Which is the capital city?

SupremeSocrates, it's Vilnius. Population of 0.5 million, area of 400 sq kilometers. Right now looking like this: http://plag.com/post/294230936/ (my shots)

I guess it's Curonian Spit - kind of peninsula naturally formed from sand. Only one place in Lithuania where you can walk across the sand dunes. Amazing nature too, enough of wildlife (I meet moose and boars roaming free almost every time I go there) . It's a popular resort for vacation, for ones who want a bit quieter place and lots of nature.

Adis, +100000

Yes. The first date is February 16, when in 1918 independence was declared. But in 1940 soviets occupied Lithuania and for 50 years it was a part of USSR. So, in 1990 March 11 the Act of Independence was relaunched and we celebrate two days of Independence, separated by one month :)

Adis, wow!

There's a blogpost I made about it, https://moosestaff.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/happy-lithuania-3-5/ (there might be annoying message about expired domain, sorry - I'm working on that and you can dismiss that message)

Huh. Tough question, for me :D I'm a geek living on my own information bubble, and not very interested in the popular things :) So, in my world trend is never ending stupid mistakes of several political parties, the left ones. Minister of Educatipn of Science who does not kow that economy is a social science, former Minister of Economy says the some costs reduced 6 times in compare with last year (forgetting that last year Lithuaniam currency was litas, and today we count in euros) etc etc. They never run out of stupid stuff.

Because the medium wage is not so high too, I guess. And there's quite a competition between taxi companies, and now Uber has launched. But they are cheap not everywhere - if you take a taxi waiting by the airport, you'll pay up to 4 times more than calling a taxi by phone or app.

And there's a taxi hack at the Airport ;) https://moosestaff.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/taxi-hack-in-vilnius-airport/

I'm not into traditions very much, but I like idea of Rasos (the direct translations would be somethink like "the Dews"), which later, in the era of christianity became St. John's Day (or "Joninės" in Lithuanian). It's an old summer solstice celebration from pagan times, with fires, songs and crowns made from grasses. Some Lithuanians celebrate it instead of St. Jogn's Day, and it happends couple of days earlier. By the way, St. John's Day is a official state holiday, when you don't have to go to work. The funny thing is, this holliday status was pushed by the Lithuanian beer breweries :D

Manau, Panemunė ;)

It's hard to say is it good or bad, but probably most famous is called "cepelinas" (or "cepelinai" in plural). It's a kind of dumpling made from grated potatoes as a dough and stuffed with meat. Very high-caloried :) And to be honest this is not so Lithuanian dish, Lithuanians took it from jews. Another famous dish is cold beetrood soup, I wrote about it at the blog for foreigners: https://moosestaff.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/eat-like-lithuanian-saltibarsciai/

Plag is based in Lithuania.

Keepvogel, I thought so.

Yes, Headquarters of Plag** is in Vilnius, Lithuania, and part of a team lives here, founder of Plag amongst them :)

Classical ones or modern ones? I'd recommend a modern one, Andrius Tapinas and his book "Hour of the Wolf". It's a steampunk novel set in early XX c. Vilnius. It will be a trilogy, now there are two books published, and one is already translated into English: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00EZ3QWF0?ie=UTF8&redirectFromSS=1&pc_redir=T1&noEncodingTag=1&fp=1

Adis, Thank you. I love steampunk

Aurochs! And wolves. Too bad, we have no wild bears, they just visit us sometimes from Belarus, like once in a decade.

Adis, aren't aurochs extinct? Bears are mischievous, you're probably kind if happy there are no bars around you. Wolves visit California sometimes. But it's rare like your bear situation. EDIT: the gray wolves are actually inhabiting California again for the first time in a century.

wuts_reefer, sorry, wrong English name. I guess it's European bison, or wisent. And congrats about wolves!

Adis, ahhh! We have bison in the U.S. But they're fuzzier and I think they're just a tiny bit smaller

wuts_reefer, yeah, I've read a lot of westerns in my childhood and teenhood, so I know american bisons quite well (I even know they are different in plains and in the woodlands!). As I've seen both lively (in zoos and European ones in their natural surroundings) - yes, american ones might look smaller, but somehow they look more massive, tougher. European ones look a bit like overgrown, not so stable teenagers :)

Adis, the American Bison appears larger because it has a kind of fluffy mane and I think their horns are a little bigger. I still haven't seen them outside of zoos :/

wuts_reefer, Bison tastes delicious & I recommend trying it unless your against that sort of thing. It taste like a richer & more flavorful beef. It's also very lean so be careful not to over cook it

Lavalight, I find it stringy & gamey compared to moo-cows

Carpe Diem, I only buy it ground & it's farm raised. Bison steak is just too expensive & I can't get it local. Just about everything I've ever eaten that was wild taste gamey to me.

Lavalight, if I get the chance I will. I like trying what I can while I'm alive, although I am trying to cut back on meats and such

Oh, I wish I could try the american buffalo. Thouh about 15 years ago there were some in one Lithuanian supermarket - but it was too expensive then.

Only in medieval times. Actually, Lithuania had only one crowned king in XIII c., who was killed with almost whole family, and later it was the union with Poland, where King of Poland acted as Grand Duke of Lithuania etc. So these were the royal families until XVIII c., when Lithuania-Poland was overtaken and divided between Russian and Austian-Hungarian empires. I wrote about Lithuanian dukes and king(s) at my blog https://moosestaff.wordpress.com/2015/07/06/crowns-of-lithuania/

Adis, thank you for that

I guess iwe have to talk on different generations here. Typical Lithunian of 50+ years old is a bit shy, a bit distrusful to new things (or you can even call conservative), but mostly calm and really hospitable. Has strong ties to the land and property - since before the WW2 Lithuania was strogly agricultural country and bigger part of people lived in countryside. Most of modern 50s are the second or even first generation who settled the city. Their creed is strongly affected by soviet occupation (and ruling for half of the century), that is why they are quote careful and a bit distrustful. The younger generation is more open and daring, louder, still hospitable. Loves and trusts the technologies. Are closer to the rest of the world.

Very nice to know. Thank you!

I think richest go to the clubs, other go to the bars. The cafeterias (like Starbucks, though we don't have this brand here, instead there are several local networks) are very popular between the underagers. And concerts, of course.

Lithuanian language is from the Indo European family, and is absolutely different from germanic or franconic styles. The only similar language is Latvian though it's quite different: in most cases Lithuanians do not understand Latvians and vice versa. Of course, due to historical reasons there are words that arrived from Polish and Russian languages. There's a nice, but short piece about Lithuanian language, which appears to be one of the oldest still spoken languages in the world: http://theculturetrip.com/asia/india/articles/the-10-oldest-languages-still-spoken-in-the-world-today/

The architecture is really mixed. We still have some pre war buildings of bricks and cement, there's a soviet cement heritage, and most of the countryside is built from wood. New buildings, especially ones have that have been built in last decade, has quite a lot of glass.

Where are you? I'm not sure about the rules for sending alcohol, but I can check :)

Adis, Ah,thank you. I'm in the states & it's probably not worth the hassle. I very much enjoy Lithuanian alcohol. It's best in the world. My opinion

Lavalight, thank you :) And I agree with you, on the beer. Since being huge beer fan and have tasted up to the 300 brands (I guess. I stoped counting and cataloguing after the second hundred), I still can say here we have many realy awesome beers (and ales, and other styles) here, and I say not just because of patriotism :)

Adis, Svytury baltijos is my favorite. I can actually order that here but they almost always send the baltas instead. The baltas is also the best white wheat beer I've ever had but it's not what I order. Lol

Lavalight, Švyturys is a mainstream beer. Not bad, but I rarely can drink it anymore, because for more that 10 years it was one of the two accessible breweries in Lithuania :) You should try Dundulis some day - it's a not-so-micro microbrewery, that makes amazing - daring, tasty, original - beer. Also there is a brewery that makes only one name, but it's the tastiest IPA I've ever tried (Green Monster IPA).

Adis, I will look for it in May. That's when the Lithuanian festival is here. Utenos is the other big brewery I guess? That's the other one I have had. Both breweries beer should be just as popular as Heineken or Stella Artios world wide

Lavalight, what festival are you talking about? We have Žmogšala - the beer festival-exhibition on January. And about mainstream breweries - there are four of them: Švyturys, Utena, Tauras and Kalnapilis (well, actually these are like two conglomerates: Švyturys-Utena ant Tauras-Kalnapilis). Švyturys also has an experimental brewery Raudonų Plytų, which produces some interesting stuff in small portions, like IPA, coffee-stout, weisbier different from Baltas, interesting version of Pilsener etc.

Adis, I want to try Dundulis. I was just reading great reviews for it. There is a fairly big Lithuanian/Polish population where I live & every year they have a big party weekend celebrating all things Lithuanian. I've been so many times they all know me. It's one of my favorite events of the whole year.

Adis, what is the best rice beer IPA in your opinion? I had a local one once from New Glarus brewery but I got too lit and did not write down the name. Rice based and IPA is all that I remember. Best beer i ever had hands down.

Sprady, maybe it's Kuhnhenn's DRIPA?

Oh, I love this question! Too bad, it's too much for whole story - to type on phone - but in short, there were 11 main tribes of Balts, and Lithuanians were only one tribe amongst them, though the biggest in territory. The Lithuanians also divided into two sub-tribes: samogitians (the lowlanders living by the sea, one my grandmother is from there) and highlanders (almost all the rest of my roots). By the way, "highlanders" does not mean we have mountains or something. It's just a opposite to lowlanders. There were also Prussians (totally erradicates in XIII c. by German order of Crusaders. But the name later was re-used by German empire, called Prussian empire), galindians, sambians, skalvians, sudonians, curonians (real baltic vikings, feared by origianal scandinavian vikings, and that's not a joke), yotvingians(sudovians), semigallians, selonians and latgalians (that's where mostly Latvia was later formed). All except latgalians, prussians and galindians now are the modern Lithuania. More info here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balts (there is eve a nice map showing the territories of the tribes).

Adis, a much more accurate and serious answer than I expected. Appreciated.

tkaps, anytime :)

Adis, 👏🏿👏🏾👏🏽👏🏼👏🏻

I like thinking an analyzing, but not in the abstract level. But what does it do with the topic of the card, the Lithuania? :)

Adis, Well i don't know. Btw i love Lithuania i think i'ts a beautiful country.

Lithuania in the very geographical centre of the Europe (we have a plate marking exact spot, it's 40 km from the capital Vilnius), by the Baltic Sea. More than 2/3 of population lives in cities, whole population is 3 millions. Lithuania is in a temperate climate zone, we have all 4 seasons, 2-3 months of snow. No mountains, mostly plains, two bigger rivers and a bit of the Baltic Sea. Foreigners say all cities of Lithuania are very green, with lots of nature. That is true - within a 10 minute walk I can get into the forest, and I live about 30 minutes walk from the very center of Vilnius, the capital city.

Adis, thanks much :) nice card

Lithuanians love meat (and more offen the fat one - like pork, bacon), potatoes. Dark rhye bread is still popular. I can't say I'm eating very traditional food, because authentic traditional Lithuanian food are various grains and game meat :) Usualy my family eats a mix of dishes we learned to cook from our parents and grandparents (and they brought it from the countryside, and adapted tovthe poor state of fucking soviet enviromnebt) and of course we try the new things. Sushis, pizzas are very popular in Lithuania, though they were introduced maybe only a decade or a decade and a half ago.

Adis, sounds good! Potatos or rice?

Marinachick, potatoes!

About killometer from where I live is a house where, according to urban legend, doctors were performing surgical experiments on orphans, so it's haunted. Don't know where this legend came from, since the house was a laundry of the monastery, later monastery turned into hospital. And if you into this stuff, you should have met my grandfather - it seems they had an evil spirit for every crossroad and dead tree around the village :)

And no ufos, sorry. Though it was popular in 2000s.

Adis, Macabre! Maybe the nuns threw sheets over the child ghosts and that's where the generic cartoon ghost drawings come from!? lol. Thanks.

No offense Adis, but I greatly prefer Latvia to Lithuania. I might be a bit biased, considering my family is from there, but...

Nice question :) Estonia is more similar to Scandinavia, while Latvia is more similar to Lithuania and rest central-east Europe. Latvia and Estonia have high number of Russian minorities (due to former soviet occupation), the Russian language is close to second national languages here. Here in Lithuania such situation is very different, Russians always were only small-to-medium part of minorities (the biggest part here are the Polish). Estonians are very innovative, Lithuanians are quite conservative and a bit suspicious. My colleague often repeats a joke: if you want to sell some new thing to Estonian, say he would be first to use it. If you want to sell same thing to Lithuanian, say everybody around is already are using it :) So in conclusion, Lithuanians and Latvians are like brothers (even sharing similar, though not the very same language), while Estonians are like cousins.

G.Bennett, I can't see a reason why offence might be taken here :D. Everybody has a right to like whatever he or she wants.

Adis, interesting. What about languages?

Slowdowngandhi, Lithuanian and Latviam languages are quite similar but still Lithuanians do not understand Latvians and vice versa :) Both languages are the only two surviving languages of Baltic language family, I explained it a bit wider few comments below. For example, I know only two Latvian words: "alus" (beer) and "paldies" (thank you). While "alus" is a same word for this thing in Lithuanian - just pronounced differently - then "thank you" in Lithuanian is ačiū" - which has nothing in common with Latvian. And Estonian belongs to a finno ugric family, which is closer to Finnish.

Adis, thank you. Because I was sure Estonian sounded similar to Finnish and wasn't sure about the other two languages.

Lithuanian. One of the oldest still spoken languages in the world, by the way.

Adis, I apologize if this sounds stupid but is it similar to russian? Or even Romanian?

tigger the kitty, no, it is not stupid, but a very good question. And the answer is - absolutely no. Lithuanian language comes from indo european family and the baltic language group, while Russians are slavic. The only still spoken language which is similar to Lithuanian is Latvian (and thwy are the neighbors). It's like a separate galaxy in the universe of languages :)

Adis, ah ok thanks 😊 I'm glad you could clarify.

Adis, is a.normal alphabet?

Adis, sounds like it would sound beautiful. Its not a romance language though right?

Purple Osterzone, Lithuanian alphabet is based on Latin letters, but we don't use x and w, and since XIX century we have letters ę ė į ą ž č (coming from Polish and Czech languages). We have 32 letters in alphabet.

Adis, interesting thank you very much

Marinachick, it's quite a melodic one, quite comfortable for singing, we have lots of vowels in the words, which you can elongate on the necessity. Though there are some hissing consonants. And about the romance - I guess it depends on the speaker :) But I tkink it's quite grateful for a romance. At least I never had any problems with that :)

Very positively. As a partner, as the allies.

Lithuania has a long and painful history, so elder people are careful. To be exact, first enemies in medieval times were Germany with all those crusaders who raided pagan lands of Balts and erradicated closest tribe, the Prussians. And later there were Nazis. But everybody sees Germany successfuly moved on, and it's forgiven and forgotten. Later on it was a weird union with a Poland, and it did not go very well, so until now there is a slight tension between POL and LTU, since in the first part of XX c. they occupied and took away the capital Vilnius, too. But now it's getting better and better. Russia provided agression towards Lithuania since XVIII c., and the last damage was a sovien occupation in 1940 - with forced deportations of hundreds of thousands, so it's hard to be very positively on that :) Especially since Russia does not change the tone very much until now :) And for the rest of the world you probably should ask exactly what you care, the world is big enough ;)

Adis, ok thanks hon was curious on your views and that was actually enlightening

Yes.

I guess most common name is Jonas (John). Also some names of medieval dukes are still very popular - Mindaugas (first and last formal king of Lithuania, XIII c.), Vytautas, Algirdas. For girls it's Ieva (Eve), Giedrė (Clearness, Clear One), Rasa (Dew), Eglė (Fir), Milda (old Lithuanian deity of love), Laima (Destiny or Luck).

Adis, how do you say Spring in Lithuanian?

Sprady, it's "pavasaris" - literally meaning "before the summer". If you asking about season, of course. For tht swirly metal thingy it's "spyruoklė" :)

Adis, I like them both but spyruokle is a great word. How about the spring thar is a water source and the spring that is to jump?

Yes, main 4 ones and many minor local. The main are: highlanders' (base of official Lithuanian language), samogitian, suvalkiečių (sorry, don't know English name) and dzūkų (don't know English either). Samogitian is most different from the rest - my grandmother is from Samogitia region, but when she starts speaking that dialect, I do not always understand all the words :)) It's both words and pronunciation are quite different.

Adis, you're so fluent in English. Do you learn it at a young age?

Marinachick, thank you :) I can't remember exactly, but I guess I started learning when I was 12 or close. The first foreign language in school was German (so ich auch verstehe Deutch, aber spreche es nicht so gut :), so my parents enlisted me to the private English courses.

I guess because it was first real foreign language in most of the schools. During the soviet occupation Russian was almost an official language, so not so exotic - you could have learn it from the street and television - and there were not so many English teachers, too. Another reason - USSR was in good relations with Eastern Germany, and it was small, but still a bit of a real chance to get a trip abroad. UK or America was absolutely different thing - oficially it was something close to enemies (that spoiled capitalists! Degrading West! - please read this with a strong Russian accent ;), but in reality it was like a dreamland where you have no chances to get, so it was only fans or professionals who were into English. By the way, English was being tought in schools during soviet times (even my father learned the basics there), but the teachers were having quite a horrible skills.

It was, 25 years ago :) But the iron has rusted, and now we use blue cloth for the curtains ;)

Are you old enough to remember how life has changed for you as an individual?

IuSEDtObEhEREbEFoRe, well of course. Standing in a queue for an hour and a half to buy 4 bananas (because it's not alowed more for a person) back in USSR is quite unforgetable. Or I clearly remember how my grandfather was concerned when I drew not a Lithuanian Socialist Republic flag, but flag of Independent Lithuania (the one Lithuania is using now, yellow-green-red) while being 8 years old - if I would have done that trick not at home, but in school, my whole family would have had serious problems in their works.

Adis, wow. I have heard about the food lines in the 1980's. And the story about the flag is reticent of Mauism. (I think that's a term?) i was wondering about what a typical stereotype of Americans is. Spoiled capitalist is probably accurate. Especially in Texas. Then I wondered what a typical American stereotype of a Lithuanian is. Probably if you ask an average American what a Lithuanian is like they would respond with "What, you mean like vampires and stuff?" (Transylvania). Or the more refined stereotype would be men with beards eating dark coarse bread, not because they have to, but because they are Men!! Also these men would be dressed as either Cossacks or orthodox Jews ( basically just a big black hat stereotype) so.... You have already mentioned the dark bread, I see you have a bushy beard. Do you, in fact, own a big black hat??

Sprady, no black hat yet, but I look forward in buying it :) And thanks for stereotypes, that's cool! For now days stereotypes of Americans here - it's over-religious not so well educated guys with at least two rifles and six pistols each, and they get a Colt revolver on their second birthday. Most of them are obese, with a hamburger in a hand and that revolver from second birthday in another, but somehow despite all those kind of disadvantages, lots of locals would honestly want to be an American :)

Sprady, and the food lines in Lithuania were not the worst lines of USSR. Actually, Baltic States were being called "almost the West", and it was much easier here. But still bad. In 1980s there were no foot shortage anymore, but was a horrible lack of variety, and I still remember how did usual shop looked like: big hall, lot's of empty spaces amd empty shelves. All you can buy is two or three sorts of groats, canned spat in tomato sauce or oil (but in such quality, that you would not it today. But then it was a stadard), hooves of long-dead pigs with very few meat on it, stinky potatoes (because at least 1/4 of them starting to rot, but no one cares to remove it), the salt, one brand of milk and two sords of bread. And this is not some tiny store, this is one of two or even three "supermarkets" of the district. And you can get these not because of everybody likes and are buying it, but because nobody buys it. The popular products disappear in an hour or two. That's the glorious planned economy, baby! And yeah, it may sound like some absurd fantasy, it's hard to brelieve in that for myself, that I was living in it, but that happened. You did not need a shopping list when you go shopping - it's up to 10 sorts of merchandise, so it's impossible to forget something :)

Adis, Adis, what America is is divided onto the original Mayflower families descended and the original New York millionaire families. And then the rest is immigrants from 1-3 or 4 generations. Like my great grandfather immigrated from Poland and so I am third generation American. You will find each state is a different enclave of European culture. For example Louisiana is French and Massachusetts is Irish Minnesota is Scandinavian especially Finnish. Wisconsin is German and Polish. Texas and California are sorta Mexican infused but with a lot of racism towards them so where in other states that have 2-4 generation residents that define the state, in Texas and California immigrant families are not allowed much opportunity to assimilate or dominate the culture this is also true for the Hmong in the upper Midwest. Hmong fathers who fought on American side as volunteers in Vietnam were paid with a house and piece of American land. The racism and cultural divide is marked in this venue. But I digress; In New York the flavor is Puerto Rican and In Miami it is Cuban. The Scottish took the highland in the Appalachian mountains through Georgia and the Carolinas and still retain a lot of that secluded culture. So you can see, there are a lot of European cultures represented in American society and yes there are Texans who do get a Colt 45 for their second birthday. Rifles are abundant up North because a LOT of people still hunt to eat. And probably everyone in Los Angeles does own a pistol. But the loudest get heard and there are a lot of second and third generation Americans who can speak the language from the old country and who were raised in the values of their respective cultures. Not to be wasteful, consider the group, be polite and honest. The truth is these people are not as obvious as the loudmouth racist shooters or fat billionaires. So they do not get noticed or acknowledged. They are the heart of America, every schoolchild is taught that in Social Studies classroom in elementary school.

Adis, wow were the changes overwhelming or was it a liberation or celebration?

You can imagine Latvia and Lithuania as the brothers, while Estonians are like a good, loved and relly close cousins :) There was this type of question already, and if you want more details, please look above. We've talked about characters and languages.

The first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in 10th millenium BC. Over the millenium, the indo-europeans, who arrived in the third-to-second millenium BC, mixed with the local population and formed 11 Baltic tribes. Tribe Lithuanians ("lietuviai" in Lithuanian language, "lietuvis" in singular form) was the biggest by territory, and that's where the country name comes from. Another big - in the means of territory - tribe was Latgalians, and that's where Latvia comes from.

Wow, thank you!

No problem ☺ This is really content I want to see more of on Plag!

Well, this card is not about me, but about Lithuania... but let it be :) I envy them, in a friendly way. Being a geek I am amazed about their tech innovations, e-government etc (though I'm skeptic about e-voting). And I like their nordic attitude, nordic influence to the culture. And Tallinn is great (especially Olde Hansa restaurant ;)

Adis, thanks I just wanted to know because my father had been to all three countries while he was in the military. Just wanted to know relations.

CobaltCraftR27, I believe there are lots of changes since your father left the military service in Baltic states :) Several years ago it happened for me to bring an old guy from the province to Vilnius, the capital city. He lived in Lithuania for whole of his life, he was seeing Vilnius on TV every week, but after 20 years he did not recognize it, though he lived about 150 kilometers from it.

Adis, wow that is interesting

I'm not huge fan od local scene, but I recommend to try Marijonas Mikutavičius (really nice rock, https://youtu.be/q1T6WwCYRMw ), Jurga Šeduikytė (I would say, intelectual or even progressive pop https://youtu.be/VynheEdHe0w ), Žalvarinis (interesting fusion of Lithuanian folk music with rock or even hard rock, https://youtu.be/ZIt1Qvo_UmU - BTW, the song title means "(More) Beer, beer" :). If you are into metal, I could give you more exaples of quote a strong underground scene.

Definitely not. Angry about fucking regime that was still 25 years ago, about departures of hundreds of thousands (it's hard to find a family in here, that got nobody in forced exile), about early deaths of tens of thousands in a foreign land. About occupation (that includes terror and lies), that lasted for half of a century. Not so happy about current approach on foreign politics and the stance, since it does not much signs of a progress. But not angry on commoners, on ordinary people - the closer word would be sad and some sort of compassion. Actually, most of Lithuanians would be glad to help Russia in becomming a modern, well functioning and worldwise respected state.

Adis, I think the word you are looking for is empathy

Not enough courage or interest to try new things, in the national level. But things are getting much better latery :)

They are strict - a bit too strict, in my opinion. It takes from half of the year to the year, to get a licence for a gun - you have to go through medical exams, have courses on theory, practice and law, sucessfully pass the exam on those three. And then you have to technical care of the gun at the police every 5 years. The reason - Lithuanians are really cautious on everything. Luckilly, the crime rate is quite low, so the gun is not a necessity here.

Adis, why Is the crime so low? what is different there that makes the rate so low compared to say America?

tigger the kitty, I have no straight answer to that, but I remember one interview with a foreign military psychologist back in 2000s, who said something like that: a common Lithuanian can take one hit, the second and maybe the third or even fourth, but when you cross the line that is known only to Lithuanian himself, he will honestly try to beat you to coma. And after beating you, he'll turn to your companions. So I guess, in some subconscious way we might be afraid of ourselves, to piss our own fellows too much :)

tigger the kitty, and saying that a crime level is low I did not mean that there happends only a few incidents. But mostly these are the small ones, like thefts or so, and somehow nobody would use a gun aginst it. Somehow we think there is not much of the point in a possibility to kill a man for a damage of several hundred euros (or $, the ratio is quite similar).

Adis, ah ok thank you for clarifying what you meant by low crime rate. It was something I was curious on as I know laws on gun control is different everywhere.

Adis, my dentist sells all kinds of guns out of the basement in his office. I think it takes 3 hours or less to walk out with a loaded pistol. You enter your name to a register then they check to see if you are a felon. If not... Yippie Ky Yay.

Sprady, where is that at? Your dentist that is....

tigger the kitty, In the Northwoods. Top of Wisconsin near Michigan border.

Sprady, dangit.

I live at the same city where Plag HQ is, but I've personally met only 13th, and I'm hetero, so I'm not the most qualified to judge him on attractiveness :) But he's really cool :)

Seeing Red, You're the master of understatement.

Ačiū! But these are not the ads, just honest recommendations! :)

Thank you for the excellent uqestion! But I see two problems here: first of all - my bad, but I'm not sure which of works are translated into any language outside of Lithuanian. The second one - I could not think of more than a few contemporary writers who depict not-an-archaic picture of Lithuania. So, if there is a translation of "Jaučio Aukojimas" ("Sacrifice of a Bull") by Romualdas Granauskas - it's a modern interpretation of pagan Lithuania. Also, three parts (I, II, III) of "Silva Rerum" - a novels written in last decades by very tallented art historian and writer Kristina Sabaliauskaitė. It's about XVI-XVII c. Lithuania. She has also released "Vilnius. Wilno. Vilna", and it is definitely released in English, but I have not read it yet, though I believe it should be good. Also I'd recommend anything by Jurga Ivanauskaitė - I don't like her works at all, but she's sharp on depicting the breaking moment of Lithuania, the 1980s-1990s. Not on documentary, but on emotional, intellectual side.

Thanks. I'll keep these in mind and will see what is available in any of the languages I understand.

I'm in my 30s, but due to my work I contact lots of elder folks.

Pretty good, actually. Prices are quite low in compare with rest of the Europe, really nice nature (and lots of it) and we have all four seasons. If you're geek or a tech guy, it's even better - great speed of internet, government investing into technologies and everybody respect tech sphere. The only worse thing - we have a crazy neighbor, like drunk angry hooligan, who wants to be respected not for his works or thoughts, but because he's having a baseball bat in the hand :) But on the other hand, it's good - it does not let to slumber and get fat :)

Adis, LOL, love the way you described that. Same neighbor, same problems.

Adis, That guy must have a teleport device! He's everywhere lol

Lithuania mostly exports mineral, constructional, chemical and forestry materials and producs, parts of electronics, meat and grain. The important part is IT services. Interesting fact - Lithuania is leading country in laser technologies, even Japan buys lasers from Lithuania (I guess we should work on contracts with Star Wars universe, hehe :)

1. My favorite sports were karate (kyokushin kan) and trap shooting - but sadly, I abandoned both. And none of these are very polular in modern Lithuania - actually, everybody is raving about basketball (about which I do not care at all). Funny thing about karate - it was prohibited in soviet Lithuania, and that's why it became some kind of popular :)

2. I think it's the same everywhere - going out with friends on weekends, to the pub, to the cinema, to the concert, visiting each other etc.

It may seem hard, but not because of number of letters, but because Lithuanian language sounds absolutely different from all the most popular languages like English, French, German, Spanish or Russian. Actually, the only similar language in the world is Latvian. And if modern English has three grammar cases, Lithuanian has seven. And if in English you have only two basic verb endings, in Lithuanian there's much more - for example, in English I go, you go, he or she goes, we go, they go. In Lithuanian it is I "einu", you "eini" if it's singular and "einate" if it's plural, he or she "eina", we "einame" and they "eina". But still, I don't think Lithuanian is too difficult, at least easier than Japanese or Chinese. Or some cases of French, like numbering :D

Adis, thank you. I may consider learning it. It sounds very interesting.

TheKillerKrab, wow, ithat sounds daring :) In a case, I would recommend you bliubliu.com - a language learning startup-webtool, run here in Lithuania too, but this time by Italian guy.

Adis, will do. Thanks

Definitely! The more funny, it was performed by all-star band/project. Whole Lithuania had lots of fun :)

Elder people are a bit scared. Because of the rumors on infiltrated terrorists and because it's a new thing as the whole. But part of Lithuanians know what is to be a refugee quite well (thousands fled on nazi and soviet ocupations), and in emotionl level are ready to help people. The problem is, Lithuania is totally unprepared for integration of refugees, there were no real integration program for them, and EU is pushing to take refugees in ridiculous numbers. Now it's agreed on a thousand, and they arrive on Januray, so government is working in extreme hurry. The problem, Lithuanian understands the necessity of full and successfull integration, because otherwise we would get a ghetto, and this is a most stupid and dangerous thing. So the problem is not about the will, but about the possibilities and preparation.

I'm from Vilnius. And I think in Vilnius you have more possibilities: there are more people here, all major international companies have HQs here, more shops, work opportunities etc. But that does not mean that I find Kaunas bad, not at all. The competition in Kaunas is not so intense, the prices are more realistic to average Lithuanian wage and Kaunas has the best IT university in Lithuania.

Sorry to say that, but for most Lithuanians Philippines is a galaxy in a far, far away :) I guess everybody know it's in far Asia, most will say it's in the islands, but I think most Lithuanians know it only from tourism brochures/ads, and stories of some local celebrities who been there on vacation. I think Lithuania has no commercial business with Philippines for now. And are you from Philippines?

No, we do not FEEL being threatened by Russia. We ARE BEING threatened by Russia, constantly - the Baltic Air Police has to take up twice a week, we're having agressive informational war on our news portals and finally, even the Lithuanian blog farm where I host my blog, is constantly being attacked from Russian IPs, because blog farm also hosts a pro-Ukrainian blog. But this has a bright side, too - people are waken up from comfortable slumber, they look more seriously to foreign affairs and country defense, the conscripts are back - young people are getting modern basic military training. And even girls go there as the volunteers, not for cabinet work, but for field training.