Lithuania in the world

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.

NOW IN CHICAGO!

National Lithuanian
American Hall of Fame

Bringing attention to Lithuania’s epic history and the global contributions of its people today in the arts, sciences, sports, politics, and economics.

Football greats Dick Butkus and Johnny Unitas, film director Robert Zemeckis, screen stars Charles Bronson, Ann Jillian, and Ruta Lee, musicians Benny Goodman and Bob Dylan, author J.D. Salinger, and Senator Dick Durbin are but a few famous individuals with roots in a nation that was once the largest and amongst the most powerful in Europe, Lithuania. Their achievements will now be commemorated by The National Lithuanian-American Hall of Fame (NLAHF).

Lithuanians and their history have been living in relative anonymity among the American public, as Lithuania’s voice on the world stage was silenced during a half-century of Soviet Occupation.  With independence restored, Lithuania has reasserted its place in the advancement of world culture – a feat recognized by the designation of its capital, Vilnius, as the “Cultural Capital of Europe” in 2009.

With a governing Board composed of members from various ethnic and racial communities, the National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame is a non profit organization with a primary objective of acquainting the American public with Lithuanians, their epic history and unique culture. The NLAHF now takes this opportunity to publicize Lithuania’s history and its people’s global contributions in the arts, sciences, sports, politics, and economics.

The National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame’s “Achieving Relevance” campaign includes educational initiatives in American and Lithuanian communities.  For more information on how you can support these worthwhile efforts, contact Jon Platakis at: jon@lithhof.org .           

Jon Platakis.

NLAHF has also it own Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Lithuanian-American-Hall-of-Fame/141366249270713

Members of 'The Lithuanian-American Community
protest outside the Capitol in Washington in 1990, against
Soviet President Gorbachev's policy regarding the
Baltic States. They played a real role by then.
Is there still a role for them to play?
Photo: UPI, Joe Mahoney.

Lithuanian Americans have always found themselves as defenders of the ideas and ideals of both Lithuania and their adopted country, the United States. During the years of Soviet occupation, Lithuanian Americans played a key role in keeping hope alive. Without the actions of Lithuanian Americans, there would not have been a non-recognition policy, and without the hard work of so many Lithuanian Americans past and present that policy would not have served as the beacon of hope it was for Lithuanians in Lithuania.

Not surprisingly, many Lithuanian Americans concluded at the time of the end of Soviet occupation that their job was completed. After all, what they had done for more than 50 years was little short of heroic. And there was the additional and for some extremely painful fact that many in Lithuania itself felt that the diaspora had made its contribution but that Lithuanian-Lithuanians must now take the lead in the future development of their country.

As a result, many Lithuanian Americans have ended or at least reduced their participation in public life. Now, this withdrawal from public life threatens to become a stampede. Lithuania has become a member of NATO, a step that many have seen as the final guarantee of its independence and security. And Lithuania has joined the European Union, another step toward the reintegration of Lithuania into the European world from which it was so brutally wrenched by the Soviet government in 1940.

But these events should not be the “end of history”, there are many serious challenges ahead both for Lithuania and for Lithuanian Americans, all of us who care about Lithuania may have to work harder than we ever did in the past.

The Soviet occupation of the Baltic countries continues to cast a shadow on the political calculations in Moscow and in the minds of many Lithuanians, and because this is so, Lithuanian Americans have a special role to play in dispelling both these shadows.

I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that had there not been a Lithuanian diaspora, the Soviet government might have survived far longer than it did. Now, it is imperative that Lithuanian Americans again play the key role in making sure that Lithuania will not suffer because of such actions. And that includes not only telling the West but making sure that people in Lithuania understand what is at stake as well.

Lithuanian Americans have played a key role in fighting the hangover of the communist past, and we can all be proud of the role that Lithuanian Americans have played. I believe that Lithuanian Americans can make a significant contribution also to the future. But we need to recognize that the threats to that future are real and that Lithuanian Americans need to act as they have in the past.

Egle Dudenas

Egle Dudenas wrote this article in 2005, but her points are as good today as they were by then.  VilNews is hereby inviting our readers to comment on this important topic.

 
Straight-line 12-cylinder 1938 Lincoln Saloon

By KR Slade

Sunday was, as usual, the day for Father and me to go to Lithuanian Catholic mass; and, as usual, thereafter, to return to my familiar English-speaking world. Our Sunday masses were always at our Lithuanian church -- the only one between Massachusetts and Connecticut. I never had any idea what anyone at church was saying, because I did not understand any Lithuanian. In 1958, the mass was in Latin; however, the sermon, readings, singing, and announcements were in Lithuanian. I understood some Latin, although I was only ten years old. It was the ‘everything else’ -- before, during, and after church -- that I did not understand . . .

After mass, there was our weekly tradition: a couple of ‘dogs’ at the ‘New York System’ wiener-joint, just around the corner from the church, in the old inner-city Lithuanian neighbourhood; then a drive across town to the Italian bakery for a box of pastries to take to Mother’s parents’ house for an hour or two of ‘Sunday visit’.

It was not until we were at home that Father announced the news: next Saturday was to be the first-of-the-summer-season Lithuanian picnic. Mother’s reaction was that this was going to be a lot of work for her: to prepare all of the food, for the three of us and more to share. I thought that it would be great: lot’s of other kids, to meet and play with, none of whom spoke anything but English. We all would ‘goof’ on all of the adults trying to speak Lithuanian, which the adults did not know very well, had forgotten, would be corrected, and would argue about. They would be so language pre-occupied as to leave us kids alone, for us to have our fun . . .

Next Saturday, Father’s old -- but still impressive, straight-line 12-cylinder 1938 Lincoln Saloon’s huge trunk compartment was picnic-packed. We rolled out of our driveway.

“Tom. There will be swimming, of course. Did you bring your swimming trunks?”

“Yes.”

(Mother): “Well, I hope that it’s going to be at the big lake, the water is good there. That other picnic place -- with the big pond is okay; but that other picnic place, with the little pond -- I don’t want Tom swimming there. I think that there are leeches there. So, which picnic ground is it ?”

That’s when Father stepped on the brakes, more notable an event because we were going up a hill.

“Ohh . . . ”

“Which picnic ground is it ?”

“Ohh . . . ”

“Which picnic ground is it ?”

“Well, . . . ”

“Don’t tell me that you don’t know.”

“Okay.”

“Which picnic ground is it ?”

“We’ve been there.”

“Which picnic ground is it ?”

“It’s not a problem. We will see. Everything will be okay. We will just go to the church.”

“It is eleven o’clock. The picnic is at noon. It is an hour’s drive to any of the three picnic grounds. The church is a half-hour away; the other way.”

“It’s OK; we will go to the church; and we will see.”

“What we will see is nothing; because everyone will have already left.”

“Well, we will go to the church, and we will see.”

We went to the church . . . ‘to see’ . . . and we saw nothing. Any idea of posting a notice as to where/what/when or anything about the event, was an unknown concept [both then and thereafter, and probably in the hereafter and forever]. No need to tell: ‘Everyone knows’.

We drove around the neighbourhood of the church. Father reasoned that there would be someone knowledgeable of the precise details of the event, although unable/unwilling to attend. Of course, since we were passing the New York System Wieners, we were obliged to stop for ‘a couple of dogs’, on the pretence of getting information. Mother waited in the Lincoln, with the doors locked and windows rolled-up. Somehow, she noticed the tiniest touch of mustard, and made me take-off my T-shirt.

We drove around the neighbourhood, looking for addresses. After knocking on six doors, he did find one person who knew the correct location. Now we knew which picnic ground: the one with the big lake.

From my spacious backseat of the Lincoln, a limousine-distance away from the front seat, I could see my father chain-smoking, and it seemed like smoke was coming from my Mother’s ears. However, the Lincoln leather seat soon became uncomfortably hot on my bare back, so I took to sitting on the thick-wool rugged spacious floor. Father kept a very clean car. The long drive encouraged me to change positions frequently. Positioning my feet on the back of Father’s seat was not such a good idea, because at a traffic light stop, his huge bear paw of a hand reached over and behind and caught me on my right calf, which encouraged me to find other positions. That was when I understood what was going to be the mood of this family outing.

We arrived at two o’clock: two hours late. However, there was no one there. Father praised the solitude of the lakeside forest; Mother was silent -- still-more smoke from ears, still makes no sound, but makes for a more profound stillness. We ate our picnic, in Silence.

We had too-much food. Mother was not particularly hungry. Father had a seemingly larger than his large-normal appetite. I was a tall, but skinny, kid; I never ate much; and Father kept urging me to eat more. However, after the over-eating, there was still too-much food.

A couple of other picnicking families arrived, around the lake. Father gathered up the excess food, and he and I carried it off on a give-away mission. The first family was Polish; Father spoke with them for a long time in their language; they had plenty of food and did not want any more; they gave us some great homemade pickles; Mother was not pleased that we returned with more food. The second family was Jewish, and kosher; so, it was not opportune to offer our pork-laden gifts; but Father had a long talk with them in Yiddish and Russian, and they gave us some nice sweet bread. Mother was more displeased with the more food. Father and I set-off on a walk around the lake, where we ‘lost’ our gift-food. For the resident squirrels and other creatures, it must have been a day of bonanza.

I mentioned swimming. Mother said that I could not swim alone. Father said he would swim with me. Then he remembered that he had forgotten his swimming trunks. My parents had a short discussion.

“It’s okay. I will swim in my underwear.”

“No; you will not.”

It was time to leave. We packed our residue picnic paraphernalia into the trunk of the Lincoln.

Three busses of Lithuanians arrived, from our church. Evidently, the picnic was to be at 3:30 pm.

Everyone was very cordial, but there were the inevitable questions, totally understandable, directed to my mother.

“Why did you not wait to eat with us ?”

“Why did you not bring food to share with others ?”

“You did not cook ?”

In very-good Lithuanian, Mother responded to the Lithuanian-language questions, saying, “I do not speak Lithuanian-language”.

Unfortunately, the bus ride had been long, and this early-summer day was very hot. The Lithuanian taste for milk-products was not suitable to this especially hot summer day. Personally, I do not like beets, especially in soup, more-especially with cream. Mother continued her day’s fasting; I did not want to eat more; even Father had over-eaten.

And it came to pass, that the three busloads of Lithuanians became ill; violently ill -- with some sort of great stomach distress. Father drove to find a telephone to call a hospital. Three ambulances arrived. The one doctor examined people.

One of the ambulance drivers was German, and was somewhat naturally attracted to the ‘borscht’ soup -- with the cream, on the sunny picnic-buffet. His workday ended, and his ambulance was soon to become abandoned. It was strange to see the doctor driving one of the three buses -- all to the hospital.

We drove home in the Lincoln. Mother said nothing. Actually, she said nothing for about a week, which was the same amount of time that Father slept in the guest room. Maybe it would not have been so bad if on our way home Father had not said, “As I told you, everything will be okay; we will see.”

I had a great time at the picnic; well, at least before everyone else ate, and before I experienced ‘sympathetic vomiting’. There were lots of other kids to play with; and there was good swimming. I met a cute Lithuanian girl, although she was two years older. I told all of the kids the story of how we came to our Lithuanian picnic; they all laughed. She told me, “You tell good stories.” I became more interested in going to Sunday mass. Five years later, she was my date at my Freshman Prom.

“Everything will be okay; we will see.”

The foregoing article is ‘fiction’, an excerpt from “T.F.”. Then again, maybe it is a ‘fiction’ to say that it was ‘fiction’; you can never know with ‘fiction’ . . .
All Rights Reserved: 2006

Note: A version of the foregoing story was published in the October--November 2006 issue of the Canadian subscriber's journal, 'Dialogue' magazine (www.dialogue.ca)

A new campaign is born! The campaign is called ‘Invite Your Friend to Lithuania’, already receiving good support from service businesses all over the country and abroad. Those who invite friends to Lithuania can even win free flights to Vilnius, Kaunas or Palanga, visit various events free of charge, get souvenirs and receive discounts different places.

People are invited to join the initiative at www.invite2lithuania.com or at the initiative’s Facebook Page where we all are encouraged to invite our friends and acquaintances to Lithuania.

The campaign seeks to invite a record number of people to visit Lithuania in 2011-2012 through Lithuanians and friends of Lithuania all around the world. The Campaign is organized by ‘Global Lithuanian Leaders’ (GLL) - a network that unites talented professionals and leaders who associate themselves with Lithuania and contribute to the continued economic, political, social and cultural transformations currently underway in Lithuania.

Dalia Venslovaitė

Dalia Venslovaitė, Director at GLL tells that ‘This year Lithuania has already welcomed a record number of visitors. Our goal is that people who have already visited and enjoyed Lithuania would invite others through their social networks. Moreover, we focus much on Lithuanians living abroad. They are our best ambassadors in revealing why it is worthwhile visiting Lithuania‘.

According to the Lithuanian State Department of Tourism under the Ministry of Economy, during the first quarter of 2011 there was a 39.4 % increase in tourism in Lithuania comparing to the previous year. During the latest quarter Lithuania has welcomed 150 000 tourists while the total number of tourists last year was 107 000. One tourist spends around 1.040 LTL daily. Last year an average stay of one tourist in Lithuania was 4.3 nights. Hence, one tourist alone brings around 600 LTL directly into the state budget.

WORLD LITHUANIAN ECONOMIC FORUM
 VILNIUS, 4-5 JULY:

A successful event, but
will it create any ripple effects?

The  World Lithuanian Economic Forum (WLEF) is still in full swing as I write this. So I should be careful about drawing too many conclusions yet. What I have seen so far, is an event where some 400 people meet to discuss what more can be done to collect Lithuanians from all over the world to joint efforts for their fatherland. More investments, more engagement is being requested. The mood is good, the speeches and discussions as well. Yet I can not help but wonder why only about 100 of the 400 attendees are foreign-Lithuanians. Nearly half of all who call themselves Lithuanians live, after all, far from their country of origin, and they should constitute a very significant resource for further development of this nation.

It was also remarkably few business people represented, as a percentage of the number of participants, hence the business-to-business impact can hardly have been very large.

Yet it is my conviction that this is an event that has a future, and I hope to see WLEF in Vilnius also next summer. 

These are mythree suggestionson how tofurtherdevelop and enhance the event:

1. MORE BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS

The president, government, organizations and businesses should work together to make WLEF even more business-oriented, to invite and prepare for specific interaction activities between local and international companies. Local organizations and their sister organizations in other countries, like Rotary Clubs, should be integral parts of the event, planning well in advance for face-to-face meetings at the event.

2. A PERMANENT, YEAR-ROUND OPERATION

ICC, together with other organizations, should establish a permanent secretariat, with state support, for a year-round operation of the kind of activities that should appear in each year's WLEF summer event.


3. AN EVEN BROADER FORUM – FIRST WEEK OF JULY EVERY YEAR

The WLEF forum should become an annual tradition, going on for a whole week every summer, for example during the first week of July in connection with the celebration of King Mindaugas coronation on 6 July. The event should include several types of activities; within business, culture, festive gatherings, etc. I think this would make more foreign-Lithuanians and their families come to participate. The weaving of contacts would also be improved by more social interaction, and the many who live outside the home land will increasingly feel that they are appreciated and welcomed home!

Aage Myhre, Editor-in-Chief

The round-table debaters had some good points in yesterday's WLEF meeting.  The question they all would answer, was what they thought should be done to make Lithuania more progressive and competitive in the future.

EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION

"Education, education, education" was David Passig's formula, with reference to statistics showing that  there is a clear correlation between education level and economic growth in a country. 

Education Minister Steponavicius noted dryly that there still are too many students who are more concerned with getting a diploma than to acquire acquire real knowledge, concluding that the quality level of higher education in Lithuania must be raised. "20 years have given us the time we need to find our place in the context of 'global Lithuania. Now it is high time that we have developed an education reform that works," the Minister stated. 

MINISTRY OF TALENT – BRAIN CIRCULATION

Omnitel's President Antanas Zabulis, suggested that the Ministry of Education should perhaps change its name to 'Ministry of Talent' and also mentioned that Lithuania no longer should focus neither on brain drain nor on 

brain gain, but on brain circulation. 

By virtue of his position he also noted that broadband and other internet Internet solutions are highly essential for a good development of Lithuania. "It is no longer enough to have good ideas, speed is now just as important," he said.

ISM's President, Nerijus Pačėsa, meant that more private universities (as ISM is) would raise the education standard in this country, referring to the fact that the highest graded universities in the U.S. and Japan all are private. 

"Also, Lithuania should adopt financing of education through loans, as in Western countries, not leave it all state-financed as is today's situation," he added.

IMPROVED COLLABORATION GOVERNMENT – BUSINESS

Economy Minister Žylius expressed eagerness to improve opportunities for collaboration between government and business. He also said that the 

financial tools one now has access to through EU funds, etc. should be applied to the development of mechanisms that promote future developments within the fields of technology, industry, FDIs, etc.

"The government should not tell business what the future will look like, but be a predictable, good facilitator for the business community to see and discover future opportunities," said the Minister.

LET'S BUILD THE BALTIC STATES' LARGEST CONFERENCE CENTRE

Air Baltic's chief in Lithuania, Tadas Vizgirda, referred to some rather gloomy 

statistics about tourist traffic into Lithuania. The sad fact is that Latvia has around 5 million visitors per year, while Lithuania, a country with 50% more 

inhabitants, is visited by just 1.5 million annually." An enormous potential 

that our tourist authorities should no longer ignore, especially considering that every tourist will leave around LTL 600 in tax money," he said, adding that Lithuania would be able to obtain a solid position for professional

travelers if there was invested in building the Baltic States' largest conference centre right here over the next few years.

THE EVENING MUSIC

Zecharia Plavin,
a famous Israeli pianist, born in Lithuania, entertained the WLEF delegates
with superb interpetations of Ciurlionis, Liszt and Ravel.

Read more about Mr. Plavin...

ICC Lietuva is organizing the World
 Lithuanian Economic Forum (WLEF)

The goal of the World Lithuanian Economic Forum is to draw Lithuanian business people, economists, politicians and scientists from the entire world into Lithuania's economic life, to strengthen their relations with Lithuania, to encourage them to develop business here, to help attract investments to Lithuanian companies and to create a global network of Lithuanians from all the world.

The Forum is organized by the Lithuanian Business Confederation | ICC Lithuania in cooperation with governmental institutions as well as business companies.

The organizers are doing a great job that they deserve very much honour for!

 
My name is Andrius Užkalnis, I am 40 and later this month I am coming back to Lithuania after a long time in England.
Photo: Otto Kylmala.

By best-selling writer Andrius Užkalnis

In three weeks‘ time, I will become a resident of Vilnius – again, after almost 17 years.

I was asked to write this for VilNews – where not many people know me. My name is Andrius Užkalnis, I am 40 and later this month I am coming back to Lithuania after a long time in England.
I moved to UK as a very young man, back in 1995, to work for the BBC, where I spent over 16 years – initially as a linguist and then as a manager, working in various parts of the world.

A few years ago I started writing – first for various magazines, both glossy and intellectual, then for national newspapers, then I published a few books and they were not entirely unsuccessful. Actually, all three went to be multiple-print-run bestsellers, one of them got translated into Latvian and published there too, so I suppose this counts as being an author of international acclaim, sort of.
I did bits of work for the Lithuanian national radio, commenting on various things British and international, and about a couple of years ago, a decision started to crystallize that it would be a good idea to go back.

Why? Because I can, because I can afford to, and because I felt I could do more in Lithuania, achieve more, be recognized and also enjoy a better living standard for my family and myself. In Vilnius, we can afford to live centrally – very centrally. In a house built in 17th century, in the very heart of Senamiestis, the Old Town, so that the closest patch of greenery would be Šventaragio slėnis, right behind the Cathedral, where they buried dukes and kings. The gothic marvel of St Ann’s will be my closest church. My girl’s school will be three minutes away, overseeing the ancient church spires and monasteries in a picture-perfect postcard view out of their classroom windows.
This would be an equivalent of living across the road from St James’ Park in London. I could never afford to have it in England. It would not be a realistic prospect. In Reading, Berkshire, where I live, there are people boarding a train to Paddington every morning, with Savile Row suits, going to their £200,000 jobs in London. They are easily in the top 2% of the population, income-wise, and they still have to commute to work.

My wife, Lina, is Lithuanian too, she is a linguist specializing in legal documentation and has her own practice and can work from wherever she wishes. More importantly, she also wants to live in the Old Town. She was born in Vilnius (I wasn’t – I am a Kaunas boy and moved to Vilnius when I was six), and the pavement stones and the old spires and terracotta roofs and the courtyards mean as much to her as they do to me.

When I write for the Lithuanian papers, people comment a great deal online, and because my writing is often provocative and edgy, a lot of people feel they have to have to try and insult me, which is not very easy because I am not a very sensitive person and when they spit fire, it amuses me.
One thing they sometimes say, trying to be sarcastic: “Why won’t you write for any English papers then? They won’t publish this crap, eh? But in Lithuania, anything goes, right?”

There is a degree of truth in that. Even if I were to get my articles published in UK, I would be one of the many, many columnists, and would have to compete with the Titans. My books would have to compete with thousands of books that hit the shelves here, and many of them are very good books. The chances of hitting the “A” list would be very slim.

So I figured I can play my game where chances of winning are higher. I do not think there is a shame in that.

Other people say: “So, the BBC must have kicked you out. You are just a loser, then. You now come back, having achieved nothing.”

The BBC did not kick me out. I left on my own accord, with no regrets, but with no hard feelings, either. I had sixteen incredible years doing very exciting work for arguably the biggest and the most respected international broadcaster in the world. I travelled the world and hired and trained people on three continents.

I flew a helicopter to work once. In Russia, I drank vodka on business to appease an apprehensive and make him trust me, even though the next morning I had to fly to Osaka and then to Chicago and all the drinking felt like I was not getting paid enough to do this. I commuted in Japan from one airport to another by train, straight after a 12 hour flight, for an onward flight to Russia’s Far East, arriving half-dead, knowing I had meetings in less than nine hours next morning, and then the hotel bar staff in Khabarovsk made me and my colleague sing karaoke in English for them. I flew a Boeing 747-400, converted to a commuter short-haul plane and painted in Pokemon colours, from Tokyo Haneda to Sapporo Chitose, as part of my job. I commissioned desks and shelves for my office from a workshop in Ghana where the main line of business was coffins, and when a man died, the supply of furniture would be delayed. I took a tour of duty to a small radio station near the Volta River and people accosted my car selling tiny fried fish – to them, a white man was a wealthy customer – and that was my business lunch. Not a lot of people can say this about their jobs. I often felt I had the best job in the world.

I have met very talented individuals and I largely did not have to compromise my beliefs and principles: the less attractive part of the BBC was not closely related to the job that I was doing. I am talking here about the institutional left-wing bias of the programme-making frontline staff, the health and safety paranoia, the political correctness, the risk aversion, the clinical Euro-enthusiasm and rabid pro-federalism, the relativist multicultural claptrap and the treatment of the global warming hysteria like it was science and not religion. I did not have to be complicit in any of this, and for this I am grateful.

There is also another aspect to my desire to come back. In England, I felt I would always, always be a foreigner (and, being a Lithuanian, with a clear mark of Gastarbeiter at that). England is one of the most open societies that I know, and no-one ever gave me hard time because of my origins, but I was always an outsider. Not that I was very concerned about my status. I knew who I was and what my family was, I knew my girls went to a private school, the house that we lived in and the car we drove and the holidays we took were nothing to be ashamed of, but I just did not feel I was one of the people who ran things in this country. Not at the forefront of everything. Not a household name.
In Lithuania, it is different, and I am not ashamed to say that I am looking forward to this too. People in Lithuania know my name and even sometimes say hello in the street. People come to meet me when I go on book-signing tours. Producers invite me to their talk shows on TV and journalism students email me and ask for my opinions. My daughters know that their Dad’s books are in every bookstore. I would be lying if I said it was not gratifying. Or that I would forgo this and choose anonymity.

I am leaving England with a sense of gratitude. I learnt a lot here and I would be a very different man without this experience. If I were 23 now, I would again sign a contract and go to a strange country to work. I would do it again.

But now I feel it is time to try something else in life. Because I know that I am incredibly privileged for having an opportunity, at the age of 40, to try something else in life. Other people at this age would try a new spouse or at least a new car. Or a hair colour. My family and I can try the whole new life. If that is not an opportunity, I don’t know what is.

And because of this, I am going to become a resident of Vilnius in three weeks’ time.

“Help me. I am a sex slave from Lithuania. Please call the police and protect me,” says a note which the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet got access to this week. It was a terrible view meeting the Danish police when they found the 19-year old Lithuanian girl in a lapidated Copenhagen apartment this week. The woman stayed in very miserable conditions.

“The kitchen was, in my opinion not suitable for people and there were cockroaches everywhere. Moreover, we found evidence that someone had managed to fit a padlock on the outside of the door into the woman's room,” says Trine Møller Andersen, head of the Copenhagen Police group against women trafficking.

The young Lithuanian woman lived in an inhuman nightmare in which she had been kept as a sex slave.

When she was not serving sex clients, who apparently could not feel the soggy conditions in the 'sex-nest', she lived in a spartan, unhygienic room with only a mattress on the floor and old, dirty bed linens full of cockroaches.

Outside the room the door was mounted a bracket made ready so it could put a padlock on - if the sex slave should get ideas about escaping.

But the woman had still succeeded in sending a cry for help to a friend in Lithuania over the Internet and asked her to contact the Lithuanian police to tell that she was incarcerated against her will.

And after the Copenhagen police on Monday received an official request from the Lithuanian police via Europol, they soon found the woman's 'prison'.

Help me
And it was a depressing sight that met them in the apartment where the woman lived and served men that her pimp brought to her.

The 19-year-old woman began to cry, but when she found out that it was the police, she gave a handwritten note to the female police officer who found her, which in English told that she was kept as a sex slave, that she wanted to contact the police and that she did not speak English. The woman's pimp, a Lithuanian 36-year old man, was also found on the site.

He was arrested and charged with violation of Penal Code provisions on trafficking. He was remanded in custody for four weeks in Copenhagen.

Miserable conditions
“The woman was in physically fine form. She had not been beaten. But she was shocked and scared and very influenced by the situation,” says Trine Møller Andersen, leader of the group against woman trafficking at the Copenhagen Police. She had never seen a similar case, since she started in the group in 2008.

The much older perpetrator had recruited the woman in Lithuania. Here he had got her drunk and had persuaded her to go to Denmark and work as a prostitute with the promise of good earnings as a pawn.

The man then transported her to Denmark and placed her in an apartment in a Copenhagen district, where she also served customers. The perpetrator found the customers, and the woman got only a very small payment. The woman had lived in Denmark for little over a week when the police found her.

The young woman from Lithuania is now at a women’s shelter. She will later return home to Lithuania in accordance with her own wish.

“It's the classic story of these women who do not have the longest school education and who are in desperate need of money, so they can be lured here,” tells Trine Møller Andersen to Ekstrabladet.

20% of Lithuanian victims are underage girls
Lithuania is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. One estimate concluded that approximately 20 percent of Lithuanian trafficking victims are underage girls. Lithuanian women are trafficked within the country and to the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, France, and the Czech Republic for the purpose of forced prostitution. Women from Belarus are trafficked to Lithuania for the same purpose.

- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report]