Searching for the Holy Grail?
COME TO VILNIUS!

Forget Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. Forget the Louvre Museum in Paris. If you're among the millions who have read Dan Brown's book 'The Da Vinci Code', you have probably also made some reflections on how the Holy Grail disappeared, virtually without a trace, after Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519. In that case I will now give you some hints and clues that you can begin to investigate.

Let me first put on the table some facts Dan Brown missed in his book. Brown, and many with him, thinks of Florence, Rome and Paris as the cities da Vinci was linked to. Most people forget that he lived and worked in Milan for many years, and that it was precisely here he painted ‘The Last Supper’ that Dan Brown so strongly emphasizes in his evidence collection.

Brown also does not mention that da Vinci for many years lived in the house of the Sforza family that ruled Milan at that time. But it is in this house the solution to the riddle lies. For it was here 42 year old Leonardo had the pleasure to live when a beautiful baby girl was born in 1494. Bona was the name she was given, and she and 'uncle Leonardo' had a lot of fun together while she grew up. But not just fun. Leonardo had great pleasure in sharing many of his thoughts and ideas with the wise little girl, so when she was a grown young lady of 20 she was quite well informed about many of ‘uncle Leonardo’s’ undertakings, not only in the public sphere but also in the secret. The future Grand Duchess of Lithuanian did, indeed, get a top education...

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My personal experience with Slobodan Milošević

(20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006)

Slobodan Milosevic officially became Serbian president in 1989, in elections widely
regarded as rigged. He abolished Kosovo's autonomy the same year. 

An article by Dr. Ichak Adizes
Published in 1999

In July 1991, Mr. Zelenovic, the Prime Minister of Serbia at the time, invited me for consultations on the breakdown of the Yugoslav Federation. I was well known as someone who knew Yugoslavia well. I published two books on Yugoslavia, which were translated to several languages.

When I arrived, I met with a joint session of the cabinet and the leadership in the Parliament of the Socialist party, which was and still is in power. I did an interactive diagnosis of the situation with them.

My conclusion was that the problem was not Slovenia nor Croatia, which were seeking independence (Bosnia was not awaken yet), but that it was Kosovo. It had 2 million Moslems who did not wish to be part of Yugoslavia. With a population plagued by low literacy, high unemployment and high birth rate, the highest in the world with an average of 9 children per family, it was costing Yugoslavia 1.5 billion dollars a year to provide health, education and unemployment benefits.

"How can you keep doing this?" I asked. "While Serbian hospitals have no medicines, you are spending a fortune on Kosovo where people hate you. You yourself say that few years back the Albanians were only 400 000, now they are two million. When will this geometrically expanding wave reach Belgrade? Kosovo is the Serbian gangrene. True, 500 years ago Kosovo was the valley where the Serbian nation was born. OK. I accept your claim that it is the Serbian Jerusalem and one does not give up motherhood's help; but wouldn't you cut your own right arm if it had gangrene or would you let it spread?"

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Dr. Ichak Adizes

A blog by Dr. Ichak Adizes

If you ask a man what makes a person attractive, you will get different answers than if you ask a woman.

Men, as I understand, usually focus on physical attributes: the legs, the breasts, etc.

Women tend to focus on the brain and on a man’s ability to support and defend, etc.

I have another idea, which I hope both sexes can agree to. (And if you predict that it has something to do with integration, you’re right.)

When a person has it “all together”––i.e., is integrated––none of their energy is wasted. This person exudes energy, while a person who is “falling apart” takes energy from the people around him or her.

Who is attractive? Those that give you, not take from you, energy.

People who “have it together” are attractive. Those that are “falling apart “ are not.

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President Dalia Grybauskaitė on state visit to Norway:

The vast opportunities for cooperation must be used

At the second day of her two-day state visit to Norway in early April this year, President Dalia Grybauskaitė was accompanied by King Harald V on a visit to the Fiskerstrand Shipyard in the city of Ålesund in Western Norway.

"This first state visit to Norway has revealed plenty of perfect but unused opportunities for cooperation with the Nordic countries, both in politics and in developing concrete business projects. Joint projects between shipbuilders of Ålesund and Klaipėda in constructing the most advanced ferryboats and between textile producers of the Sula Municipality and Panevėžys are just a few examples of successful economic cooperation. Norway's Prime Minister, other highest politicians of the country as well as businesspeople whom I met confirmed Norway's strong intentions to develop cooperation with Lithuania," President Dalia Grybauskaitė said. Over-100-years-old Fiskerstrand Shipyard focuses on innovations, ship architecture, construction, repairs and testing. This Norwegian company has been cooperating with Klaipėda's Western Shipyard for 11 years already. The Lithuanian and Norwegian partners are currently carrying out a 90-million-euros-worth project of constructing sea-going ice-resistant ferryboats. Moreover, last year the Fiskerstrand Shipyard contracted the Western Shipyard of Klaipėda to build the world's largest gas-powered ferryboat using advanced technologies.

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One European nation escaped the worldwide financial meltdown and recession more or less unaffected. That was Norway, a country which saved its money - rather than spent it - through the boom years. As a result of frugal financial management, Norwegian housing prices and consumption have been on the upswing and interest rates affordable also during the deepest global crisis the latest years. Norway’s fiscal responsibility of its income from enormous oil and gas reserves has allowed the nation to build one of the globe’s largest investment funds.

After large deposits of gas and oil were discovered in the 1970s, Norway didn’t go on a spending spree, and channelled its revenues into a state investment fund (The Government Pension Fund). As of the valuation in June 2007, it was the largest pension fund in Europe and the fourth largest in the world. As of 31 December 2010 its total value is NOK 3,077 billion ($525 billion), holding 1 per cent of global equity markets. With 1.78 per cent of European stocks, it is said to be the largest stock owner in Europe. The government - with very few exceptions - can spend only four percent of those revenues annually.

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,” Mr. Amund Utne, a director of Norway’s Finance Ministry, 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.”…

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My grandfather Jonas Sladkevicius and grandmother Dominyka Juskeviciute Sladkeviciene 

          In 1960, my father told me that a member of our family was a bishop in Lithuania.  It was there, when part of Czarist Russia, where my grandmother and grandfather had been born sometime in the last decade of the 1800's, from where they emigrated to Rhode Island in the United States where they would meet and marry in 1915.  The information about the bishop came from the two Lithuanian-born priests at our Providence, RI church, Saint Casimir’s, where my father attended mass daily since he was a child.  Dad also told me, “Don’t tell anybody”.  We never again discussed the subject. 

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Vytautas J. Sliupas at the farm and farm project he founded in 2002, 
‘The Auksuciai Farm & Forest Center’ near Siaulia in Northern Lithuania.

After the death of his wife Liudvika, Jonas Sliupas married Grasilda Grauslytė in 1929. After settling in Palanga, their son, Vytautas, was born to them on the 24^th of October 1930.

Their son, Vytautas J. Sliupas, later became an irrigation, drainage and water resources engineer. Now retired for many years, he lives in California, USA, but visits Lithuania every summer.

I have the great honour and pleasure to call Vytautas Sliupas my friend. As I understand and feel it, he has the same strong love of Lithuania, which his father had. This despite the fact that he was forced to flee from Lithuania with his parents in 1944 and since has lived virtually all his life in the United States. 

Vytautas Sliupas’ farm project in Northern Lithuania

www.aukfoundation.org

The US non-profit Auksuciai Foundation was established to help small scale Lithuanian farmers become more self-sufficient and competitive in a free market economy. A primary way that Foundation is working to achieve this goal is through support and advisory involvement with a model farm facility (the Auksuciai Farm and Forest Center, a Lithuanian non-profit), that allows participants from academia, business, government, and the farm community to share information and technology regarding environmentally sound management (including forests) and commercial agricultural production practices. Additionally, the Foundation organizes farmer-to-farmer and agricultural student exchanges; farmer mentoring; and in country workshops between the agricultural and forest communities of the U.S. and Lithuania.

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Since the 14th Century two Turkish nationalities – Tatars and Karaims – have been living in Lithuania. From linguistic and ethno genetic points of view they belong to the oldest Turkish tribes - Kipchaks. This ethnonym (Kipchak) for the first time was mentioned in historical chronicles of Central Asia in the 1st millennium BC. Anthropologically ancient Kipchaks were very close to Siberia inhabitants Dinlins, who lived on both sides of the Sajan Mountains in Tuva and the northern part of Gob. In 5th century BC Kipchaks lived in the West of Mongolia, in 3rd century BC they were conquered by Huns. Since the 6 - 8 centuries, when the first nomadic Turkish empires were founded, the Kipchak’s fate is closely connected with the history and migration of the Middle Asia tribes. In Turkish literature they are known as Kipchaks. The history of Karaims is connected with Lithuania since 1397-1398. According to the tradition, The Great Duke of Lithuania Vytautas, after one of the marches to the Golden Horde steppes, had to bring from the Crimea several hundred Karaims and settle them in the Great Duchy of Lithuania. Transference of several hundred Karaim families and several thousand Tatars was not done once. It was in connection with the state policy of The Great Duchy to inhabit the empty areas, build towns and castles and to develop trade and economic life. Initially, Karaims were settled in Trakai between the two castles of The Great Duke, present Karaim Street. Later they were found living in Biržai, Naujamiestis, Pasvalys and Panevėžys. However, Trakai has always been the community's administrative and spiritual centre for Karaims in Lithuania, nowadays more and more also for Karaims throughout the world.…

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The exceptional relationship between Italy and Lithuania, which was especially evident for the period of 1300 – 1800, will never come back, but will always remain as a remarkable memory, and leave its unique hallmarks in and on Lithuania forever.

It is a myth that Rome and Vilnius both were established by wolves. But it is no myth that the Italians have put an indelible mark on Lithuania, and when Gediminas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, in 1323 decided to put down roots in what is now Vilnius city, a Franciscan monastery was already in place – at the foot of Castle Hill where the Cathedral today is located. Since then, for hundreds of years, the spirit of Rome and Italy played a main role in the development of Vilnius and to a certain degree also of Lithuania.

No wonder that Vilnius sometimes is referred to as
“The world’s most Italian city outside Italy”.

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