Wu Wei

Shakespeare Hotel, Vilnius

Yet again, the best service no matter what the request.

I was home for the weekend and on Sunday needed to print a 30 page report for editing, but suddenly no ink left in the cartridge. What to do?

I consulted the oracle, Vilnius in Your Pocket, (now available on the iPhone) and found the nearest internet cafe.  In fact practically the only internet cafe in the centre, since Vilnius is maybe 10 years past the stage where teenage boys have nowhere to go and nothing to do but sit in internet cafes all day (unlike Pristina and Lefkosia).  Lack of business custom meant it was closed on Sunday even in the tourist season.

Again what to do?

Needing lunch (it was 3 pm), I decided to try my luck at the Shakespeare, since I could guarantee a good lunch at least and maybe they would help.  Aurimas the receptionist instantly offered to print, and when we had difficulty printing from my USB, lent me a laptop to get at the file another way.  After 15 minutes, the problem was solved, I had ordered lunch and was busy proof reading over a glass of wine. 

I did feel a bit cheeky, using a smart hotel as an internet cafe,  when I wasn't even staying there. But it wasn't a problem for them, as usual they were happy to help. Their computer even listed which rooms I had stayed in, in the past, which we found, when they made me an invoice. 

After all that help, I was amazed to be offered a big discount for lunch because it was Sunday.

Better value I doubt if you can find anywhere.  Highly recommended as always.

Still Hitler supporters in Lithuania

From the title "Triumph of the Third Reich" and the photos, this book seems to be promoting Hitler.

Depressing to see a book like this on full display in what I always thought of as a respectable book shop  in Vilnius along PIlies, the main tourist street.

It carefully stops at 1942.   It does say Part I but with a title like that, one wouldn't expect Part II.

 

 

 

Hamletas in Tbilisi

Went to see a performance of Hamlet on Sunday as part of the Tbilisi International Festival of Theatre, (thanks Heidi for the ticket).  Or perhaps I should have said Hamletas, since it was a Lithuanian company visiting Tbilisi.  The play was in Lithuanian with tiny Shakespeare English subtitles disappearing to make room for the much larger subtitles in Georgian.  Of course some of the jokes got lost, relying on puns in English that can't be translated, but the cast enjoyed themselves in the light-hearted bits.  Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern in drag with short dresses made the audience pause  for thought, not sure whether it was OK to snigger.

But the direction was by Oskaras Korsakovas, the set was minimalist and quite different from any other Hamlet I had seen (which was a long time ago anyway).

The audience seemed impressed too.  Not a sound from the mobile phones. 

Rather strange programming, because there is another Lithuanian performance of Hamletas on Friday, by a different theatre group.  I wonder how many Georgians will turn up for the second version.

KGB Museum, Vilnius

Going round the KGB museum with 30 other people was not really a good idea.  I never wanted to go before (having heard about it from Bee and Sloph's school trips).  But part of my Lithuanian course includes local cultural lectures and excursions so I thought it was time to catch up.

The museum is located in the local court dating from Tsarist times but while the court was redundant for the Nazi and Soviet regimes, the prison cells were well used.  Some of the museum relates how the partisans were rounded up and passed through the prison in the late 40s and 50s.  You can see the cells, including the water torture cell and the execution cell. 

My thoughts ranged from a) thinking I didn't know much about prisons generally and what their conditions were like in the post war period, but thinking the British ones were probably  pretty much still in the Victorian conditions in which they were built and on the face of it, apart from the torture part, the cells looked pretty much like cells anywhere, not intended to be comfortable especially when crowded  b) thinking that probably these days  the political prisoners in the North Caucasus get pretty similar treatment or worse by the local Russian military or modern day FSB as the KGB meted out here.  

The museum itself was informative and the guide sufficiently practical herding groups and giving just enough information without the previous Soviet resort always to statistics.

But going round in groups just trivialises it all, for me.

Trouble ahead for Mazeikiu Nafta?

TNK-BP looking for market expansion beyond Russia

Published 27 February, 2010, 10:38 here

Edited 27 February, 2010, 15:16

TNK-BP has told RT it is considering making further investments beyond Russian borders after the company dropped its previous objections to the expansion of the company into foreign markets.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the company's research center in the city of Tyumen on Friday to see where TNK-BP was exploring and extracting oil. During the visit, RT spoke with major TNK-BP shareholder German Haan, who said that the company was eyeing refining assets in Lithuania.

via rt.com

Old Soviet Postcards of Vilnius

You know, those ones that were all you could buy: terrible blurry colour printing, and supplied in a komplekt (little folder of 10 or so).

Here's a few from Facebook here.

  

No prizes for guessing this is Lenin Square, now Lukiskiu Square.

And this one of the Rotuse Square complete with statue:

  

The inevitable bleak blocks of new housing (though to be fair, there are plenty of places built like this in Britain in the 60s and 70s, with the same effect)

  

Some of the comments on the photos are quite funny, if you read Lithuanian.

Gassy water machines

Someone is kindly posting old photos of Lithuanian cities on Facebook. There is now a "modern" series from the late 70s early 80s here.

It's a bit strange. It's almost the same as now, but the Soviet statues are still there. I arrived in Vilnius long after they had gone, and I only ever met one person who talked about Lenin Prospect as opposed to Gedimino prospect.

Here's a photo of the old "gassy water" machines about which I have had many nostalgic conversations with people who remember them, while Bee and Sloph were amazed: gassy water instead of coca cola?

 

It seems that I am not the only nostalgic one, as 103 people like them on Facebook.

Lithuanian food goes international: potato pica

Foreigners don't have much very complementary to say about Lithuanian food.  When I am asked about it, I usually say it's 1001 ways to cook potato, many of which should be banned.

I now get Lithuanian adverts when I sit down with Facebook, which are a good way of catching up on what is going on.

I shouldn't have been surprised when I was presented with a recipe for potatoes, should I?  But potato pizza?  I know Lithuanians are big eaters of pizza, but I have never seen anywhere in the world a recipe for potato pizza.

 

Skanaus!

And just in case you need the recipe:  here it is from the popular mothers' website www.mama.lt.

RIP Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant

It seems I got so excited about the view of the fireworks on New Year's Eve that I never posted this.

Tonight at midnight, Ignalina NNP finally closes. 

From January 1998 to March 2003 (long before I started blogging), my work in Lithuania was mainly about persuading Lithuania to lose its self-appointed title as the country with most nuclear power and manage the energy sector without it.

Ignalina NPP has two Chernobyl type reactors, which Lithuania agreed to shut down at a later date, in exchange with financial help for safety improvements intended to be temporary.  During the period of my work, the government continually wriggled out of the deadlines.  Finally it made a bargain where the EU could pay for most of the decommissioning, and Lithuania would commit to definite dates for closure of each unit (2005  and 2009). 

Without this bargain, Lithuania would not have been able to join the EU.
The story of the negotiations is one which will have to wait for another day.

2005 came and the first unit went.  Nobody missed this unit much, as it was not needed, since electrical demand had shrunk after independence and Belarus had stopped paying for its imports of electricity. Nevertheless, still there were suggestions that the second unit should not be closed until it had been replaced by a new safe nuclear power plant.

Now Ignalina NPP is really going to close and there are few that will mourn it, even less people will panic about the lights going out, and nobody will be surprised that the price of electricity will go up, even if it won't double, like all the scare stories.

But has the government taken the intervening time to prepare for closure?  Not really.  They have not succeeded to get either funding or an agreement with neighbouring countries to share the cost of a new plant.  Consequently, electricity will come from a rehabilitated old gas fired power station, until someone does make a sensible decision.

The power sector experts in Lithuania do  not generally favour this solution, but since nuclear stations cost a lot, and take a lot of time to build, there's not much choice.

Traditionally the experts have worried about whether Russia will cut the gas off, if gas-fired electricity generation is chosen.  They should now not be worrying IF the gas will be cut off, but WHEN it will not be exported from Russia.  Russia's gas production is falling, and little new production is anticipated, so it simply doesn't have enough gas production to meet all its future domestic consumption and its contracted exports to Europe especially when all the new pipelines it wants are added.  Hence why it is making offers that the 'stans' can't refuse to take the gas off their hands and to control the routes by which it reaches Europe.

So Lithuania, look sharp before the lights go out next time.

However, it's not long since the Economist led with the same head line for Britain: "how long till the lights go out.

With very similar reasons.

Reflections on 5 years since Lithuania's EU entry

Wonderland is writing on this here.

Five years ago, on the first of May, the country was supposed to be celebrating. Public transport was free that day, and there was a free concert in the old town. I was going to this concert with some friends, we were on one of the free buses running from Baltupiai to the old town. Suddenly a fight broke out among several people, and one of them hit another's head with a bottle of beer. It could have been the "Euro" beer - a popular cheap brand at the time.

Remembering this, I was thinking that this scene depicts what the EU has become in the mainstream Lithuanian imagination today. We ride somewhere on a bus, available to us because of the EU (which has repaired roads, schools, public transport and other infrastructure across the country), yet use its symbolics to hit each other on the head. Five years after the enthusiastic EU entry, public intellectuals are mumbling about the dictate of political correctness, threat to national sovereignty, and, most of all, the perceived attack against the "real values" by euro-homosexuals. The EU is now called not "Europe" (the heartland of individual freedom and refuge from the "Eastern neighbour"), but "Brussels" (the ivory tower of "rootless cosmopolitan" bureaucracy).

 I was there on the joyous 1st of May, I came back specially from Greece where I was working to celebrate the day with the Lithuanians. 

Hmmm. On the one hand, enthusiasm for the EU was never going to stay at the same level.  A dose of healthy Euroscepticism is normal, and some disillusionment would be expected.  And all member states direct their  complaints at Brussels, while reaffirming their support for Europe.

But what is this "rootless cosmopolitan" bureacracy?  And why is Wonderland using this term?  I was shocked to see it returning again.

I quote from Wikipedia:

Rootless cosmopolitan (Russian language: безродный космополит, "bezrodniy kosmopolit") was a Soviet euphemism introduced during Joseph Stalin's antisemitic campaign of 1949–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" referred mostly (but not only) to Jewish intellectuals, as an accusation in their lack of patriotism, i.e., lack of full allegiance to the Soviet Union.

 So Lithuanian antisemitism now blames Jews in Brussels for their problems?  Time for Lithuanians to get real and solve their own 21st century problems without looking for scapegoats from the past.