Opinions

General Director Reidar Inselseth at the Espersen Fish Factory in Klaipeda

I sit with the director of the Espersen plant in Klaipeda, Norwegian Reidar Inselseth, in the new office building his firm has just built. The building is designed as the wheelhouse of a ship, with a shiny blue glass surface, and the 'bow, roof top and masts' in stainless steel.

Reidar has been director of this facility for four years now, and among other things, been responsible for extensive new investments and developments of the company. My first question to him is what he finds hardest by being entrepreneur and company leader in Lithuania.

"The lack of predictability," he replies immediately. "Unfortunately, that is something that to a far too high degree characterizes this country. For my company this is so serious that we hardly had chosen Lithuania for our production if we eight-nine years ago had known what we now know."

"This country is steeped in corruption, which we feel very directly when we often are subjected to strange inspections etc. from the authorities; something we do not see anything like in any of the other countries where we have fish processing plants. We are, for example, constantly subjected to unreasonable disclosure requirements and controls, even if we always follow highly acclaimed and transparent international principles of production, environmental control, bookkeeping and treatment of employees. It feels as if here in Lithuania companies like ours still have to prove their innocence instead of being greeted with open arms and cooperative attitudes."

Aage Myhre

The Chronicle you wrote is excellent. You have done a great job and should be proud of it.

Jonas Kronkaitis,
Brigadier General, former Commander of Lithuania’s Armed Forces

Your ‘Chronicle of Lithuania’ is interesting as it details events that sometimes are lost and are shown with different point of view.

Romas,
Australia

We, Lithuanians in diaspora or in Lithuania itself, should be very grateful and obliged to Great Friends of Lithuania like you!

Valdas Samonis, PhD, CPC (Canadian – Lithuanian)
The Web Professor of Global Management(SM)

I am Isolde Ira Pozelaite – Davis AM, a grandmother of three beautiful grandchildren.

A lady who lives in the Lithuanian retirement Village where I live as well, has given me to read a photocopied pamphlet LITHUANIA IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE.

I would like to buy, If this is possible, 3 copies of this excellent publication. My grandchildren are 7, 12, 14 years old. I would read with them your well illustrated publication and encourage them to ask questions.

This would lead to a discussion and explanations. Have been a High School teacher for 38 years teaching French and German and 20 years Lithuanian in Australia. As you see old habits are difficult to forget. Will be 87 years in May, 2010.

Isolde Ira Poželaitė – Davis AM
Australian-Lithuanian

 
Dr. Stan Backaitis

Several months ago I had arranged a visit between the minister of energy and a CEO of an important nuclear reactor manufacturer. The meeting was supposed to be for the benefit of the minister on information of what is forthcoming in the future, particularly in small reactors and the possibility of establishing a European affiliate of the company in Lithuania.

The minister graciously extended an invitation to the CEO, but the minister's secretariat refused to extend even the slightest courtesy to this visit, such as picking up the visitor from the airport and transporting him to the meeting, setting up a meeting agenda, or even providing to the visitor's office the address of the ministry.  They claimed that this was just another sales visit, and the visitor should take care of everything on his own.  As a result the CEO canceled the meeting and eventually went to London. The European affiliate was established in the UK. Thus through such arrogance another opportunity was lost.

There is a lot truth in the German proverb "Dummheit und Stolz wachsen auf einem Holz".

Stan Backaitis
Washington, USA

 
Ambassador Algirdas Žemaitis

You have lived long enough in Lithuania and must realize that many of the problems of the present day Lithuania are due to their reluctance to learn from the Western countries or accept advice from Lithuanians who lived and studied in the West. The relative success of Lithuania after World War I was largely due to the replacement of Russian educated officials by those who got their degrees in the West. My own father was the first Lithuanian with a degree in forestry from a Western university and introduced major reforms in the forest management, which survived even during the Communist occupation.

Alas, after 20 years of restoration of independence to paraphrase Kipling "The East is East, the West is West and the twain shall never (so far) meet". I spoke to a number of Lithuanians with degrees from top Western universities, who don't want to return to Lithuania - according to them, the "natives" know everything better.

I might add that for me it was easier to obtain an audience with the Pope, than with a Minister for Foreign Affairs of Lithuania.

Ambassador Algirdas Zemaitis
Vilnius – Rome

Now I have another reason to visit Lithuania

A most interesting article! Now I have another reason to visit Lithuania as I have in the past. Would love to at least see Vilnius University as we were unable to enter it on our last trip there. Thank you for the information and will pass it on to other lovers of Lithuanian history.

Irene A. Petkaitis

Well written! Tell us more about the painting.

Bob & Peggy Moroney

* * * 

Dear Bob & Peggy,

The painting ‘Death of Grand Duke Sigismund Augustus’ (1522-1572) – is a handmade oil painting reproduction by Jan Matejko (1838–1893).

Read more about the painter here:
http://www.culture.pl/web/english/resources-visual-arts-full-page/-/eo_event_asset_publisher/eAN5/content/jan-matejko

Actually Sigismund Augustas never trusted the Jesuit Brothers and he had the Grail secretly hinded in the bell tower, because that is the last place the Brotherhood would look for the Grail after his death.

Joe Bakaitis

 
It is worth to mention that later on starting from 1779 Vilnius and the Lithuanian Grand Duchy, as many other nations around the world, was an invisible battleground between Jewish led Illuminati freemasons and Vatican Jesuits fighting each other in order to gain and maintain control. Maybe It is worth to mention some colourful names and their activities like Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna

Enjoyed this interesting VilNews issue. Especially, your article on Holy Grail and Sforza family connection even though you did not provided any supporting historical data to prove this. Nevertheless, legends do sell and we need them to market this country. 
It is worth to mention that later on starting from 1779 Vilnius and the Lithuanian Grand Duchy, as many other nations around the world, was an invisible battleground between Jewish led Illuminati freemasons and Vatican Jesuits fighting each other in order to gain and maintain control. Maybe It is worth to mention some colourful names and their activities like Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna who was an exceptional Talmudist, Halachist, Kabbalist, and the foremost leader of non-hasidic world Jewry of the past few centuries. He is commonly referred to in Hebrew as ha'Gaon ha'Chasid mi'Vilna, "the saintly genius from Vilnius." 

Arvydas Arnasius, Vilnius

Fantastico . Molto bella come storia, anzi credo proprio che se qualcuno pieno di soldi ne facesse un film, come "il codice da vinci" la Lituania avrebbe un ritorno economico non indifferente, specie se, nel racconto il sacro grall avesse fatto tappa in diverse località della Lituania, prima di arrivare a Vilnius ... così che ci sia un percorso da seguire per vedere posti, di importanza storica dove tra mistero ed intrighi il sacro grall passò attraverso le mani di quei seguaci del Cristo Bianco, così come veniva chiamato tra le popolazioni del nord il noto e ben amato Gesù Cristo ..........

Rino Logiacco

Santa Claus and Lithuania’s Grand Duchess buried in same South-Italian basilica
(maybe no need to tell your kids…)

Grand Duchess Bona Sforza (1494-1557) and St. Nicholas (270-343).

The Basilica di San Nicola in the South-Italian city Bari was built between 1087 and 1197. Its foundation is related to the stealing and burying of the relics of St. Nicholas (270-343) from the saint’s original shrine in Myra in what is now south-west Turkey.

When Myra passed into the hands of the Saracens, some saw it as an opportunity to move the saint's relics to a more hospitable location. According to the justifying legend, the saint, on a trip passing by the city on his way to Rome, had chosen Bari as his burial place.

There was great competition for the relics between Venice and Bari. The latter won and the relics were carried off under the noses of the lawful Greek custodians and their Muslim masters, and on 9 May 1087, were safely landed at Bari. A new church was built to shelter Nicholas' remains and Pope Urban II was present at the consecration of the crypt in 1089.

460 years pass, and Lithuania’s Grand Duchess Bona Sforza, now widow after Grand Duke Sigismund the Old, comes to Bari to claim the dept Spain’s King Philip II has to her – but instead she is poisoned and dies here in Bari in 1557.

It was, by the way, Bona and her mother, Isabella d'Aragona, princess of Naples, Duchess of Milan and Bari, who transformed the Bari Castle, that so much dominates the city’s old town, into a cultural centre and adding imposing defensive bastions to it. Today the castle is the seat of a Gallery of plaster casts and of temporary exhibitions..

The Sforza family’s role in Bari was indeed very important, and it’s no wonder that Bona’s sarcophagus in the St. Nicholas Basilica even today fully symbolizes and represents this role.

So here they are, St. Nicolas who later became better known as Santa Claus, and Bona Sforza, the Grand Duchess who also was the mother of the two last representatives of Lithuania’s famous Jagiellon Dynasty, Sigismund Augustus and Anna Jagiellon.

With them the 300-year Dynasty after the House of Gediminas ended, and today the world knows very little about what once was Europe’s largest country, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

And, ironically enough, relics of the woman who was such a leading symbol of Lithuania’s days of glory are to find right here in Southern Italy – along with the relics of a truly main symbol of our today’s Christmas traditions...