy.

Children hunted for hidden Easter eggs left for them by the Velykų Senelė (Easter Granny) or Velykė. Bunnies who painted Easter eggs were also a familiar fixture, but they were only helpers for theVelykų Senelė. Very early Easter morning they loaded Easter eggs into a beautiful little cart pulled by a tiny swift horse. The Velykų Senelė used a sunbeam as a whip. Sometimes the bunnies themselves pulled the cart laden with Easter eggs.

The Easter Granny travels around the country, stopping in every child's yard to leave eggs in baskets placed or hung for that purpose. When they awake, good children find beautifully decorated Easter eggs (and in. more recent times even sweets). Bad children only find a single plain completely white egg. If this happens, the child is disgraced. His friends and family laugh at him. Sometimes bunnies accompany the Granny and help her distribute the Easter eggs. They are kept busy not only before Easter and on Easter day, but all year round baking cookies for children. When parents leave their children behind, they promise to bring them a gift, bunny cookies. Upon their return, they tell the following tale:

"I'm walking through the woods (or orchard or past the bushes) and I see a bunny wearing an apron and hat, his sleeves rolled back, taking sweet-smelling cookies from an oven. I say to him: 'May the Lord help you!' He answers, 'Thank you, thank you. Would you like a taste? They're still hot.' Of course, I dol They smell so good, they look so good. . ."

In the meantime the-child can hardly control himself: "What kind of oven was it?" "Tiny, pretty." "Did you get to taste any cookies?" "Yes, of course." "Did you bring me any?"

At this point, the father, mother or other family member pulls out the goodies and distributes them to the children who are extremely impressed not only by the bunny cookies but also by the baking method itself. They can practically see the flushed, rushing bunny mixing the dough and stoking the oven. How wonderful that morn or dad just happened to be passing at the very time the cookies were done!

Bunny cookies are famous throughout Lithuania. It would be good to remember them outside Lithuania as well.

A variety of games were played with Easter eggs. The simplest is an egg-breaking contest. Two players face off, each holding an Easter egg and hit each other's egg. The one whose egg remains intact is the winner. The egg is held in the fist so that only its tip protrudes. The other player hits it with the tip of his egg. If the egg breaks on the side, the impact was wrong and the owner of the broken egg is not considered the loser. The winner claims the broken egg. After the game the number of eggs won was tallied. It was of paramount importance to have a hard-shelled egg that withstands breaking. In selecting a strong egg, the contestant taps an unboiled egg against his teeth. If the sound is clear and sharp the shell is hard: if dull and muffled, the egg will break quickly; it's not even worth colouring.

Some smart alecks devised an "unbreakable" egg. It was made this way: a raw egg's shell is pricked at both ends. A thin straw is inserted into one end and used to blow out the contents through the opposite end. Another straw with one end shaped as a funnel is then placed into the hole and melted pine or fir sap is poured until the egg is full. If the sap does not flow smoothly, a helper inserts a straw into the opposite hole and draws the air out of the egg. After the egg is filled with sap, the holes are carefully concealed and the egg is then tinted along with others. It weighs about the same as a real boiled egg. Sometimes the empty shell was filled with melted sugar, but it was much heavier and the sugar hardened unevenly making it more difficult to play. Of course, if caught, the cheat was punished. The direst penalty was to eat the "Easter egg."

 

Another amusing Easter game was egg rolling (picture above). This was best done outdoors, but also could be played in a larger room. A trough is made from pieces of wood or bark to measure about 10 cm long and 15 cm wide (it can also be much longer). One end of the ramp is propped up to produce a downward incline, but not too steep. A small circle is drawn at the bottom of the slope for the playing field into which the eggs will roll. When the game is played outdoors, the trough must be placed on a smooth surface because the eggs will not roll in the circle if there are pebbles, high grass, etc. When played indoors, the surface of the circle must not be too slippery for the eggs will roll out. A low wall or enclosure may be built around the circle. When all the preparations are completed, the players begin the contest. Four to eight persons play. Each uses an egg of a different colour to tell them apart. Eggs may also be marked in different ways. The egg is let down the incline. After one contestant finishes, the next rolls his egg aiming to reach the other's egg and tap it. If the egg hits the first one, its owner wins and takes the first egg. The eggs are rolled down the slope in turn. A contestant who wins egg rolls out of turn until his egg fails to hit another. Another player then takes his egg from the circle and rolls it.

Eggs used in the rolling contest may already be cracked (for instance, already used and won in an egg-breaking contest), but their sides should be intact because eggs with cracked sides do not roll well. The trough may be straight or curved in different ways to make the eggs roll longer. The slope may also be made of cardboard from an old box, plastic or any other material strong and rigid enough to support the weight of an egg.

A simpler egg-roll is done without a trough. A circle at least one meter in diameter is traced on a smooth surface. Barriers or enclosures are placed around the circle to keep the eggs from rolling out (crumpled newspaper may be used). A gate is kept open on one side through which the players push their eggs. The first player is chosen by lot. He rolls his egg into the circle. The second player attempts to roll his egg so that it will tap the first one. The game is played like the one using an incline, but in this case the eggs are rolled into the circle by hand with the player kneeling or sitting on the ground. Because the egg does not roll down a ramp, the entire game depends on the contestant's skill, how he rolls his egg into the circle. If the egg is rolled so hard that it leaves the playing field, the contestant loses his turn.

In the past, only young men and adolescents played egg-rolling contests. It was not proper for girls to do so. They provided their beaus with eggs, cheered the contestants on and guarded the eggs won. Today mostly children (boys and girls) roll eggs. 

If guests arrive on Easter, they are given Easter eggs as gifts. The guests also bring an Easter egg for each family member (or at least the hosts and sweets for the children). Easter morning children go "egg begging" but only to the homes of acquaintances, close neighbours or godparents. When they arrive, they say hello and stand silent at the door. It is quite obvious to everyone that an Easter egg is required. The children politely say thank you, wish a Happy Easter and continue on. When Easter was celebrated for three days, no one went visiting the first day; it was unacceptable to intrude upon people on such a holy day as if someone had thrown you out of your own home.

The first day of Easter was said to be dedicated to God, people were expected to conduct themselves seriously and quietly, spend time with their family, eat well and "recover from Lent." The second day was for recreation, visiting friends and having company. The third day was devoted to relaxation. People slept late, recovered from all the merrymaking because work was waiting in the wings.

For Easter, homemakers set out Easter dishes which remained on the table all day. When guests arrived, the women could then spend time with the company and did not need to work. The table was covered with a white cloth and decorated with greens or fruit tree branches (mostly cherry) which were cut and set in water several weeks earlier so they would bloom for Easter. (Easter lilies were unknown.) Greens were also attached to the tablecloth hem which hung down from the table. The table was laden with cold Easter dishes: baked ham, goose, suckling pig, a basket or plate full of Easter eggs, sweet cheese, bread, cakes, etc. Beer (mostly homemade), liqueurs and cider were served as beverages.

Everyone who arrives to extend Easter greetings must be served. It was considered very impolite for the guest to refuse refreshment. Everything had to be at least sampled and the cook praised, else she would feel insulted.

 

The young who behaved with such solemnity all during Lent wanted to have fun on Easter. They assembled at a larger house to sing and dance. This usually was done in late afternoon or evening. During the day, it was popular to swing in swings and sing. If the Easter weather was warm and fair, the swings were hung from a tall tree so the young could swing higher. Given inclement weather, the swing ropes were tied from barn rafters. People swung not only for the fun of it but to ensure a good harvest next summer, just as on Shrove Tuesday. While swinging, the girls and young men sang special songs.

A group of young men assembled to practice singing Linksma diena mums prašvito (a popular Easter hymn), some other songs and make the rounds. These are the so-called lalauninkai (from lalauti — to talk loudly and much). In many other countries, such as the United States or England, carolers make the rounds before Christmas singing Christmas carols and songs. They may be compared to Lithuania's Easter lalauninkai.

These singers are usually unmarried men sometimes accompanied by a fiddler or harmonica-player. Upon arriving at a house, they first sing an Easter hymn; convey their Easter wishes and then carol. The homemaker gives them cake, sausages, Easter eggs while her husband serves liquid refreshments. The Easter eggs are handed out by the young girls of the household. Although most homes were visited, it was predominantly those with unmarried girls. They were told before Easter that the singers would arrive and tried to make beautiful Easter eggs. This was a perfect opportunity to display their talents and show off before the other village girls. It sometimes happened that the singers refused to accept an Easter egg judged to have a poor appearance and this was considered a major disgrace.

The songs these carollers sang were noted for the refrains repeated after every verse. The verses were short, usually composed of only two lines. The refrain had no connection with the song's overall content. These singers were especially well-known in Dzūkija which is famous for similar types or harmony songs.

On the hill a pear tree stood; under the pear tree lay silvery dew. . . The refrain — vynelis vyno žaliasai — refers to new wine.

It is not necessary for lalauninkai to sing the customary ditties, other songs may be selected.

On Easter, a person can learn the following summer's weather, about his personal happiness and gain protection against various pests if he knows what to do and what guesses to make.

  • If he wishes to avoid seeing snakes all summer, he must avoid seeing a needle the first day of Easter.
  • If an accident or calamity occurs on Easter, things will go wrong all year, the year will be unlucky.
  • We've already mentioned the races home from church on Easter morning: anyone who arrives home first will be first to complete all work, everything will go well for him (especially work in the fields).
  • Prayers are said to be really heard on Easter, it is therefore necessary to pray a great deal.
  • If Easter morning is sunny and beautiful, the summer will be fair and the weather good; if it rains (or snows) bad weather is to be expected. The worst sign is to hear thunder on the first day of Easter but even this evil may be found to have a "silver lining." If thunder rumbles before leaves have sprouted (trees very rarely had leaves in Lithuania at Eastertime), thieves will have a difficult time plying their trade that year.
  • If the sunset is very red, dangerous thunderstorms may be expected that summer. 

http://lithuanian-american.org/educate/tradicijos/velykos.html 

EASTER EGGS – MARGUČIAI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decoration of Easter eggs - margučiai - is a very ancient custom in Lithuania. At the foot of the Gediminas Hill in Vilnius archaeologists have found eggs made of bone and clay, which shows that this custom was known in Lithuania as early as the 13th Century. Easter eggs are also mentioned by Martynas Mažvydas in his dedication to his book "Hymns of St Ambrosius" (1549). Easter eggs were particularly popular at the turn of the 20th Century. They were decorated both by grown-ups and children, by rich and poor. Some were dyed in a single colour, some were decorated with patterns.

Decorations are produced by painting patterns on warm eggs with the tip of a stick or a pinhead dipped in hot wax. Droplet-shaped strokes are grouped in patterns, twigs of rue, little suns, starlets and snakes. The most frequent pattern is that of a sun, like those on large and small distaffs. Smaller patterns are joined by dots and wavy lines into larger ornaments. Their combinations are so varied that is is impossible to find two identical Easter eggs. Every village has its own best egg-decorators.

 

Category : Blog archive

Uzupis independence

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1 APRIL IS UŽUPIS’ INDEPENDENCE DAY!

 

 

On Maundy Thursday this week it’s again set for party and celebration of the independent Republic Užupis in Vilnius. Thirteen years have passed since this centrally located city district declared secession and independence from the Republic of Lithuania, and 1 April 1997 is now celebrated every year as the very Constitutional Date of this fascinating bohemian republic right on the other side of the river Vilnia. It takes no more than five minutes to walk there from the old town of Vilnius, so on Thursday afternoon, all of you, dear VilNews readers, are warmly welcome to participate in the spring's biggest and most colourful festival here in Vilnius!

 

 

 

The name Užupis means simply 'the other side of the river'. There are several bridges over the river, but I recommend you to use the Užupis Bridge. This almost 20-meter long bridge, built in 1901, is a piece of art in itself, also characterized by the many padlocks attached to the wrought iron rails, hung there by hundreds of newly married couples confirming their wedlock promises. Use the left sidewalk when you cross the river, and when you are well up on the bridge, you should stop and look down and left. For there she sits, the little bronze mermaid guarding the entrance to Užupis. She sits there in a niche in the brick wall, only a few feet above the river that runs rough and powerful now in these times of spring, studying the many guests at the outdoor deck of the Užupis Cafe already well underway with springtime foaming beer mugs filled to the brim with amber-golden beverages imported from the neighbouring Republic of Lithuania.

 

It is not unlikely that you must be equipped with a visa to enter Užupis on this very special day. But both passport and customs control tend to go quickly, so no reason to despair. Even the 12-man army seems to be more concerned with getting people inside the borders than to defend the Republic against intruders. Well within the Republic's external border, you soon realize that you've come to the land of smiles. During the walk up to the angel square that forms the centrepiece of the Republic you have to expect crowds of happy people who are here to celebrate this extraordinary national day, and if you're lucky, you will meet at least one person wearing a long red gown . This outfit is reserved for the Republic's leaders, be it the President or one of its ministers, and it may even be that one of them will be willing to accept sharing a small glass of something with you in one of the many bars and restaurants surrounding the Republic's main routes.

 

But, by all means, stay not only in the main streets, for it is in the courtyards and back streets you'll find many of the galleries, the special 'decorations', the music, scents, mystery and human life that makes Užupis to such a special place on earth.

 

As dusk slowly comes this Maundy Thursday early evening, I am convinced that you will have already made new acquaintances among the crowds of happy, hugging and colourful individuals from many countries and the Republic itself that all are here now to celebrate the Independence Day. You are probably already a part of the almost southern rhythms that characterize Užupis today, and when you together with your new friends finally reach the angel who stands firmly on its high pedestal in the centre of the main square, you realise that today he is far from the only one who blows the horn. Today he is surrounded by vibrant singers and musicians of many kinds, and when darkness finally falls it is right here tonight's big show takes place in powerful expression of exceptional talent and swinging rhythms.

 

Užupis is still an urban area characterized by dilapidated buildings, but when the music reverberates over the cobbles this late spring evening, I am convinced that you will have fallen in love - with this unique part of Vilnius city, with the Republic, with the atmosphere and with all the happy people around you. When you at late night again cross the river Vilnia I think you're going to do it with a big smile and renewed appreciation of the exceptionally exciting adventures and stories Lithuania has to offer...

 

Aage Myhre

Editor

Ambassador of the Republic of Užupis

 

 

 

The Republic of Užupis

 

Užupis is one of the oldest districts of Vilnius, mentioned in historical sources as far back as the 16th century. Once it was called the “salt road” to Polock. In olden times it was the suburb where the poor and mainly craftsmen, lived. There were many mills and at one time it was even known as a brothel district.

The district contains the Bernadine Cemetery, one of the oldest in Vilnius. Most of the district's Jewish population vanished during the Holocaust, and later even the old Jewish Cemetery would be destroyed by the Soviets. The houses left empty by the Holocaust were occupied by marginal elements of society, the homeless, and prostitutes.

Until Lithuania's declaration of independence in 1990, it was one of the most neglected areas in the city, containing many run-down houses, many without utilities.

Today the district houses art galleries, artists' workshops, and popular cafés. On April Fools Day in 1997, the district declared itself an independent republic (The Republic of Užupis), replete with an army of 12 personnel.

Užupis is a unique republic.  A colourful and alive island, separated from the city by the Vilnia River that once gave name to the city itself. Užupis is a recognised district for artists and has won the name of the most mysterious and romantic district of Vilnius. Užupis is the artists’ republic, which has its own constitution (see below), national anthem, calendar and map. The district is often compared to Montmartre in Paris due to its bohemian atmosphere.

Užupis has its own President, Prime Minister, Ambassadors from many countries of the world, military force (consisting of 12 people), a bishop, two churches, the Bernardino cemetery, which is the oldest cemetery in Vilnius, seven bridges and a wonderful patron saint– the bronze Užupis Angel erected in its main square…

Užupis has its honorary citizens. They are such famous people as his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, former President of the Republic of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, artist Jonas Mekas and many others. Užupis has its own holidays – the Day of Užupio Independence, the Day of the Fish, the Day of Traps, the Day of White Tablecloths, etc., as well as its own traditional way of celebrating these holidays.

If you walk along the banks of the Vilnia River, you will be sure to come across artists working there. Passers-by are invited to have a try at the various kinds of art, like photography and painting, or to take part in an evening of summer cinema or exhibitions. 

Everyone can find interesting places and corners in Užupis. One of them is the Užupis Bridge where lovers hang padlocks with their names engraved on them. The padlock is believed to tie and strengthen the hearts of two young people in love. 

Some works of art have become symbols of Užupis:

Užupis is one of the oldest districts of Vilnius, mentioned in the historical sources as far back as the 16th  century. Once it was called the “salt road” to Polock. In olden times it was the suburb where the poor and mainly craftsmen, lived. There were many mills and at one time it was even known as a brothel district.

The district contains the Bernadine Cemetery, one of the oldest in Vilnius. Most of the district's Jewish population vanished during the Holocaust, and later even the old Jewish Cemetery would be destroyed by the Soviets. The houses left empty by the Holocaust were occupied by marginal elements of society, the homeless, and prostitutes.

Until Lithuania's declaration of independence in 1990, it was one of the most neglected areas in the city, containing many run-down houses, many without utilities.

Today the district houses art galleries, artists' workshops, and popular cafés. On April Fools Day in 1997, the district declared itself an independent republic (The Republic of Užupis), replete with an army of 12 personnel.

Užupis is a unique republic.  A colourful and alive island, separated from the city by the Vilnia River that once gave name to the city itself. Užupis is a recognised district for artists and has won the name of the most mysterious and romantic district of Vilnius. Užupis is the artists’ republic, which has its own constitution (see below), national anthem, calendar and map. The district is often compared to Montmartre in Paris due to its bohemian atmosphere.

Užupis has its own President, Prime Minister, Ambassadors from many countries of the world, military force (consisting of 12 people), a bishop, two churches, the Bernardino cemetery, which is the oldest cemetery in Vilnius, seven bridges and a wonderful patron saint– the bronze Užupis Angel erected in its main square…

Užupis has its honorary citizens. They are such famous people as his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, former President of the Republic of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, artist Jonas Mekas and many others. Užupis has its own holidays – the Day of Užupio Independence, the Day of the Fish, the Day of Traps, the Day of White Tablecloths, etc., as well as its own traditional way of celebrating these holidays.

If you walk along the banks of the Vilnia River, you will be sure to come across artists working there. Passers-by are invited to have a try at the various kinds of art, like photography and painting, or to take part in an evening of summer cinema or exhibitions. 

Everyone can find interesting places and corners in Užupis. One of them is the Užupis Bridge where lovers hang padlocks with their names engraved on them. The padlock is believed to tie and strengthen the hearts of two young people in love. 

Some works of art have become symbols of Užupis:

 

 The Užupis Angel

This is a sculpture placed on an 8.5-meter high column, which was unveiled in the Užupis Square in 2001. The Angel, created by sculptor Romas Vilčiauskas and architect Algirdas Umbrasas, is made of brass and bronze.

 

 

The Užupis Mermaid

This is a bronze sculpture by Romas Vilčiauskas that can be seen on the bank of the Vilnia River at the Užupis Bridge near the Užupis café. In 2004, the mermaid was swept away by the rising water of the river.  However, the sculpture was recovered and returned to its place. 

  

The Užupis Constitution

 

Constitution, Verfassung Uzupis

 

Category : Blog archive

Wollongong reflections

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WOLLONGONG

 

REFLECTIONS

 

Gintautas Kaminskas lives in Wollongong, Australia.  Throughout his life, since his teenage years, his dream and hope was to settle in an independent Lithuania, the country his parents fled during the Second World War. He kept the dream of his ancestors' country alive through many post-war years and in 2008 his dream finally came through; Gintautas moved to Lithuania. Towards the end of 2009 he returned to Australia, disillusioned and sad to have experienced a country totally different from what he had imagined and hoped for. I asked him to explain why.

Hello Aage

I usually don’t like to talk about my family’s story, because most people don’t understand.  But I can tell from what you write that you are an idealist and you are trying to understand Lithuania and Lithuanians so I will tell you my story, briefly.

I will start by mentioning that I have a friend in Iceland and I tell him (probably ad nauseam!) that he should be ever so grateful that he was born in his own normal (unoccupied) homeland and therefore automatically grew up speaking his native language in his home, at school at work, and automatically married a woman of his own nationality and therefore naturally spoke his native language at home with his wife and children and now grandchildren.  I had none of those privileges.

My parents were married in Kaunas in 1943.  If Lithuania had been a Scandinavian country, I would have grown up in Kaunas, happily, and would probably still be there today with my Lithuanian wife and children and grandchildren, just like my friend Jóhann in Reykjavík.  But no, not for me.  Having experienced one Russian occupation already (1940-1) and having narrowly escaped deportation to Siberia the first time (some of our extended family members weren’t so lucky), my parents decided to flee to Germany in June 1944, just as the Russians were trying to re-occupy Lithuania.  My mum was pregnant with my sister, who has born in Germany in November 1944.  I was born there (München) on 15 February 1948 (one day short of Vasario 16-toji, unfortunately). 

When I think back, I wish my parents had been able to stay in Germany; at least I would have grown up European, close to the languages and countries that are my passion.  But no such luck.  All the displaced persons had to go elsewhere.  Almost all wanted to go to USA, but that was not possible.  You had to go where you were sent.  We were sent to Canada.  Things were OK in Canada I guess, apart from the climate.  (We were in place a lot colder than Toronto, where most of the Lithuanians were.)  In 1959, when I was 11, my father decided we would move to New Zealand for a better climate ... and better fishing!  Ironically, it was this move that made me appreciate my Lithuanian identity and to cling to it like never before.  I was teased by the NZ kids for speaking English with a Canadian accent.  I hated that.  I started telling myself that as soon as I was old enough I would go back to Canada.  But after a few years (we were in NZ five years) I started to realise that I was cherishing a silly hope, because I wasn’t really Canadian anyway.  So I became very Europe-focused, studying my native language, insisting that my parents speak it with me, and also studying Spanish all on my own from a little textbook.  Since Lithuania was blocked to me, my dream became to live in Spain for a while.  (Which I did do eventually and enjoyed it immensely.)

Eventually (1964) my sister met an Australian and followed him to Australia, so my parents decided to join them.  We settled in Adelaide and it was there that I finished high school and did my B.A. Hons. degree (majoring in Spanish and French).  I was a lot happier in Australia because there were more Lithuanians there and I participated heavily in Lithuanian cultural and even sporting activities (basketball).  I got a scholarship to do an M.A. in Melbourne (in Spanish/Linguistics) so I left home in February 1970 (the day after I turned 22) and went to Melbourne.  It was there that I got married to my first wife, an Australian, at age 22.  We were married for 32 years.  We lived in Canberra (I was a Public Servant) and we brought up three sons.  The highlight of my career was 1979-82 when I was posted to Australian Embassies in Europe, first Rome (I also speak Italian), then Madrid.  I wanted to go on more postings but my wife didn’t.  As I approached early retirement age (55) I realised that I was never going to feel fulfilled unless I went to live in Europe again, so sadly, I got divorced and left Australia.

My plan had been to take early retirement in 2003 and go straight to Lithuania.  As it happens, I took a detour to Montréal, Québec, first.  After five years in Québec, I left and went to Lithuania in February 2008 to join my dad who had returned to Lithuania in 2007.  I did not live with him because he moved in with a lady friend, but I saw him a lot, and toward the end I was helping the lady nurse him full time.  (He died in August 2009.)  At first it was wonderful being in Lithuania and speaking my beloved native language all the time, with everyone.  But then I started to notice how unhappy so many people are, and how much dishonesty there is among crooked businessmen and tradesman and landlords who don’t pay taxes, bribe-taking public servants, policemen and doctors, people falsely claiming invalid pensions, etc.  At a higher level some major scandals have shown that even some judges and Cabinet Ministers are not beyond taking a bribe.  The Seimas members are notorious for their greed and many have been exposed as corrupt.

It is mainly my experience with the Lithuanian health system, doctors and hospitals that has caused my greatest disillusionment with Lithuania and has in fact made me too frightened to live there myself.  We could not leave my dad alone in hospital.  We had to be with him 24 hours a day.  We had to bring him food (you would die of malnutrition if you depended entirely on the inadequate meals  the hospital gives you), we had to be there to bribe the doctor every few days (the amount of attention they paid to my dad dropped off noticeably if  a new bribe was not received every few days), we had to be there to help him go to the toilet and in the end phase to change his nappy, we had to be there to make sure he got his medicine.  The hospitals were disgusting.  One single toilet on the whole floor for 50 patients!  No toilet seat! No paper!  No soap!  No fly screens on the windows – in a hospital!  No lock on the toilet door – men come in and smoke while you are using the toilet – despite the “No Smoking” signs! No facilities for the patients to have a shower or somehow wash themselves. Cold in winter and hot in summer.  Hygiene very dubious.  An absolute nightmare and disgrace.  When my dad died we even had to bribe the cemetery officials to get a decent burial site that wasn’t down in the gully where a big puddle forms and the ground goes boggy every spring.  (They deliberately offer you the lousy places to make sure they get a bribe.)

So by the end of 2009 I had left Lithuania too, with aching heart.  I blame the bribery and corruption entirely on the Russians.  If Lithuania had been left alone (preferably right from 1795, not just 1918!) I am sure it would be like Sweden now.  There are a lot of hard-working decent folks in Lithuania and my heart bleeds for them.  The only way out of this quagmire that I can see is for journalists and other brave people to campaign against bribery and corruption and to convince the general public to start doing so too.  There are a lot of political decisions that need to be made.  It is crazy that Lithuania does not have a car tax (automobile registration fees).  The Government could raise millions annually like that – every civilised country has it.  Same goes for local government taxes (called ‘rates’ in most English-speaking countries).  It’s absolutely crazy not having that.  You cannot have Scandinavian-style welfare with a Soviet-style taxation system. 

I am still an idealist, but now, belatedly, also a realist.  I understand that I will be unlikely to see much of an improvement in my lifetime, and therefore I will not be able to end my days in Lithuania, as I had hoped.  But the flame of hope burns brightly in my heart that the past sacrifices of brave Lithuanians for the homeland have not been in vain and that one day there will be a living standard in Lithuania not far behind that of the Scandinavian and leading Western European countries.  I hope I can make some contribution to the process, no matter how minor.  I value your work as a journalist, keep it up!   That’s why I have taken the time today to tell you a little about one Lithuanian’s life as an exile.

 

Gintautas Kaminskas
Wollongong, Australia

Category : Blog archive

Spring in Lithuania

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SPRING IN LITHUANIA!

 

Lake Akmena (2009/04/16)

 

I drove from Vilnius to the coast today. The distance is not more than 300 km, and the great four-lane highway makes it a quick and easy drive. But it's not long before I start slowing down. The sensation of the Lithuanian spring suddenly begins to penetrate into the car and who could then remain unaffected? 

There are still patches of snow around the undulating landscape of yellow-brown fields, but the smell of wet evaporation which lies like an invisible blanket over the soil, says very clearly that the long and cold winter now seriously is coming to its end.

 

The many groves, which in a few weeks are going to appear as green and lush, still stand dark and seriously gloomy. The bare branches of the clusters of the birch trees dare as yet not quite believe that winter is over. In the larger forested areas there is a haze at the ground, under the heavy branches of thousands of majestic trees that in the autumn dropped their needles and leaves which now lie there like a wet and brownish carpet over the damp forest floor. 

Lithuania countryside Baltic Holidays  

The ice on the larger ponds has a damp blue boundary along the land. Only the middle course of the ice is still nearly white, but it is no longer ice fishermen to see out there. Danger signals of unsafe ice is clear, but the fishermen know that it's not long before they can fish with a rod from shore or by boat, so they hardly despair. 

There are neither tractors nor farm animals to see in the fields. The ground and the soil is still too wet. The silence and tranquillity that characterizes this beautiful Lithuanian spring landscape is thus even more obvious and intrusive. Almost melancholy in spite of the spring that is in the making. 

I stop at a rest area. A narrow dirt road leads into the woods nearby, and suddenly I attentively see that the road leads to a rather derelict cottage there in the woods. It is obvious that this was once a beautiful wooden house, but now the peeling green paint and wooden cladding is in poor condition. The little barn on the other side of the small yard is in an even worse situation. Then the door of the house opens, and an elderly woman with heavy clothing comes out. She carries with her two dented tin cans. The plastic age has still not reached out here. I stand there and almost insolently observe this woman. I hear the chickens, possibly also some geese, cackle from inside the outhouse, and I see the woman filling up both buckets with water from a well in the courtyard. From the ridge on the old house, there is installed a five-meter high, rusty radio antenna. Maybe the woman and her family after World War II were sitting in this little house listening to broadcast from western radio stations with the hope that Lithuania would be liberated by western nations? 

I approach the coastal town of Klaipeda on my journey to the west. And suddenly I see it fly over the road in front of me, the year’s first stork. It's back! It has once again chosen to leave the fertile lands south of the Sahara to the benefit of Lithuania's northern fields. Yes, spring is here!

 

The ice on the Baltic Sea has this year been thicker and more extensive than in many, many years. That is still evident along the seashores north of Klaipeda. But the light, the amazingly strange shifting Lithuanian light, is carrying clear signs that spring is here. The sea breeze is still fresh, but still provides a renewed spirit and volume to my lungs which otherwise mostly breathe the Vilnius city air. The Lithuanian coast is at least as attractive now in the spring as it is when the summer sun and the long sandy beaches soon will draw tens of thousands of longing sun and sea visitors out here. 

The sun is about to go down over the Baltic Sea’s slow waves when I again sit in the car. This time to drive back to Vilnius. The music I play as I head back east, I have received from Danute Z. in Canada. So also to give you the right spring mood, dear reader, I suggest you get comfortable in your seat next to me and enjoy the trip and this amazing tribute to Lithuania, performed by singer Mickey Michael:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XacuQsbfFJA&feature=email

 

A new spring has come to Lithuania ...

 

Aage Myhre

Editor

 

25 March is Lithuania’s stork day! 

 

The white stork (gandras) is usually felt to be the national bird of Lithuania. Lithuanians believe that storks bring harmony to the families on whose property they nest; they have also kept up the tradition of telling their children that storks bring babies. Stork Day is celebrated on 25 March with various archaic rituals: gifts for children, attributed to the storks, such as fruits, chocolates, pencils, and dyed eggs, which are hung on tree branches and fences; snakes are caught, killed and buried under the doorstep; straw fires are lit.

 

 

Notably, Lithuania is a beneficial and important habitat for these birds: it has the highest known nesting density in the world!

 

Category : Blog archive

OPINIONS

Have your say. Send to:
editor@VilNews.com


By Dr. Boris Vytautas Bakunas,
Ph. D., Chicago

A wave of unity sweeps the international Lithuanian community on March 11th every year as Lithuanians celebrated the anniversary of the Lithuanian Parliament's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. However, the sense of national unity engendered by the celebration could be short-lived.

Human beings have a strong tendency to overgeneralize and succumb to stereotypical us-them distinctions that can shatter even the strongest bonds. We need only search the internet to find examples of divisive thinking at work:

- "50 years of Soviet rule has ruined an entire generation of Lithuanian.

- "Those who fled Lithuania during World II were cowards -- and now they come back, flaunt their wealth, and tell us 'true Lithuanians' how to live."

- "Lithuanians who work abroad have abandoned their homeland and should be deprived of their Lithuanian citizenship."

Could such stereotypical, emotionally-charged accusations be one of the main reasons why relations between Lithuania's diaspora groups and their countrymen back home have become strained?

Read more...
* * *


Text: Saulene Valskyte

In Lithuania Christmas Eve is a family event and the New Year's Eve a great party with friends!
Lithuanian say "Kaip sutiksi naujus metus, taip juos ir praleisi" (the way you'll meet the new year is the way you will spend it). So everyone is trying to spend New Year's Eve with friend and have as much fun as possible.

Lithuanian New Year's traditions are very similar to those in other countries, and actually were similar since many years ago. Also, the traditional Lithuanian New Years Eve party was very similar to other big celebrations throughout the year.

The New Year's Eve table is quite similar to the Christmas Eve table, but without straws under the tablecloth, and now including meat dishes. A tradition that definitely hasn't changes is that everybody is trying not to fell asleep before midnight. It was said that if you oversleep the midnight point you will be lazy all the upcoming year. People were also trying to get up early on the first day of the new year, because waking up late also meant a very lazy and unfortunate year.

During the New Year celebration people were dancing, singing, playing games and doing magic to guess the future. People didn't drink much of alcohol, especially was that the case for women.

Here are some advices from elders:
- During the New Year, be very nice and listen to relatives - what you are during New Year Eve, you will be throughout the year.

- During to the New Year Eve, try not to fall, because if this happens, next year you will be unhappy.

- If in the start of the New Year, the first news are good - then the year will be successful. If not - the year will be problematic.

New year predictions
* If during New Year eve it's snowing - then it will be bad weather all year round. If the day is fine - one can expect good harvest.
* If New Year's night is cold and starry - look forward to a good summer!
* If the during New Year Eve trees are covered with frost - then it will be a good year. If it is wet weather on New Year's Eve, one can expect a year where many will die and dangerous epidemics occur.
* If the first day of the new year is snowy - the upcoming year will see many young people die. If the night is snowy - mostly old people will die.
* If the New Year time is cold - then Easter will be warm.
* If during New Year there are a lot of birds in your homestead - then all year around there will be many guests and the year will be fun.

Read more...
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* * *
VilNews
Christmas greetings
from Vilnius


* * *
Ukraine won the historic
and epic battle for the
future
By Leonidas Donskis
Kaunas
Philosopher, political theorist, historian of
ideas, social analyst, and political
commentator

Immediately after Russia stepped in Syria, we understood that it is time to sum up the convoluted and long story about Ukraine and the EU - a story of pride and prejudice which has a chance to become a story of a new vision regained after self-inflicted blindness.

Ukraine was and continues to be perceived by the EU political class as a sort of grey zone with its immense potential and possibilities for the future, yet deeply embedded and trapped in No Man's Land with all of its troubled past, post-Soviet traumas, ambiguities, insecurities, corruption, social divisions, and despair. Why worry for what has yet to emerge as a new actor of world history in terms of nation-building, European identity, and deeper commitments to transparency and free market economy?

Right? Wrong. No matter how troubled Ukraine's economic and political reality could be, the country has already passed the point of no return. Even if Vladimir Putin retains his leverage of power to blackmail Ukraine and the West in terms of Ukraine's zero chances to accede to NATO due to the problems of territorial integrity, occupation and annexation of Crimea, and mayhem or a frozen conflict in the Donbas region, Ukraine will never return to Russia's zone of influence. It could be deprived of the chances to join NATO or the EU in the coming years or decades, yet there are no forces on earth to make present Ukraine part of the Eurasia project fostered by Putin.

Read more...
* * *
Watch this video if you
want to learn about the
new, scary propaganda
war between Russia,
The West and the
Baltic States!


* * *
90% of all Lithuanians
believe their government
is corrupt
Lithuania is perceived to be the country with the most widespread government corruption, according to an international survey involving almost 40 countries.

Read more...
* * *
Lithuanian medical
students say no to
bribes for doctors

On International Anticorruption Day, the Special Investigation Service shifted their attention to medical institutions, where citizens encounter bribery most often. Doctors blame citizens for giving bribes while patients complain that, without bribes, they won't receive proper medical attention. Campaigners against corruption say that bribery would disappear if medical institutions themselves were to take resolute actions against corruption and made an effort to take care of their patients.

Read more...
* * *
Doing business in Lithuania

By Grant Arthur Gochin
California - USA

Lithuania emerged from the yoke of the Soviet Union a mere 25 years ago. Since then, Lithuania has attempted to model upon other European nations, joining NATO, Schengen, and the EU. But, has the Soviet Union left Lithuania?

During Soviet times, government was administered for the people in control, not for the local population, court decisions were decreed, they were not the administration of justice, and academia was the domain of ideologues. 25 years of freedom and openness should have put those bad experiences behind Lithuania, but that is not so.

Today, it is a matter of expectation that court pronouncements will be governed by ideological dictates. Few, if any Lithuanians expect real justice to be effected. For foreign companies, doing business in Lithuania is almost impossible in a situation where business people do not expect rule of law, so, surely Government would be a refuge of competence?

Lithuanian Government has not emerged from Soviet styles. In an attempt to devolve power, Lithuania has created a myriad of fiefdoms of power, each speaking in the name of the Government, each its own centralized power base of ideology.

Read more...
* * *
Greetings from Wales!
By Anita Šovaitė-Woronycz
Chepstow, Wales

Think of a nation in northern Europe whose population is around the 3 million mark a land of song, of rivers, lakes, forests, rolling green hills, beautiful coastline a land where mushrooms grow ready for the picking, a land with a passion for preserving its ancient language and culture.

Doesn't that sound suspiciously like Lithuania? Ah, but I didn't mention the mountains of Snowdonia, which would give the game away.

I'm talking about Wales, that part of the UK which Lithuanians used to call "Valija", but later named "Velsas" (why?). Wales, the nation which has welcomed two Lithuanian heads of state to its shores - firstly Professor Vytautas Landsbergis, who has paid several visits and, more recently, President Dalia Grybauskaitė who attended the 2014 NATO summit which was held in Newport, South Wales.
MADE IN WALES -
ENGLISH VERSION OF THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
VYTAUTAS LANDSBERGIS.

Read more...
* * *
IS IT POSSIBLE TO
COMMENT ON OUR
ARTICLES? :-)
Read Cassandra's article HERE

Read Rugile's article HERE

Did you know there is a comment field right after every article we publish? If you read the two above posts, you will see that they both have received many comments. Also YOU are welcome with your comments. To all our articles!
* * *

Greetings from Toronto
By Antanas Sileika,
Toronto, Canada

Toronto was a major postwar settlement centre for Lithuanian Displaced Persons, and to this day there are two Catholic parishes and one Lutheran one, as well as a Lithuanian House, retirement home, and nursing home. A new wave of immigrants has showed interest in sports.

Although Lithuanian activities have thinned over the decades as that postwar generation died out, the Lithuanian Martyrs' parish hall is crowded with many, many hundreds of visitors who come to the Lithuanian cemetery for All Souls' Day. Similarly, the Franciscan parish has standing room only for Christmas Eve mass.

Although I am firmly embedded in the literary culture of Canada, my themes are usually Lithuanian, and I'll be in Kaunas and Vilnius in mid-November 2015 to give talks about the Lithuanian translations of my novels and short stories, which I write in English.

If you have the Lithuanian language, come by to one of the talks listed in the links below. And if you don't, you can read more about my work at
www.anatanassileika.com

http://www.vdu.lt/lt/rasytojas-antanas-sileika-pristatys-savo-kuryba/
https://leu.lt/lt/lf/lf_naujienos/kvieciame-i-rasytojo-59hc.html
* * *

As long as VilNews exists,
there is hope for the future
Professor Irena Veisaite, Chairwoman of our Honorary Council, asked us to convey her heartfelt greetings to the other Council Members and to all readers of VilNews.

"My love and best wishes to all. As long as VilNews exists, there is hope for the future,"" she writes.

Irena Veisaite means very much for our publication, and we do hereby thank her for the support and wise commitment she always shows.

You can read our interview with her
HERE.
* * *
EU-Russia:
Facing a new reality

By Vygaudas Ušackas
EU Ambassador to the Russian Federation

Dear readers of VilNews,

It's great to see this online resource for people interested in Baltic affairs. I congratulate the editors. From my position as EU Ambassador to Russia, allow me to share some observations.

For a number of years, the EU and Russia had assumed the existence of a strategic partnership, based on the convergence of values, economic integration and increasingly open markets and a modernisation agenda for society.

Our agenda was positive and ambitious. We looked at Russia as a country ready to converge with "European values", a country likely to embrace both the basic principles of democratic government and a liberal concept of the world order. It was believed this would bring our relations to a new level, covering the whole spectrum of the EU's strategic relationship with Russia.

Read more...
* * *

The likelihood of Putin
invading Lithuania
By Mikhail Iossel
Professor of English at Concordia University, Canada
Founding Director at Summer Literary Seminars

The likelihood of Putin's invading Lithuania or fomenting a Donbass-style counterfeit pro-Russian uprising there, at this point, in my strong opinion, is no higher than that of his attacking Portugal, say, or Ecuador. Regardless of whether he might or might not, in principle, be interested in the insane idea of expanding Russia's geographic boundaries to those of the former USSR (and I for one do not believe that has ever been his goal), he knows this would be entirely unfeasible, both in near- and long-term historical perspective, for a variety of reasons. It is not going to happen. There will be no restoration of the Soviet Union as a geopolitical entity.

Read more...
* * *

Are all Lithuanian energy
problems now resolved?
By Dr. Stasys Backaitis,
P.E., CSMP, SAE Fellow Member of Central and Eastern European Coalition, Washington, D.C., USA

Lithuania's Energy Timeline - from total dependence to independence

Lithuania as a country does not have significant energy resources. Energy consuming infrastructure after WWII was small and totally supported by energy imports from Russia.

First nuclear reactor begins power generation at Ignalina in 1983, the second reactor in 1987. Iganlina generates enough electricity to cover Lithuania's needs and about 50%.for export. As, prerequisite for membership in EU, Ignalina ceases all nuclear power generation in 2009

The Klaipėda Sea terminal begins Russia's oil export operations in 1959 and imports in 1994.

Mazeikiu Nafta (current ORLEAN Lietuva) begins operation of oil refinery in 1980.

Read more...
* * *

Have Lithuanian ties across
the Baltic Sea become
stronger in recent years?
By Eitvydas Bajarunas
Ambassador to Sweden

My answer to affirmative "yes". Yes, Lithuanian ties across the Baltic Sea become as never before solid in recent years. For me the biggest achievement of Lithuania in the Baltic Sea region during recent years is boosting Baltic and Nordic ties. And not because of mere accident - Nordic direction was Lithuania's strategic choice.

The two decades that have passed since regaining Lithuania's independence can be described as a "building boom". From the wreckage of a captive Soviet republic, a generation of Lithuanians have built a modern European state, and are now helping construct a Nordic-Baltic community replete with institutions intended to promote political coordination and foster a trans-Baltic regional identity. Indeed, a "Nordic-Baltic community" - I will explain later in my text the meaning of this catch-phrase.

Since the restoration of Lithuania's independence 25 years ago, we have continuously felt a strong support from Nordic countries. Nordics in particular were among the countries supporting Lithuania's and Baltic States' striving towards independence. Take example of Iceland, country which recognized Lithuania in February of 1991, well in advance of other countries. Yet another example - Swedish Ambassador was the first ambassador accredited to Lithuania in 1991. The other countries followed suit. When we restored our statehood, Nordic Countries became champions in promoting Baltic integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions. To large degree thanks Nordic Countries, massive transformations occurred in Lithuania since then, Lithuania became fully-fledged member of the EU and NATO, and we joined the Eurozone on 1 January 2015.

Read more...
* * *

It's the economy, stupid *
By Valdas (Val) Samonis,
PhD, CPC

n his article, Val Samonis takes a comparative policy look at the Lithuanian economy during the period 2000-2015. He argues that the LT policy response (a radical and classical austerity) was wrong and unenlightened because it coincided with strong and continuing deflationary forces in the EU and the global economy which forces were predictable, given the right policy guidance. Also, he makes a point that LT austerity, and the resulting sharp drop in GDP and employment in LT, stimulated emigration of young people (and the related worsening of other demographics) which processes took huge dimensions thereby undercutting even the future enlightened efforts to get out of the middle-income growth trap by LT. Consequently, the country is now on the trajectory (development path) similar to that of a dog that chases its own tail. A strong effort by new generation of policymakers is badly needed to jolt the country out of that wrong trajectory and to offer the chance of escaping the middle-income growth trap via innovations.

Read more...
* * *

Have you heard about the
South African "Pencil Test"?
By Karina Simonson

If you are not South African, then, probably, you haven't. It is a test performed in South Africa during the apartheid regime and was used, together with the other ways, to determine racial identity, distinguishing whites from coloureds and blacks. That repressive test was very close to Nazi implemented ways to separate Jews from Aryans. Could you now imagine a Lithuanian mother, performing it on her own child?

But that is exactly what happened to me when I came back from South Africa. I will tell you how.

Read more...
* * *
Click HERE to read previous opinion letters >



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