Lithuania

As some of you know, Lithuania is waiting (or not) for its first LGBT parade/demo on the 8th of May. It was, as expected, a very controversial issue, yet the way it will go will provide an important test for Lithuanian democracy.

The story is in Lithuanian, but it's worth taking a look at the photos and translating where to find them. I think all of them sound interesting.

The source is Pravda, the free monthly Lithuanian hipster's bible. It started as an amateur cultural zine several years ago. First it had English summaries of every article. Gradually, we saw it become increasingly professional, commercial, and, sorry to say, snobbish. It also uncritically supported some shady elite projects, such as the idea to establish a subsidiary of the Guggenheim museum in Vilnius, which has become a metaphor for corruption in cultural policy. The magazine lost another part of its credibility in my eyes when it published it first political advertisement during the last electoral campaign. It promoted Gintaras Steponavicius - he was standing in the middle of a colourful page, skilfully designed to please hipster eyes.

However, Pravda is an unparallelled source of "what, when and where?", and their creative columns are a good source to get to know Vilnius (it never tried to effectively embrace other cities, yet it always announces what cultural events are happening there). For example, their humorous series of stereotypical characters (drawn and described in a funny way, but without offence, so that everyone can relate them to at least a few people) was a delight; their descriptions of marginal streets of Vilnius are inspiring, and I often search out the music they recommend. Their website offers weekly free MP3 packages promoting new indie bands - something I always take advantage of. 

It would be interesting to hear more opinions about Pravda. Meanwhile, check their gallery of Chinese fake goods - it made my day :D

My friend M. wrote on his facebook that it's not his 30th birthday that makes him feel old, but rather knowing that Freddie Mercury died 18 years ago. It made me think about my memories of that time, when I was still at primary school, with a childish awareness that one of my childhood heroes died from a terrible disease called AIDS. When one teacher, following some comment of mine about Mercury, said that he had an 'unusual lifestyle', 'no family and many women' (implying, perhaps, that he's not a suitable role model), I wasn't able to make a connection between the 'lifestyle' and the disease.

These memories made me think about 90s in Lithuania, full of all these foreign influences, local sensitivities and anxious uncertainty, and in this post I want to share the things I remember.

"When I see that after this [the govt's decision to decrease salaries in public schools by 5%, while other employees of the public sector got a 10% decrease] a part of the labour unions come and protest, I start doubting whether we did the right thing by applying a different [salary] reduction rate to some groups, despite the fact that some ministers encouraged applying a unified rate for all" - that's what the PM said as teachers' unions were protesting against the so-called National Agreement (= the govt, representatives of big business, representatives of the bureaucracy from mock unions).

Two murders shocked my hometown Kaunas. When I heard that a judge was murdered, I thought, 'Mafia shootouts - here they go again'... We have more or less forgotten about them since the 90s. However, the case proved to be quite different. It provokes thousands of comments on news portals every day now.

As some of you know, a monument to Vincas Kudirka, the author of the Lithuanian anthem, was recently unveiled in the Municipality Square. Apparently, there was previously a statue of some soviet general. Some people have already noticed that the statue rigorously follows the 'best' characteristics of soviet ideological sculpture.

The author I referred to above claims that the statue reminds him of young Lenin. He ends his opinion piece by encouraging to stop defacing Vilnius and kick the spirit of Lenin away from the city.

I don't find anything outrageous about the statue The way the square is designed now is absolutely surreal and surpasses all parodies. Precisely the things which are created in order to be dead-serious can cross the limits of absurd in such a way as to make them pleasurable. The piece of stone behind Mr. Kudirka has the lyrics of the Lithuanian anthem and emits green light when it's dark.The monument, which was built to cater for national(ist?) sentiments, now embodies the pathetic efforts of Lithuania to reproduce itself as a patriotic (the writer) yet ultra modern (the green glow a la 'Matrix') and, no no, not-post-soviet-at-all country.

As I'm sitting at the first Coffee Inn and blogging, I see a big add in front of me, vaguely inviting people to "sense - see, hear, smell, taste, touch Vilnius" - a hint about a new event from the Capital of Culture repertoire. This particular space is marked with an ear - people will soon be able to hear something, I don't know what. What can one hear in that space at the moment? Chatting of teenagers, mumbling of a homeless man harassing people in search for a compassionate soul to give him some money, before he gets kicked away by a guard from a nearby cafeteria. This "sense" project, however, gives me some inspiration.

Seems to be interesting: political, social and cultural analysis of the creation of the Scandinavian region. Nobody from Lithuania is presenting though.

Everyone who is in Vilnius that day should take a look. All but one presentations will be in Lithuanian, but I will be in charge of simultaneous translation in case anyone wants to hear them in English.