Translated and captioned by Leo. Make sure to press CC for English captions.
The malicious witch Zrada (defeat), who is circling, and not keeping the Russophobes out of sight from the post-Soviet space, is once again plotting trickery. This time, the Lithuanians got it, who had “completed the Euro integration” to the ration cards.
When the combined choir of the Russian liberals performs an aria about the “horrors of Stalinism” to us, all stomach-oriented oppositionists don’t say “no” to the scary sound of the word “cards”.
They say that the cursed Stalin was starving the people, while everyone in the CPSU Central Committee were stuffing themselves with black caviar, and therefore introduced the cards. Naturally, they ignore the facts that in normal countries, the same ones according to those elf experts, even in Britain, there were also cards, and they were canceled only in the 50s of the last century. Meat cards, for example, were abolished by the UK government only in 1954.
And if you view a different “promised land”, the USA, then the rationing system for food still exists there, and millions of citizens get food from it. It’s called SNAP (food stamps).
“As of the end of 2017, there were more than 42 million American SNAP receivers (almost half of them are children), which is every eighth inhabitant of the country. In 2017, the average subsidy of each participant of the program was about $126, for one household there was $254.
In general, the federal authorities paid the Americans $63.7 billion, the total cost of the program is estimated at $68 billion.”
But about American totalitarianism in the form of Obamism and the Trumpism that replaced it, no one squeals about it, I am ashamed to say.
Now then, miraculously, the Lithuanians, who did not crack from a non-hungry life during the so-called “Soviet occupation”, finally decided to do it, as in blessed America.
“Lithuanian authorities are preparing to introduce ration cards. The Prime Minister of the Republic explained this decision by the need to stimulate small and medium-sized businesses. It is assumed that the cards will act on certain types of products, and only local production.”
However, Lithuanian officials would not be Lithuanian officials if they decided to help their fellow citizens for free. No, it is not the Baltic style. Therefore, the cards will be sold.
“According to the government’s idea, coupons will be sold at Lithuanian post offices for eight euros, after which coupon owners will be able to use them in special stores to buy products for 10 euros. Milk, meat, vegetables and fruits will be available for such coupons.”
Two euro savings on each card is also money.
According to them, at the beginning of the year, a Lithuanian could buy a kilogram of chicken wings or 2 bottles of local beer.
In general, the work is of course good and necessary. But the very statement of the question that Lithuania, once the former “showcase of the USSR”, needs the support of local producers, and its inhabitants – with ration cards, this statement somehow beats the bright ideals of “European integration”.
Surely the Balts who have become Europeans, have questions about whether it was worth fleeing from the notorious “horrors of occupation”, if they are eating cards again, and dissidents are being poisoned as writer Rūta Vanagaitė, who dared to declare that Jews during the Nazi occupation, were killed while fleeing by Lithuanian nationalists, who are now considered “heroes”.
In general, Zrada. Defeat is circling above the body of the Baltic republic that has fallen into a puddle of European aspirations, and is not planning to fly away anywhere.
I imagine that most remaining Lithuanian citizens are the elderly, the disabled, the ill, and will have to exist on handouts anyway. The young are mass migrating to Germany and Sweden. Theres no industry left in Lithuania. EU-Eastplan has meant that Baltic and Slavic peoples are reduced to nothing more than low-wage builders, cleaners and ‘comfort women’ for the Master Germanic race. Just like the little austrian guy intented. This time they got smart and allied with the Zionists instead, the USA and its English-Zionist elite never had any problem with the destruction of Eastern Europe.
Indeed! History repeats itself but sometimes upside down: Before it were the zionists who wanted to be allied to the nazis, and neither have had problems with the destruction of Eastern Europe, not now nor then:
http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-jews-and-nazis/ – A nazi goes to Palestine.
“Defeat is circling above the body of the Baltic republic that has fallen into a puddle of European aspirations, and is not planning to fly away anywhere.”
Judging by what I’ve read both on Polish blogs and in other places as well, I feel disposed to believe Lithuania is being coveted by Europe’s “greedy hyena”. Poland keeps pestering Europe forever with her chauvinist intrigues and designs. Unlike the soon extinct Balts, the Poles are happily fleecing the EU taxpayers, which explains — apart from congenital idiocy — Poland’s manifest arrogance. But, hey, congratulations to Lithuania anyway — maybe depopulated, deindustrialized, and with not too bright a future, but now the filthy Moskals are not ruling the place any longer.
Nussi, great comment. I would add: this is how Europe’s quiet destruction is conducted. And the “little idiots” are just cheering their “independence from bad Russia”
Thank you, Anonius. And, yes, that’s my take too. Fascist imbeciles in Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltics, and Poland prove your point superbly.
Vanagaite is not a dissident. She is a pseudo writer of very doubtful reputation. And she got boycotted because of humiliation of our national heroes, partisans, trying to re-writehistory in KGB methods. And not because of writing books about Lithuanians, collaborting in Holocaust.
Anon, because the same guys who were hogging the “Commie chairs” are now the “liberals” who run the show.
And majority of those so called dissidents belong to the same club attempting to pull the wool over the populous that “do not worry someone is standing up for you”.
The quote below in the article is false.
“And if you view a different “promised land”, the USA, then the rationing system for food still exists there, and millions of citizens get food from it. It’s called SNAP (food stamps).”
The SNAP program does NOT ration food, but provides almost unlimited choices in foods for low income people. They shop and when at the check out counter, the total purchase price is subtracted from their monthly SNAP benefits card.To receive SNAP benefits, one must apply and prove the need for government (tax payer) assistance. It’s a benefit program for people who need help, not a form of food rationing. It’s one of the few forms of socialism available for people of low or limited income.
The SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) is to assist low income families by providing government assistance in purchasing food
Foods for the household to eat, such as:
breads and cereals;
fruits and vegetables;
meats, fish and poultry; and
dairy products.
Seeds and plants which produce food for the household to eat.
In some areas, restaurants can be authorized to accept SNAP benefits from qualified homeless, elderly, or disabled people in exchange for low-cost meals.
Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
Any nonfood items, such as:
pet foods
soaps, paper products
household supplies
Vitamins and medicines
Food that will be eaten in the store
Hot foods
It helps many people in this county in rural Missouri, U.S., where jobs are scarce and what jobs are available, pay poorly. It’s not uncommon for people to rely on two or three part time jobs to support themselves and a small family. To avoid paying any benefits, employers reduce employee working hours so they aren’t required to. WalMart, one of the largest employers in the U.S. pays minimum wages and reduces the number of hours a person can work, forcing many employees to seek government assistance programs. WalMart avoids corporate taxes but uses tax payers to provide benefits to WalMart employees.
B
It may be that use of the term “rationing” is a problem in the translation. Or maybe the video’s author confused his terminology?
Regarding what food stamps can buy in the usa, one strange anomaly is one can buy sodas, coffee, tea, candy, which have no real nutrition value (apart from caloric from the candy). Another, is one can buy all sorts of packaged junk food, but not real food if it is from a restaurant or heated. Also one cannot buy over the counter medicine. The system is very erratic, inconsistent and not very logical. Also, the way different states apply food stamps varies quite a bit.
vot tak! Yes, I agree the SNAP system has serious flaws and we Americans, in general, eat way to much junk food, which doesn’t require preparation, is inexpensive, and plentiful, with no nutritional value. Thus the American obesity
problem. As an aside, people trying to support themselves or a family with two or three part time jobs don’t feel like cooking a nutritious meal. The problems are complex and feed on each other. The best to you!
The available food types listed previously are not erratic and inconsistent. The erratic nature of the list is due to your own personal preferences and understanding of what should be acceptable foods. If there is anything erratic it is from right wing politicians believing in stereotypes that the poor are eating lobster and steak every night, and then putting restrictions on food choices that eliminate entirely healthy range of sea foods for example.
Honeslty, living in Lithuania i can say that majority of this article is complete hyperbolisation of government plan to make a system that would help local produce and small business. (Which, by the way, is only leaked rumors, not a complete law.) Many things are actually left out, there is a lot of controversial information and by reading i got a feeling that author is against certain nationalities. Yes “vouchers” (as they are called officially) will be sold in post offices and one voucher will only give 2€ discount to a citizen, but that’s still 20% cheaper food from local farmers.
Also, Rūta Vanagaitė is considered a shame because of “worshiping” KGB and USSR methodology in her works and her works are accepted only as a fiction or fantasy, not proven facts because of many factual errors.
Kulsius
“Yes “vouchers” (as they are called officially) will be sold in post offices and one voucher will only give 2€ discount to a citizen, but that’s still 20% cheaper food from local farmers.”
Food stamps just like food from food banks are given for FREE to qualified people, those on disability and social security. If your government is charging for food stamps, it acts as a state enterprise. Instead, the government has to pay to wholesalers for food directly and for food that people get through this programs.
From the food banks you also get food for free. You don’t have to pay for it, since food is donated by chain stores, donated by the Red cross or bought by the government and distributed to the food banks. Mostly, it’s nonperishable food and bread. But it’s better than having people to starve to death.
I think that food stamps and food banks are two most crucially important programs for any gov.
I really hope that your government will reconsider and do this program the right way, not like running a scam.
S
“Food stamps just like food from food banks are given for FREE to qualified people, those on disability and social security.”
Actually, that isn’t correct. Food stamps are available to those on unemployment, also. Though this may not be true in all u.s. states. Food from food banks can have no requirements, or many. It depends on who is distributing food aquired from the state food bank.
I volunteered at a food bank for over a year, so let me explain how it worked in that case. The state aquired food and distributed it to local charity outfits who then provided it to the people. These various charities set their own rules as to who qualified for to receive the aide. The one I worked at did not have any requirement, anyone could get food there.
“Mostly, it’s nonperishable food and bread. But it’s better than having people to starve to death.”
At the food bank charity I volunteered at, it was majority perishable foods. A lot of dairy items and fresh fruit and vegetables. But not a lot of meat items. They paid a lot of attention to nutrition and strived to make sure the packages of food they gave out were nutritionally balanced.
An irony about food bank food is that a lot of it is high end, expensive stuff. Seems illogical, doesn’t it? Much of the food donated to food banks is items close to their “sell by dates”. The expensive items sell slower than the cheap ones, usually, and aren’t sold in time, so are donated.
VT, well said. Many stores will heavily discount their “day or two before or on the best before date”. So people can buy that food for peanuts. There was/is a lot of pressure on the “Food Chain Stores” to donate or heavily discount such food, instead of outright ditching it.
On the other hand, such stores in Greece still insist on ditching, therefore you will find many homeless or like people trying to compete with rats and diving in to the garbage containers for “donations”.
I dunno, getting a discount on food, a promised increase to minimum wage in the coming future and actually being able to celebrate old customs doesn’t sound that bad to me.
Eastern Europe is facing a demographic disaster. This recorded in The Atlantic Council of all places.
Eastern Europe Experiencing Deep Demographic Crisis
Novinite Insider » OPINIONS | July 5, 2018,
Author : Dmitriy Dobrov
Depopulation of Eastern Europe is connected not only with the outflow of labour resources: after 1989, the era of wild capitalism began in the former “socialist countries”, accompanied by the collapse of social and medical systems, a sharp increase in mortality, especially among men, with a simultaneous fall in the birth rate
The French newspaper Le Monde diplomatique wrote about the unprecedented demographic catastrophe that hit the countries of Eastern Europe after the collapse of the communist system in its June issue.
The process began in late 1989, immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There followed a massive exodus of the population from East Germany, Poland, and Hungary to the countries of Western Europe in search of higher earnings, which continues to this day, covering practically all former countries of the socialist camp. As a result of the new “resettlement of peoples”, the human losses of Eastern Europe were much greater than those of both world wars. Over the past 30 years, Romania lost 14% of the population, Moldova – 16.9%, Ukraine – 18%, Bosnia – 19.9%, Bulgaria and Lithuania – 20.8%, Latvia – 25.3% of the population. Depopulation also affected the eastern regions of Germany (the former GDR), which in the literal sense of the word were emptied. A kind of exception was made by the Czech Republic, where it was possible to preserve the main “gains of socialism” in the form of social support for the population, a free medical system, assistance to mothers, and so on.
Depopulation of Eastern Europe is connected not only to the outflow of labor resources: after 1989, the era of wild capitalism began in the former “socialist countries”, accompanied by the collapse of social and medical systems, a sharp increase in mortality, especially among men, with a simultaneous fall in the birth rate. However, the main blow to demography caused the outcome of the population, especially the youngest, active, qualified group. In the historical homeland remained children, pensioners and persons incapable of actively seeking work abroad. And this despite the fact that for 40 post-war years in the countries of Eastern Europe there was a slow but steady growth of the population.
According to the UN, all ten of the world’s most “endangered” countries are in Eastern Europe. They are Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Baltic republics and the former Yugoslavia, as well as Moldova and Ukraine. According to the forecasts of demographers, by 2050 the population of these countries will decrease by another 15-23%. This means, in particular, that the population of Bulgaria will drop from 7 to 5 million people, Latvia – from 2 to 1.5 million. According to experts of the Wittgenstein International Demographic Center in Vienna, “it is unprecedented for peacetime depopulation.” Among the main reasons called the killer combination of three factors – low birth rate, high mortality and mass emigration. But if in the countries of Western Europe the fall in the birth rate is compensated by the new migration waves, the countries of Eastern Europe categorically refuse to accept the “fresh blood” in the person of migrants, and this issue has acquired an extraordinary political poignancy. At the height of the migration crisis of 2015, Slovakia and the Czech Republic took 16 and 12 refugees respectively, Hungary and Poland did not accept anyone.
Meanwhile, Eastern Europe continues to lose its “golden cadres” – the best specialists and young people. In Hungary alone, since joining the EU in 2004, 5,000 doctors have left the country, mostly under the age of 40. There is a shortage of technicians and mechanics who also left for Austria, Germany and other countries of Western Europe. This is perfectly understandable since in Hungary they receive 500 euros a month for heavy manual work, and in Austria for the same work – 1 thousand euros per week. In other countries, the outflow of specialists of medium qualification is felt even more: hundreds of thousands of nurses, carpenters, locksmiths and skilled workers moved from Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia to the West. In Romania, the outcome of the population is called a “national catastrophe”. The population of this country declined for the post-communist period from 23 to 20 million people.
The transfer of labor from the East was not only spontaneous but also systematically predatory. Numerous German and British firms of “headhunters” in large numbers began to entice Western specialists immediately after the accession of Eastern European countries to the EU. As the German Die Welt writes, qualification, youth and money flow from Eastern European countries, while the old people and children remain deeply disappointed in “freedom” and “democracy.” Since the early 1990s, a small Bosnia lost 150 thousand people, Serbia – about half a million. However, the most significant outflow was observed in Lithuania: over 300,000 people out of 3 million left the country.
But the most tragic consequences of the “post-communist breakdown” have been experienced by Ukraine – once one of the most developed republics of the USSR. If in the early 1990s there were 52 million people in the republic, now the population does not exceed 42 million. According to the forecasts of the Kyiv Institute of Demography, by 2050 the population of the republic will be 32 million. This means that Ukraine is the fastest dying state in Europe, and possibly, in the world. According to Ukrainian sources, the country was abandoned by 8 million people (experts believe that number is from 2 to 4 million people – ed.), who went to work in the countries of the European Union and neighboring Russia. According to recent polls, 35% of Ukrainians declared their readiness to emigrate. The process accelerated after Ukraine received a visa-free regime with the EU: about 100,000 people leave the country every month.
It was in Ukraine in the most extreme form three factors coincided: a fall in the birth rate, an increase in mortality (the death rate was twice the birth rate) and mass emigration of the population. Demographers compare the corresponding dynamics in France and Ukraine. If before 1989 the growth rates of the population in these two countries were comparable, then in the subsequent period the population of France increased by 9 million people, and Ukraine lost the same number of people.
Experts believe that the demographic crisis in Eastern Europe cannot continue indefinitely. The systems of social support and healthcare cannot physically work in conditions when the majority of the population is pensioners and children, at some point, inevitably there will be a collapse of statehood. But you should not flatter yourself about Western Europe, where the birth rate is also extremely low. While the developed part of the continent temporarily benefited from human resources from Eastern Europe, a much more rapid influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa will inevitably change the sociocultural image of Western European countries, where religious and ethnic conflicts already arise. If the fertility rate for native French women is 1.6 children per woman, then for adults from the countries of the Middle East and Africa this figure is 3.4 children or more. Today’s kindergartens in France are already three-quarters composed of representatives of ethnic minorities, and in the future, great socio-cultural changes await the country. This has already been written in his best-selling “Soumission” by the French writer Michelle Houellebecq.
Is there a way out of this situation? Is it possible to stimulate the birth rate mechanism among Europeans? Demographers are sure that this is impossible neither in Western, nor in Eastern Europe. True, for various reasons. In the west of the continent, the consumption standard is so high that the appearance of a new child will automatically mean a decrease in the standard of living. In Eastern Europe, another mechanism operates: poverty, lack of prospects and the breakdown of family relations make the birth of children undesirable. Meanwhile, the proportion of Europeans in the world’s demographic balance is constantly decreasing. If in 1900 Europe accounted for 25% of the world’s inhabitants, now it is about 10%.
At the same time, according to UN estimates, the population of Africa to the south of the Sahara will be 2.5 billion by 2050, and by the end of the century – 4.4 billion, that is, more than the entire population of the planet in 1980. This means that Europe will be overwhelmed by new migration waves, despite its resistance.
Excellent comment and very educational. you are asking “Is it possible to stimulate the birth rate mechanism among Europeans”.
My answer:
Yes, by making their life more comfortable and by creating conditions of subsidies for the families with more than two kids.
But like you said:
“Wild Capitalism”. These conditions will always create high mortality rates in the population as well as population outflow.
So, this is a survival of the nation issue. Drop “Wild Capitalism” and start the recovery, or:
China and India are happy to oblige.
Very well-written and informational piece by Dmitriy Dobrov, thanks FL for sharing it here.
I only have a minor quibble about the author’s, as it seems, genuine concern about Europe’s ageing and decaying population; especially Western Europe’s. The Euro-trash celebrates materialism, hedonism, infantilism, and faggotry. They just cannot be bothered about physical reproduction even if they were to be remunerated handsomely. This is utterly untenable in the eyes of the corporatocracy in charge. You just cannot have a waning population and ever increasing levels of private indebtedness to the banksters. The Euro-trash are narcissists and spoiled rotten, and this has become problematic. The population transfers that we see are a most deliberate outcome of perpetual imperialist war. They fix the demographic problem and they bring back the working poor.
But regarding Eastern Europe, Dmitriy Dobrov is absolutely spot on: Poverty, lack of prospects and the breakdown of family relations make the birth of children undesirable. Keep that in mind whenever Stalin is singled out as the evil-doer — it’s a premature conclusion, to put it mildly.
And here is what life is like in another Baltic Shangri La – Latvia.
For instance, after obtaining independence from the Soviet bloc in 1991, the population of yet another Baltic country – Latvia has been diminishing annually with the rate of 23,000 people a year. These frightening figures were unveiled last March by a professor of the University of Latvia, demographer Peteris Zvidriņš who would note that the sad reality is that Latvia loses a small town every two weeks. In raw figures, that is 55 people a day, or 1,650 people a month. Another Latvian demographer, who heads a local office of the International Organization for Migration of the United Nations, Ilmar Mezhs, has recently told Skaties.lv that most of those who are leaving Latvia are not planning to go back. Referring to the forecasts of Eurostat, Mezhs suggested that in sixty years in the place of 2.7 million people who had previously resided in Latvia, one would find less than a million people still dwelling in this country. According to preliminary reports, the country’s population has already been reduced to 1.946 million people. Latvia has been plagued by high mortality rates along with the massive exodus of its people since 1991. According to LTV7, a local media station, the situation in maternity wards across Latvia is critical: low salaries often go hand-in-hand with a shortage of medical personnel, especially young professionals. If the situation is not addressed urgently, as various Latvian media sources report, there will be no qualified doctors left in hospitals.
The problem is that large numbers of people have been living below the poverty line for years with no sign of improvement. This statement was made by the Commissioner for Human Rights in Latvia, Juris Jansons during an address he made in front of the local parliament last March. It’s no wonder then that according to the official records a total of 115,000 people a year in Latvia are suffering from clinical depression, which amounts to every fourteenth resident of the country, and these people need treatment, notes the Latvian information agency LETA.
Latvia has overtaken Estonia in the number of people newly infected with HIV in 2016, thus becoming a leading EU state in this area. This data was presented by the BNS agency along with the Baltic HIV Association with a special reference to the data provided by the epidemiological surveillance authorities.
The terrible conditions that people live in in this Baltic country include the fact that out of all migrants who arrived in Latvia in accordance with the European refugee transfer program, only five people decided to stay in that country, with the remaining refugees fleeing Latvia immediately upon their arrival. Among those who remained there was one family of three people and two more refugees, one of whom would still leave Latvia eventually.
The long list of domestic social problems in the Baltic states has been largely ignored by media engaged in a massive Russophobia campaign promoted by Washington. Yet, local governments are diverting funds from social programs in order to keep buying weapons from “first-tier” EU countries. As for the funds allocated by the so-called Western allies, the most Lithuanian armed forces can do with this kind of money is to purchase outdated M-14 rifles for the light motorized infantry brigade Aukštaitija, as it’s been noted by NATO Commander Lieutenant-General Vytautas Jonas Žukas in April.
According to Latvian media, Latvia can also afford the purchase of second-hand howitzers from Austria, paying 6 million euros up front, according to a deal signed by the Latvian Defense Minister Raymond Bergmanis.
It is unlikely that such used weapons can really be useful for the Baltic states since they’re not going to improve the social situation in these “second-tier” in any way.
Meanwhile, more than a half of Latvian bridges need urgent repairs, but funds are nowhere to be found. According to local authorities, the evaluation of the condition of more than 970 bridges conducted back in 2016 reveals the condition of 35% as bad, 13.1% as very bad, and 16 bridges bearing signs limiting the maximum mass of vehicles. In total, 467 similar engineering structures require urgent attention now.
M-14 are used in parades for those ceremony tricks with rifles… So no, You would not see anyone in the army using those except for the few M-14s that are repurposed as DMR’s (the same as in US service), but it is only a handfull of those. Standard rifles are Heckler & Koch G36 series rifles. Overall Lithuanian army is defense oriented. And no, that is not all that we can “afford” to buy. You can do a quick search, not only copy and paste someone else’s articles (which seem to be very one sided and biased).
Anti tank and air defense systems were bought mostly (Javelin’s for example). And 70 something of motorized armored troop carriers recently were ordered.
And again, we are not arming ourselves to go to war. We have relatively very little troops and a small army compared to anyone, so they have very modern equipment (since we still agreed for that 2% GDP Nato quota and that money kinda has to be spent).
Sounds like You are misleading people on purpose…
It’s well known, that booth of our countrys (Russia as well as Lithuania) looking at each other with suspicius eyes (1612, 1940).But living in Lithuania since 1994 I can only notice decline, comparing the Country now and than.
And, by the way, nobody wit a still funktion brain and eyes is believing in the offical numbers of loss of people. I guess, in realytie the number of people droped from 3.6 Million in 1993 to as little as 2 Million now. Go on a normal Saturday to Gedemino Prospektas in Vilnius. At 7.00 PM –
Silence! In the 1990th the Street was full of people till after Midnight.Now you only find people in front of some Hippster Cafè’s in Vilnius or Pilies gatve.
Palanga, my now hometown, apart from season
– Basicly dead. Now you are happy if you see one or two people in the street, if it’s not brilliant weather an Basanavicius gatve is halfway occupied.
The reason for these unrealistic data is simply that most of the people living abroad are simply still registred in Lithuania. First it gives you still relativly cheap medical care if you visiting and second if there is the prospect of inherating land from parents etc. the only way to get it is to be lithuanien citicen.
About the food stamps: Some of the comentators say that show’s how the givernment cares. Bullshit!! to put it mildly! It only show’s that first of all the capitalist system is not working in a way to garantie the people a normal living and second that the government is not capable of creating such working and living conditions that people get a sufficent income.
If You lived in Lithuania since 1994 and feel it is worse – You must have lived a very comfortable life in 1994. I do not know Your personal situation, but for ordinary people a lot of things have changed for the better. At least gang wars is again a thing You only watch in movies. 1990s were the true “wild west, or probably “wild east” would me more appropriate.
As for empty Vilnius – I have to call You out on this one. There is literally no space to park a car anywhere near the city center on weekends. There are traffic jams in the middle of the day on the weekends. So how it would happen if so many people emigrated? Because once again – they left the regions. And they moved to other EU countries or to few cities, mostly to Vilnius. That is the reason why Vilnius is actually gaining people for the last 8 years, not losing. So I would say You either have visited Vilnius some day when everyone was out. Or You have been there a very long time ago.
And by the way – when You say Palanga is mostly empty (except for summer), You should probably mentioned that Palanga is a summer resort town on a seaside. And with our weather the tourist season there is only about 3 months, June to August. Otherwise Palanga has a population of 15 000 people, which never was that much higher even when it was the destination for USSR elite “back in the day” (around 12 000 in the 80s and grew to 20 000 in 1990, so if You moved there after 1994 You’ve already missed “the peak”.
But I can agree on the point, that official numbers may be misleading (this would be an argument against my previous point). Since some people chose to declare their living place as Lithuania, but actually work and live somewhere in Dublin or London. The problem is that You will have issues with social security in both countries, so now most people opt to simply state their living place where it is (there was an influx of number of people who suddenly left after the government passed the law where people still have to pay social security taxes if they are registered here and work abroad). So yes, the total number may be skewed a little, but nowhere to the extent of it being 1 million people off.
Have You seen, how Lithuania and all Baltic states look like now? Who are these people, who are saying it is somehow worse now? I was born when Lithuania was still in USSR and lived through the struggles of the 90’s as a kid in school. It was insanely tough for most of the people, but damn, we are MILES ahead now. Look at any statistic that concerns the quality of life and compare it to say Belarus, the state that chose to stay with Russia. Crossing the border to Belarus is basically time travel. We have rebuilt our towns, adopted new technologies, we are just a few million people without any meaningful natural resources and we are doing pretty well. We do not have oil or natural gas, we opted to develop IT section and other high tech stuff. Yes, we have problems, just like any country does. We had a lot of people emigrate, because of open EU borders, but that’s natural. Most of the people who have left – they were unqualified work force. The real loss – the professionals who left for high paying jobs. But proportionally it was a small percentage of people who left.
And as for the so called “Russophobia” – no one hates Russians here. What the hell? We do not like your governments national policies and aggressive behavior towards neighbouring countries. But this has nothing to do with ordinary people living in Russia.
And what’s with “so called occupation”? It was an occupation, what the hell is wrong with You that You can’t admit it? USSR chased of the damn nazi’s from Lithuania – thanks, the whole Europe and the whole world owes You on that! Could have been heroes for everyone! But You overstayed a bit. 50 years is a bit too long to be a house guest, don’t you think? “You joined on Your own” – no we didn’t. Soviet government sent an ultimatum. Either we let the red army in or Lithuania will be annexed to Belarus. Then all the political parties were outlawed and the elections were held with only one party as an option. Does this sound like free will? Russian government keeps denying that it was an occupation. Just admit it and we can move on. We do not need or want anything, just say “Damn, sorry, it was a bad move on our part”. And let’s move on!
I have friends from Russia. They’ve asked me on several occasions “is it save to visit Baltic countries? We heard Russians are chased off by people”. What? Is that what You get on the news? No one cares. Like nobody. Yeah, probably it will be a bit difficult to speak with people in Ltihuania, since very few people under the age of 30 can speak Russian, but that’s about it. The only reason for the “chased off” myth I can think off is the fact that soviet and nazi symbolism is outlawed here. And it happens, that people try to cross the border with cars decorated with sickle and hammer, but they are denied permit. Stalin did send 200 000 Lithuanians to Siberia. It is almost 10% of the population at the time. A lot of those people died there or never came back. So You gotta understand that nazis killed more than 90 percent of the Jewish people here, and soviet regime sent almost twice as much people to gulags and work camps. We are not being unfair or discriminating against Russia, it is the soviet regime and their symbols that are outlawed.
“Russians are treated unfairly in Lithuania” – how? There are schools for kids who speak Russian. You are a full citizen, even if You are Russian and stayed here after the 1991. You have the same passport, You vote, You travel just like anybody else. ~5% of populations is Russian and speaks the language, You can’t expect us to use Russian language in everyday life. I get it, in USSR it was mandatory to use it for anything government related, but sorry, it was the rule under the regime and you just can’t expect it to be the same.
All in all – I do not get the hostility. There are of course lunatics here too, with unreasonable anger towards Russia. But then there is the same amount of people who passionately hate Trump. Or Merkel. Or our own government. That’s the freedom. But there is no such thing as a national hate towards Russian people. We would rather have business with You. We would like You to visit our cities, the countryside, SPA’s, come study, trade. Just own up Your mistakes and get off Your high horse. Yes, we are only a few million people in all the Baltic states, but we have been here long before Russia was united as a country or an empire. We grow potatoes. We drink beer. We play basketball. We are neither Slavic people, nor Scandinavian (maybe except for the Estonians, they are closer to Finland), we are not west Europeans. We are half pagans, thinking that we are christians. We love our swamps and forests. We will never be as friendly as south europeans, do not expect warm hugs from us, but that does not mean we are hostile. We simply want to live peaceful lives here and bicker among ourselves in our weird nonsensical language. We will not discriminate anyone as long as they come and live with us with good intentions.
Very interesting… but you say: “And as for the so called “Russophobia” – no one hates Russians here. What the hell? We do not like your governments national policies and aggressive behavior towards neighboring countries.”
How did Russia behave aggressively towards Lithuania in the past 2 decades?
And… while you expect Russia to apologize/accept guilt/ or whatever you wanna call it, do you realise that Russia is not USSR?! As soon as USSR ceased to exist, Lithuania gained its independence (in fact wasn’t that few years before the collapse of the USSR?).
Do you hold current Russian government responsible for what happened during and after WWII? If you do, do you also hold current German government accountable for WWII?
Just curious….
”It was an occupation, what the hell is wrong with You that You can’t admit it?”
Politically, the Baltic republics were very much the same in the 1920s and 1930s as they are today: extremely reactionary, belligerent sock-puppets of the West in general and Germany in particular. Stalin was absolutely right to put an end to these pathetic ”states”.
Today, under Western occupation the Baltics are literally dying, but of course they refuse to call a spade a spade. Both Estonia and Latvia have been destroyed utterly by Sweden’s rapacious banking sector, and Lithuania seems just as hopeless. And looking at Swedish society, things are going menacingly downhill here too, mind you. Not so much for myself personally — quite the opposite, actually — but unlike Mister G I don’t see this as proof positive of some kind of ’promising development’ of my own country. Really, if Sweden’s population were to dwindle on a scale like what transpires in the Baltics, I’d consider leaving myself too.
Andrey – for us it is mostly the large scale war games and cyber attacks. Economic disputes kinda fade away in the background of the large scale sanctions now, so I guess those are not relevant anymore. And when I mentioned neighbours – I was not necessarily talking about Lithuania. There are other countries that got involved in conflicts with Russia. And that is a point of concern for other former USSR countries.
I also understand the importance of Kaliningrad for Russia, but the military buildup there is rather suspicious for all the close neighbours. Since I actually can read Russian, it is a bit weird for me that it is always portrayed that NATO is going to attack Russia and Lithuania/Baltics are highly militarized because of that. We do not own a single tank. We do not own a single fighter jet. We do not have any long range missiles, no attack warships. Most of the new tech acquired – is defensive equipment (short range antitank and air defense systems). There is an aviation base and it is for NATO air police mission, and there are probably 4 jets there at best. So my best guess that both sides are just using one another as some sort of propaganda tool with neither side willing to back off. Although as I mentioned, we really do not have anything to attack anyone with.
As for the argument, that Russia is not USSR – it is a totally legit standpoint. The problem is that Russia is willing to accept all the victories and achievements of the USSR but not the negative aspects of that era. If Russia does not want to do anything with USSR how come ww2 victory parade is decorated with soviet symbols (the historical machines, tanks and banners with Stalin), all sorts of military ships and military bases are directly named by the USSR war heroes or officials (aircarft carrier “Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov” for example) And again, I get it. Every country portrays it’s own history in a positive light. You will find endless articles about Grand Duchy of Lithuania and their expansions in history books here. But the fact is that someones “glorious expansion” is someones occupation. We are guilty of that too. Someone in the comments mentioned Rūta Vanagaitė and her book about Jewish people that were killed by locals here. And it is completely true, no one denies it here. She just went on a rather misguided crusade believing she unearthed truth about important resistance members being guilty of that, but she actually got the torture reports from KGB archives were everyone admits everything and then dies. That particular person admitted a bunch of crimes and then “tried to commit suicide by removing his own testicles and gauging his eye with a wire” (can’t remember exact phrasing but those were his “self inflicted” wounds). But he survived. So he was shot in the back of the head as his punishment. There was a backlash against her because of that (it was hard for anyone to believe that suicide story), not because she said the well known facts. It was a very specific case but in reality there were a number of collaborators. Just like in every country that nazis set their foot on. Not enough to form a legion or anything, but still there were some. And it hurts, it hurts to think that Your own people would do that. You either accept the fact and have dialogue about it or You try to justify it no matter what. And I am all for having a discussion so it won’t happen ever again.
All I am saying that a simple acknowledgment would go a long ways.
Nussiminen – I’m sorry, but where are You from? Are You really from Sweden? What gives You a right to call one or another state “pathetic”? Do You even know the history of the land and the struggles of people You are talking about? “Literally dying”, “destroyed utterly” and “western occupation”? Have you been here recently? Again, I am not saying it is all sunshine and rainbows here, but we are fine. Biggest demographic hit was felt by the regions. A lot of young people who were not interested in pursuing higher education left for better paying jobs once the EU borders opened up, the thing that happened to most less economically advanced countries that joined EU. Second big wave was after the 2008 crash, which again – happened a lot in different countries. Emigration numbers dropped significantly after that and now fluctuates year to year. But no, we are not “literally dying”. We need work force in some sectors though, can’t deny that. But since the Baltic region, including Poland, have a higher economic growth than western EU countries (including Sweden) we are seeing an influx of workforce from countries like Belarus and Ukraine. The numbers still are on the negative side, but the lines on the charts are coming closer. So yeah, I can see positive aspects in the future of the region. Especially if we work out the differences with Russia in the long run and re-establish trading.
And if You are really from Sweden – I get Your saltiness to some degree. I have a client in Sweden and he describes the current climate there as very tense. He presented his arguments against EU from his standpoint and told me about all the problems caused directly by EU that are not widely reported in other countries (impact by the refugees, the overheating economic situation, real estate bubble and so on). But we are still on the receiving end of the EU support here, so maybe that is why we have an uplift now and maybe it is a temporal thing. But government in Sweden made some bad calls of their own. And that does not mean I wish someone “has a right to put an end” to your country, just because I do not like your policies. For a person, originating from a country that has enjoyed sovereignty for so long – You come of very entitled and arrogant. I really hope Your people will not have to endure struggles for independence and self identity.
And once again – potatoes, beer, forests. And we will greet you with a firm handshake (no hugs).
Skimming these lithuanian “adverts”, I’m reminded of the Iraqi government spokesman, during the Iraq war crime, who kept up the Iraq was winning line as pindo forces entered Baghdad.
Sure, whatever You like to think. I am an actual person living here. Dealing with problems here (AGAIN – of which are many, like I said numerous times now). Working and paying my taxes. I am usually the one who demands better things from the government.
Just trying to figure out what the hell is with this hatred and passion to write “failed states” about Baltic countries in Russian or pro Russian sites? Since it seems none of the people writing or sharing these stories have actual knowledge about life here. There are plenty of issues and a lot of bad statistics regarding Baltic countries. Social issues are discussed here every day. But articles like these completely ignore the positive statistics. Not mentioning investment rates, economic growth, quality of life index, freedom indexes, corruption indexes and so on.
I am trying to have a dialogue, but if You only want to be reassured in what You already believe – what’s the point? If You are hellbent on believing that we live here in ruins and it helps You feel better at night – well You can have it I guess, does not impact me a lot.
P.S. Judging by the name “Vot Tak” – You should probably constrain Yourself from mentioning war crimes.
All this, which ever country this type of food stamp program goes on, shows there is something very wrong with the economic structure and monetary flows if such supplements have to happen.
Similarly is the fact the western countries and others ever since ancient times have had to use Govt spending to keep the private sector afloat. Usually a lot of it gets put into weapons and has done significantly since the time of the Romans etc.. with most of the remainder on public works.
Its appaulling and an indictment on the USA that 42 million people need food stamps. The cause of this is giving too many tax breaks to the rich over the decades and Democrats there not wanting to fix it as they need those people like that to vote for them.
As long as those who need it get a benefit then its a plus.
The food stamp initiative is rather difficult to understand for locals too. The prime minister tried to present it as some sort of a scheme to promote small businesses in regions. But it is a very weird approach. The problem is that we have the gap between the few cities and countryside. Three biggest cities are doing very well, meanwhile all the regions shrink (even though we still have a negative number on imigration/emigration charts the cities are actually gaining new people every year). So people migrate not only from the country, but from countryside to the cities. And small local communities are simply not able to sustain themselves. I am not sure what the correct course of action would be, but food stamps (which in reality are more like discount coupons for select products) are not one of them. I would rather see government invest in actual business promotion in regions. Creating opportunities for people to change profession, tax cuts for small or first time businesses, something like that. Food stamps may end up insulting or angering people.
I may be proven wrong though, I do not have a proper economical education to speculate on the success of such program, it is just my opinion.
Lithuanian here, can confirm that thr article is very liberal with their “facts”, no surprise as it’s Kremlin propaganda.
Feel free to post a rebuttal or send me an article to post
cheers,
The Saker
@Mister G
I’ve read carefully your comments and don’t understand a few things.
Are you talking only about Lithuania, or for all the Baltic states? If the second is the case, hasn’t Latvia adopted a law that forbid giving Russian names to children? Also, more than a few times, haven’t the Latvians tried to curb the use of Russian in elementary and high schools? Don’t you think there are too many citizens with unidentified citizenship in the Baltic countries?
When NATO regularly holds drills in Lithuania or any other Baltic country, gathering forces from all around the world, do you think these drills are for defense purposes? When you speak about a NATO aviation base- do you really believe it hosts 4 jets? And do you believe in NATO or some other world military alliance has air ,,police” missions?
When you mention positive statistics, high indexes, positive statistics, investment rates, economic growth, quality of life index, freedom indexes, corruption indexes and so on, do you understand they are only indexes which can be construed one way or the other? E.g. when many people leave a country the employment index goes high. By asking this I don’t want to take away the good things the Baltic states are accomplishing (e.g. world leaders in digitalisation).
Good questions. Good observation (unemployment “goes down” when the young ones leave the country). This phenomenon was observed in Spain when in the middle of the worst crisis (not solved yet) the government was publishing (ie cheating) data on how employment was “improving”, this was the result of unemployed people leaving the country in masse, to Latinamerica and the rest of Europe. I have to add the sad reality that many young women from Balticum end up working in brothels, in Germany for instance. Would they do that if the economy, employment perpectives of their home country was good? I guess No.
@Jован П – Hi, good questions, actually. Thanks for taking the time to read through all the messages. When I talk about economic situation I am confident to include all three Baltic states. Estonia is doing the best of all three. But there is a significant difference in the matter of Russian language and use of it in all three countries.
So for Latvia – they have a way higher percentage of Russians/Russian speaking people living there (~5% in Lithuania, but more than 25% in Latvia) so they have a set of issues that are not present here. And to be honest – this is the first time I am hearing that they would ban Russian names (Which would be insane, since half the Latvians I know have Russian first or last names). I know they have the issue with how the names are registered and put on papers (that may actually be the same problem You are talking about). Since neither Lithuanian or Latvian language has Cyrillic alphabet, all the foreign names are extremely hard to enter into any database. And this is an issue not only with Russian language, but basically any foreign language. Lithuania has a long standing issue with Poland for the same reason. Polish names are written without “W” in Lithuanian papers and databases for example and this is a touching subject for all ethnic Poles here. I think this may be what is happening in Latvia too. You could write names in couple of languages, there are numerous countries that do this for official documents, but the country has to change or add national languages thus changing the constitution, which automatically triggers a call for referendum. And this being a sensitive issue (in Lithuania it was forbidden by law to use Lithuanian language by Imperial Russia, so we had book smugglers print books in Lithuanian outside the country and bring them through border until the WW1, not sure about Latvia though). So we are rather protective of the languages now. And they are very old, last surviving Baltic languages, some of the most archaic and old languages in Europe.
And I am not sure how the education system works in Latvia. In Lithuania there are Russian spoken schools and parents can opt to send children there, if they so desire. The only problem for the minorities is that You will still have to take the national Lithuanian language exam. It is rather easy to pass it, but everyone want’s good grades for a chance at a better university. Because of these issues the exam is rather simplified now and You can simply learn technical aspects of it and score well (so obviously there are even people now who complain about it being minority favoring, but people will find some excuses to be dissatisfied in any situation). I should read into what’s the practice like in Latvia and what is the situation with Russian language in schools and preschools. If they have it in all schools and want it to move to separate schools – I understand the issues since it may look like a segregation. For us here it is a small percentage of pupils and in only a couple of specific regions, so there would be like one person per whole class speaking Russian. So it makes sense for a separate school. But again, this comes back to the question of national language and integration. I understand their will to protect the language, but almost 1/3 of population can’t be ignored too.
As for citizenship – in Lithuania there is only one type of passport for everyone. Everyone who stayed after the collapse of USSR got the same citizenship. In Latvia they made a huge mistake (in my opinion) and they issued separate passports for non Latvians. Which of course triggered a list of problems. There are around 200k people with somewhat limited access to social rights (voting). So that is the problem and they have been urged to solve it by numerous organizations. They still have a lot of work to do there. And they would have had way less problems if they would not have treated anyone as a second class citizen.
Estonia has a similar ethnic minority of Russian people, but majority of them speak Estonian, so I am not really aware of their issues with the languages. And overall we know way less about Estonia here, they are tied closely to Finland and we can’t understand a single word they say (Latvian is very similar to Lithuanian, but a bit more modern and makes more sense). But they have a more advanced voting system and even temporal residents have right to vote in the country.
As for NATO and drills – yes, actually they are mostly defensive drills. And no matter how much they want to publicize them – they are very limited in scope. There is limited space for them to do any training, only one military training ground in LT big enough to host it and it is a small area even for artillery practice. That’s why most of the media pictures You will find – they are in the forests practicing guerilla warfare.
And yes – there are literally 4 Nato air police jets in Lithuania at a time. The airport was so small, they had to reconstruct it to even fit those. But to be fair, it is a small country and You can cross it with a jet rather fast. Another 4 are in Estonia I think. So 8 jets at the time total. Oh, and we actually HAVE ONE jet… Aero L-39 Albatros. A training model. We had two, but one crashed and sank in a swamp… You can find the list online too. And the airbase is very small, it is not even masked on google maps, public roads are just next to the fence, no hidden jets or invisible Tony Stark tech… And our own government would be first to announce any additional jets, they are politicians. They will use any card to gain votes, this is universal, sadly.
And I am not really sure why they call it “air police mission”. They do what jets do. Go in the sky, identify non responding air crafts (this is the most common issue, since Russian planes often fly with auto response systems off, I think it is not mandatory in Russian air space for them) and escort them.
As for statistics – I think they are a very “slippery” things. I am not a fan of using them in any normal face to face conversation, since we could have observable facts to discuss. But some people only want numbers. And I can’t “just promise” You that we have an economic uplift just because I and all the people around me are feeling it (yet as I mentioned this mostly applies to urban areas, countryside regions are on decline because of emigration). So I have to use some statistics, that are preferably made by international observes that are not biased. And some things are just the things You can feel. Corruption for example. Since a lot of things moved online – it robs corrupt officials of a lot of opportunities to take “gifts” from people. There are multiple high profile corruption cases going on that would have been “overlooked” in the past. in the 1990s half the country was literally run by mafia, and I mean the “gunfights in the daytime, exploding cars and exploding mafia hideaway restaurants” way. All gone now. Urban infrastructure is hard to measure in any statistic, but it is so much more comfortable to live in a well thought out and clean cities. Soviet era buildings being renovated (required by law), new modern ones already built and even more being built, public spaces restored or new ones aranged. It is a bit like a myth with Russia in the west. They still think it is just grey concrete buildings, without bothering to look up how St. Peterburg or Moscow look now. People in the west would still be surprised to see Starbucks or Subway in Moscow, just as much as in Vilnius (although they would be able to find Moscow on the map).
So all in all it is rather weird for me, this hostility. As I said – a number of issues here, but people are honestly trying to solve them. Some of them are very sensitive issues. A nation, that has been oppressed for a long period of time will most likely be hesitant to “forget and forgive” very fast, but we must. You have to learn from past mistakes, Your own or someone else’s, not repeat them. And as I mentioned, I sometimes go through Russian sites and articles. And I can easily understand how both sides are being brainwashed. This artificial hostility is only useful for people in power. That is why I said, that government and people are not the same. Media is not reliable when it is state run or when it is profit oriented. The first one allows only one sided view. The second one will puke up anything that generates clicks, controversies and most importantly – revenue. And I can see some lunatic posting some batsh*t crazy conspiracy theory about USA or Russia here in Lithuania in some “yellow press” site. But then a couple of weeks later I see the same article on Russian sites, just chopped up, making it sound official and made by “reputable sources” (aka tinfoil hat dude who logged 300 hours in Call of Duty and now is guns and warfare expert). Same goes the other way. “Zhirinovsky says Russia should nuke Baltic countries”. Article would make it sound like it is the official mindset of Duma. Just to generate clicks, to sell ad space.
So you find two sources, read them through and only look for information that is present in both of them. It usually paints a very different picture. Unfortunately it is not encouraged these days or people are just lazy :/
GDP-PPP per capita in countries once part of Russian Empire(2017, source IMF):
1) Finland…………… $ 44,050
2) Lithuania………… $ 31,935
3) Estonia…………….$ 31,473
4) Poland……………..$ 29,251
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5) Russia ……………..$ 27,890
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6) Latvia……………….$ 27,291
7) Belarus…………….$ 18,616
8) Ukraine…………….$ 8,656
It’s hard to say how much so called freedom (from Russia) has benefited these countries economically. Baltic countries were once economically on same level with Great Duchy of Finland so it’s obvious that only Finland have had gains but most of it’s independence (from 1945) has been not so much confrontation with Russia/USSR. In fact Finns have been since WW2 much more co-operating having flexible foreign policy (with Russia/USSR) than these post Soviet-era former republics. Ukraine has of course been total fiasco and farce.