My story from Lithuania has recently aired on Deutsche Welle Living Planet
Books replace travel: not my Vilnius in Vaiva Rykštaitė’s novel
I have never been so ‘grounded’ for 12 years or so – although travel options briefly reopened in summer, going to see my family and friends in Lithuania became overly complicated, and going on a holiday abroad felt irresponsible. So since March the furthest I’ve been from this rock is a smaller nearby rock that is Gozo. This left me …
Libraries, public space and obsession with cafes
A NYT article about libraries and civil society was one of the warmest and most hopeful texts from the other side of the Atlantic in the recent years. It made several key points: libraries are open, inclusive and fun spaces to interact – or to be by oneself. The growing emphasis on libraries can hopefully replace the recent obsession with …
Vacations in Lithuania and ‘the storm of the decade’
Come to Lithuania in June, they said. Chill and swim in a lake, they said. So I expected to have very chill vacations, looking scruffy and eating garden-grown veggies. But then my friend and comrade Sandra put me in a designer dress for a photoshoot for her magazine, Verslo pietūs. Focusing on success stories, her magazine has become home for …
Typical vs. traditional food
In Budapest, where we had a much-debated international festival, my Latvian friend once told me a funny story about his exchange semester in the US. When asked to make typical food for some kind of food day on a warm weekend, he didn′t hesitate to bring some meat skewers. To the shock of his Armenian colleagues, he made shashlik. “It …
False news, world literature maps, and why not anything goes for small countries
Culture reporting is every bit as serious as war reporting. – My friend Alexandra Belopolsky, a culture reporter Several of my Facebook friends shared this map, which claims to represent each country’s favorite book. How does one measure that, the creators did not bother to explain too much. A reddit list became the primary venue to crowdsource this information, but …
How to survive the cold in the Baltics
Two annoying cliches I keep hearing in my travels are: “Are you saying you’re cold? But you must be used to it!” and “Lithuania? Is it cold over there?” Northern location plus climate change mean that it may or may not be cold in the Baltics. It depends on winds. I never ask Americans if they have tornadoes all the …
Trying out the treetop walkway before fall colors it
Half a year ago Anykščiai treetop walkway was one of the five finalists for the UNWTO Award for Innovation in Enterprises – a reward for innovative tourism projects. When it was opened in August last year, people were crowding to enter it, and even the president of the country took selfies on it.
Lake Vištytis: natural wonders and border tourism
I discovered Vištytis in March while carrying out a project on borders. Everything was covered with snow and the little houses on the campsite by the lake seemed lonely and as though they were spending winter in hibernation. But I was interested in everything: the mysterious landscape, conversations with locals who speak both neighbour countries’ languages, and the legends about …
New beginning – The Lithuania Tribune
I am starting to cooperate with the English version of Delfi, the largest news portal in Lithuania, – The Lithuania Tribune. Here I will paste links to my articles to keep them in one place. December 2015 Creativity and boredom in a Lithuanian town coping with globalisation (reporting on increasingly diverse student recruitment and youth unemployment in Alytus) Hanukkah in …