THE VOICE OF INTERNATIONAL LITHUANIA
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Front page
Brand new apartments in Vilnius Old Town!
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Kotrynos vartai is being built at Klaipedos Street in the very centre of Vilnius Old Town, close to the St. Catherine Church and the Teachers‘ House.
Illustration: Resolution/NEWSEC.
It is not often build new homes here in Vilnius Old Town. There are simply very few vacant spaces. The financial crisis has also contributed to 'freeze' the majority of new developments in Lithuania’s real estate sector.
But now it's finally something happening. A brand new apartment complex under construction in the heart of the Old Town, on a site that until recently was reserved for old garages from the Soviet era.
Kotrynos Vartai is the name, a complex of apartments and two commercial premises being built at Klaipedos street next to St. Catherine’s Church and the Teachers’ House.
The development includes:
- 33 apartments from 28 to 138 sq.m;
- The smallest units are 1-room studios, the largest spacey 5-rooms apartments (4 bedrooms);
- Two commercial premises facing Klaipedos street;
- Underground parking;
- Most of the apartments are equipped with terraces, balconies, high ceilings and fireplaces;
- Two closed green inner yards, with playgrounds.
The construction works started spring 2011, Completion in autumn of 2012.
The apartments are sold at prices varying from 6.700 LTL/sq.m to 8.900 LTL/sq.m. Till now eight apartments are sold.
More information at www.kotrynosvartai.lt.
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Vilnius Old Town is
unique in the world
Dominikonu Street in Vilnius Old Town. The colours play together. The
attention to detail is great.
Photo: Aage Myhre.
Text: Aage Myhre, architect and editor.
From an architectural point of view, the Vilnius Old Town is unique. In the world. It can also be justified to call this the world's most international city, taking into account all nations and cultures that have been involved in its planning and construction over many centuries.
It was here architects and builders from Italy and other Mediterranean countries came to shape the international Vilnius almost 700 years ago, along with experts from Central Europe. The influence of the city's large Jewish community was also very evident throughout the centuries.
It is to Vilnius you should come if you want to watch an entire people's ancient spirit, expressed in a beautiful, special setting unmatched anywhere else. It is when you walk around in the streets here that you will understand why Vilnius has been named as the 'New Babylon', 'Jerusalem of the North', 'The world's most Italian city outside Italy' and 'The world's most baroque city north of the Alps'.
It's when you feel the round cobbles in the streets pushing up against your shoe soles that you can fully understand the concepts of multiculturalism and multi-nationalism, as you could find it in Old Vilnius.
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How I came to Lithuania 21 years ago (1 of 6)
Some private memories by Aage Myhre, VilNews Editor-in-Chief
aage.myhre@VilNews.com
Summer of 1990:
Landsbergis to Norway
In the summer of 1990 it’s still little known in the west that there once was a country called Lithuania. The fact that this small nation, with its two Baltic neighbours, are engaged in a process of secession from the Soviet Union has still not achieved any major headlines in our western newspapers. The fall of the Berlin Wall is more important. We do not know that the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, has recently been in Lithuania to meet the country's Communist leader, Algirdas Brazauskas (both pictured left). The fact that Lithuania's prime minister, Kazimir Prunskiene (centre above), has recently been in Norway to try to get the oil company STATOIL to deliver oil to the country, which is now subjected to blockade by the Soviet power, has been heard little about. Then Parliament President Vytautas Landsbergis (pictured right) comes on his first 'official visit' to a Western country, to Norway. That changes a lot.
A young man with a ponytail enters our office community in the centre of Oslo, Norway. It’s a warm, sunny day, mid-summer 1990. Someone has told him that our office, with 16 different small firms, enjoys a relatively large network of contacts, lobbyists perhaps although I do not know much about what that word means. He tells us that he is adviser to a president of a country we have hardly heard of before now. The country is called Lithuania, the president Vytautas Landsbergis, he informs us. The advisor’s name appears to be Ramunas Bogdanas.
What we get to know, is that Landsbergis needs help in finding contacts at the highest Norwegian level in connection with his planned 'official visit' to Norway in late August, the first for a Western country. Bogdanas asks us to undertake such a task. Even if he cannot offer any payment for the job.
To read more, go to our SECTION 13 – THE WORLD IN LITHUANIA
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Happy Mozart weekend!
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Pulling extraordinary minds & brains together for the purpose of ‘rescuing’ Lithuania
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I have been reading some of the most interesting articles since the VilNews launch. There was one, in particular, that touched and impressed me deeply, it was an Oxfordian view on Lithuania's education. However, what has impressed me the most is the fact that you have been able to pull extraordinary 'minds & brains' together from all over the world for the purpose of 'rescuing' Lithuania as a nation, and fundamentally improve its current practices with respect to economic and political justice, business practices, educational sustainability and resilience and much, much more. Just wanted to say one more time THANK YOU!!!
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“What has impressed me the most is the fact that you have been able to pull extraordinary 'minds & brains' together from all over the world for the purpose of 'rescuing' Lithuania as a nation, and fundamentally improve its current practices with respect to economic and political justice, business practices, educational sustainability and resilience and much, much more.”
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Vilnius University during “Soviet Times”
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Excerpt from Tomas Venclova’s book “Vilnius a Personal History”.
I entered the University shortly after Stalin’s death. I was sixteen years old, one of the youngest students there. Times had somewhat improved―become more “vegetarian,” to quote Anna Akhmatova. The war against the anti-Communist Lithuanian and Polish partisans was coming to an end, most of them having been killed. The deportations had stopped, and people―though not all, by far―were coming back from Siberia and the prisons. Yet grim Soviet conditions still prevailed. Polish professors from the prewar era had been ousted―“repatriated” was the official term―and there were scarcely any Lithuanian professors left. Some ended up in America, others in concentration camps or six feet under, and still others were simply not permitted to teach. In the best of cases, they were replaced by high school teachers (most of them very intimidated); in somewhat worse cases, by young careerists; and in the worst of all cases, by individuals who had sent dozens of people into slave labor. Among this third group were many recent arrivals from Russia, who were more successful than the locals in adapting to the system since they knew it better. Lithuanian continued to be the language of instruction. The local Communists thought this was to their great credit, but those in power probably weren’t especially interested in which language was used―what was more important to them was what was said. Marxism (oh, if only it had really been Marxism!) and military training took up almost all the students’ time. At least half of the university library could not be accessed without special permission, something that was practically impossible to get.
Go to our Section 18 to read more
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Vilnius Jewish Library
to open 16 December!
http://vilniusjewishlibrary.org/
The Vilnius Jewish Library will be the first Jewish library in Lithuania since 1943, and we are happy to announce that the opening will take place 16 December. Location: Gedimino prospekto 24.
Wyman Brent is not like California Baptists in general. Several years ago he fell in love with Vilnius. His great passion in life is Jewish books - books written by or about Jews. Therefore, he has over the latest years bought more than 5.000 such books and taken them to Vilnius to open a Jewish library. Read below his own story about his ideals for a meaningful life.
Text: Wyman Brent
Using a wire brush to scrub a broken sink can help strengthen Jewish culture. Most people are not aware of this. Thus I found myself kneeling in a parking lot on a hot summer day with a hose and attempting to remove concrete dust from an old metal sink. To aid in the cleaning, the hose was turned on to wash away the dirt and dust. After a while, there was quite a stream of water running over the asphalt, down the street where it took a right at the intersection until it reached a storm drain. I only noticed this at the end when hot and tired, I was going to a café to get a cold drink.
What I did pay attention to while repeatedly running the brush and hose back and forth, up and down, left and right was the puddle created. The tiny pool of water gave off a big reflection of trains, trains going one direction or another, one city or another. Trains carrying passengers and trains carrying freight. That was now, but what about then. I had sat out many times over the past months on a balcony overlooking the parking lot from which one could sit and drink coffee or tea (your choice) and watch the trains roll by. It is an idyllic place to relax and read a good Jewish book…or maybe better to say a book by a Jew. I have a wide variety of reading material.
To read more, go our SECTION 12
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 Thomas Jonas Chepaitis. |
A Heroic Lamentation for St. Bartholomew You know, there are two kinds of men, There is another kind, whose skin That's here they tore off skin from you, But even in the greatest pain From then and on you point the way Lyrics: Thomas Jonas Chepaitis 2011 |
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Ingrid Baronaite Hammoud, Klaipėda:
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"All things are hidden in their opposites-gain in loss, gift in refusal, honour in humiliation, wealth in poverty, strength in weakness...life in death, victory in defeat, power in powerlessness".. |
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"Find a way to be thankful for your troubles, and they can become your blessings." "And you learn...That you really can endure..that you really do have strength..That you really can endure.. and you learn... and you learn... and you learn....with every goodbye you learn." |
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"The truth is a brilliant, many-sided diamond." "We see things not as they are, but as we are.." "God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one." |
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"To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.” - William Blake |
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"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. When the mirror shows us darkness and hate, we must shine with light and love, in all aspects of our lives.” "My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness." |
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1st of November is
All Saints’ Day
November 1st, people of the Christian Faith all over the world celebrate All Saints’ Day. In Lithuania it is one of the most solemn of holidays. This day is set aside as a day to honor the souls of family members that have passed away as well as remembering the Saints of the Catholic Church.
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“Facing History: The Burden of 1941”
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Dr. Saulius Suziedelis.
Scholar of Lithuania’s Holocaust history.
Photo: www.komisija.lt/lt/naujiena.php?id=1301995164
By Ellen Cassedy
“The only way for Lithuanians to lighten the difficult history of 1941 is to embrace it.”
The writer of these words, Dr. Saulius Suziedelis of Millersville, Pennsylvania, USA, will be honored in Vilnius on November 18, 2011, by the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Science.
Also receiving awards will be Dr. Vytautas Cernius, a longtime professor of education at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Dr. Arvydas Kliore, a space scientist with NASA. The prizes for intellectual achievement are awarded annually to Lithuanians living abroad.
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World economy collapse explained in 3 minutes
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"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).
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How human psychology drives the economy
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A Review of: George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller, Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. xiv+230 pages.
By Val Samonis
In over 30 years of my research, advising, and teaching globally, I have read and reviewed many very interesting and paradigm-changing books in economics and management. However, this book is one of a kind!
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“I’d like 6 kilograms of
innovation, please”
Ojasaar Yrjö, representative of Solon partners Ltd., Estonia,
at this year’s Baltic Dynamics Conference.
Ojasaar Yrjö
Text: Evelina Kutkaitytė
Last month the annual Baltic Dynamics conference invited innovation supporters from around the Baltic Sea to Tallinn, Estonia.
Estonia’s president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, opened the conference emphasising the importance of Baltic cooperation. “The Baltic States make huge impact to EU economy as well as help withstanding the business competition with the bigs like China”, said the Estonian president, who also is the initiator of EU’s Baltic Sea strategy.
According to the president, the findings of Baltic Dynamics conference should be presented to the Baltic governments. The bureaucracy level in Estonia makes it almost 3 years to get business support from the state thus the companies prefer working on their own. Similar conditions are observed in Latvia and Lithuania.
Despite all independent efforts to survive in the market, today‘s businesses show lack of knowledge and creativity. Why Apple was so successful? Because it combined technology and design.
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36 REASONS WHY IT’S SUCH AN EXCELLENT IDEA
TO VISIT LITHUANIA THIS AUTUMN AND WINTER
Good reasons for all seasons
You can and should visit Lithuania for a lot of reasons this autumn and winter – as you can see from our below survey. Common for all the 36 ideas mentioned, is that here you get top quality and tons of experience – for half the price – if to compare with USA and most West-European countries.
To read more, go to Section 23 – TRAVEL LITHUANIA
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America's important
role for Lithuania
The ‘Lithuanian’ senator, Richard ‘Dick’ Durbin (67) with President Barack Obama.
Durbin is the senior United States Senator from Illinois and the Senate Majority Whip, the second highest position in the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate. Durbin was born in Illinois to an Irish-American father, William Durbin, and a Lithuanian-born mother, Ann Kutkin (Lithuanian: Ona Kutkaitė). Durbin has over many years done a truly great job not only for America but also for his motherland, Lithuania!
Text: Aage Myhre, Editor-in-Chief
aage.myhre@VilNews.com
During a visit to the U.S. some years ago I spoke with immigrants from various countries who now live in the United States. All with one thing in common; that they had abandoned their homelands. I met exiled Cubans. I saw Iranians who fled to USA after their Shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, was overthrown from the Persian Peacock Throne in 1979. I talked to many Eastern Europeans who escaped Stalin's atrocities during and after World War II. I talked to Jews who were born in the U.S., but still feeling and having very close ties to Israel.
It strikes me that the U.S. has done much more for exiled nationalities than what our Western European nations have done.
It was probably not without reason that the majority of Eastern Europeans who managed to flee westwards towards the end of World War II preferred the U.S. over Western Europe. For in truth our Western European support to our eastern brothers and sisters was rather half-hearted during the post-war years.
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OPINIONS
Have your say. Send to:
editor@VilNews.com
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:
- "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."
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.
* 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.
Christmas greetings
from Vilnius
and epic battle for the
future
Philosopher, political theorist, historian of
ideas, social analyst, and political
commentator
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.
want to learn about the
new, scary propaganda
war between Russia,
The West and the
Baltic States!
believe their government
is corrupt
students say no to
bribes for doctors
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.
Chepstow, Wales
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.
ENGLISH VERSION OF THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF VYTAUTAS LANDSBERGIS.
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
"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
Facing a new reality
Dear readers of VilNews,
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.
The likelihood of Putin
invading Lithuania
.jpg "lithuania today")
Founding Director at Summer Literary Seminars
Are all Lithuanian energy
problems now resolved?
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.
Have Lithuanian ties across
the Baltic Sea become
stronger in recent years?
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.
Have you heard about the
South African "Pencil Test"?
But that is exactly what happened to me when I came back from South Africa. I will tell you how.
VilNews e-magazine is published in Vilnius, Lithuania. Editor-in-Chief: Mr. Aage Myhre. Inquires to the editors: editor@VilNews.com.
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