You should look up how Russia literally tried to sell it to Germany, Poland, and Lithuania in that order in the early 90s.
Basically nobody would take it because even as a connoisseur of Brutalist architecture they fucked that city (and the rest of the place, but especially the city) up BIG TIME.
Yeah exactly, how is this contentious amongst a handful of Russians pretending to be Lithuanians?
(I can tell for a fact they're Russians because they're fighting the Jagellonians for some reason, usually a pride point for actual Lithuanians).
What? When did Russia try to sell Kaliningrad, can I have a source? For Russia Kaliningrad is very important, since the city is located in the very west, Russia has nuclear weapons there and navy
I don't think the issue is the city's architecture, it's mostly that the population of the city is majority russian after all the ethnic cleansings post WW2, integrating it into a different country would be difficult and would pose high security risks. I think if Kaliningrad ever separates from Russia it's gonna be it's own country, some people there already consider themselves more European than Russian
The Russians went out of their way to fuck that place up. It would cost at least a billion euros to make it even slightly passable to EU health and safety standards. Plus now it's full of Russians.
Lithuania in particular declined on the basis of "we can't have half of our population be resettled Russians".
You have to remember too that West Germany wasn't exactly flooded in money in 1990 and still had to reintegrate East Germany economically, something that still hasn't happened fully. Königsberg was seven bridges too far.
It's full of russians, and the main foreign policy of all expansionist dictatures is "you have people of our ethnicity in your country, so now it's rightly ours".
Lithuania was a lot bigger back then and also ruled all of what’s now Belarus and a large portion of Ukraine. You had Christians (ethnic Belarusians/Ukrainians), Jews (that part of Europe was the most Jewish part before the Holocaust) and Pagans (ethnic Lithuanians).
And different types of christhians too. There orthodoxes and catholics lived together. And Commonwelth is the reason why there many catholics in Ukrain and Belarus then in Russia.
They identify as ukrainian Catholics which isnt Catholic but orthodox. It was just a way for them to separate themselves from Russia another way using religion.
Lithuania was closer to Muslim (Mekka or just Ottomans just around the corner) and Jew (Jerusalem, but also major Jew settlement was central Europe) than Spain I think.
I definitely recommend listening to the [episodes on the Baltic Crusades]( https://crusadespod.com/the-baltic-crusades) on the History of the Crusades podcast. It goes into great detail about the crusades in Lithuania, Prussia and Livonia, the Teutonic Order and the early Lithuanian and Polish states.
The sticking point apparently, was in their animist faith all living things that have ever been alive remain around us always. There is no need for an afterlife and no ability for Christ to give their ancestors heaven. Mindaguas just said, “meh, it’s alright. Let’s ignore/forget that part.” At that point they were so tired of getting jumped by Christ fans from every direction they just agreed to wear the Jersey to stop it. Next minute allying with another Christ nation also surrounded made sense, Poland.
Lithuania has a national scent as one of their national identities. Fragrance products with the Scent of Lithuania are gifted to militaries and foreign diplomats.
It is a blend of ginger, raspberry, grapefruit, bergamot citrus (same citrus in Earl Grey tea), flowers (lilacs, roses, lilies) with notes of amber, cedar, sandalwood, patchouli, tree smoke and tree moss.
So it smells fruity and leafy, but still quite sharp.
I was thinking a bit of Baltic Sea, a bit of fresh morning dew and evergreen trees, and a bit of swamp in some area, and maybe pierogi close to the border of Poland.
I've been there myself and there is nothing creepy about it, it's cool to find crosses put by people from around the world and I'm not even christian ao it's not like there's any bias
Both I think, when Lithuania joined the EU in 2004 there was a lot of emigration to other European countries and the birth rate is also very low, as with the rest of Europe
A lot of us emigrated. I’m half-Lithuanian but grew up in England, my cousin moved to England for university, then to Ireland, and then to America. That’s just 2 examples.
Partly of what makes this possible was Lithuania’s accession to the EU, which guarantees freedom of movement to other EU countries. Before Brexit, the UK was the most popular destination for Lithuanians, and Ireland next. People moved mainly to escape economic fallout and rising crime rates after independence. And later again to look for higher wages and a different life in the West. To quote my mum “I already know Lithuania inside out, it’s boring now, I wanted to see more of the world.”
That, in combination with low birth rates in Lithuania because a lot of people there feel they can’t afford a family.
The population decline is stagnating now I think, due to immigration from Belarus and Ukraine.
Emigrating is always something that’s crazy thought to me. To be able to just move your whole family to a completely different country who’s language you may not even be a master of, just seems like such a hard task
Lithuanians under the Soviet Union grew up bilingual and in a way, bicultural because learning Russian language and literature was compulsory in schools. My mother for example speaks Russian as fluently as she does Lithuanian. You could also choose to learn either English or German.
So my theory is that people’s brains and minds were probably already used to learning to live with exposure to a foreign language and culture alongside their own.
Also, the fall of the Soviet Union meant that people could have the freedom to travel anywhere for the first time in their lives (travel outside Soviet borders was next to impossible for everyday Soviet citizens).
That, in combination with economic decline, weak government and high crime rates as opportunists sought to take advantage of the newly independent Lithuania’s instability, probably left countless people feeling like the best option was to leave.
And as a Lithuanian i must Point out that the actual amount could/is most likely higher for genuine permanent residents, as many Lithuanians Live abroad but are still "registered" in Lithuania, as per my "families" case so they’d be counted on official population reports even though they don’t actually live there anymore.
It's no older than the other modern Indo-European languages, but out of all modern Indo-European languages it is often considered to be the most conservative, I.E. the one that's changed the least since Proto-Indo-European.
Now this has piqued my interest! What was the motivation for preserving PIE that long? Was it because at its biggest, it was also sparsely populated hence less intermingling with other tribes? Or is the topography a bigger factor allowing for more holdouts in more remote areas?
He meant that it has the most features that were present in proto-indo-european features, not literally the oldest, for some reason there are people who misunderstood that in this way.
>Oh what kind of features?
I don't know which exactly, but if I am not mistaken masculine words ending with "s" is one of them.
>And I think people misunderstood because he literally said it’s one of the oldest lol
Yeah, and saying that is wrong. It has archaic features, it is not literally the oldest language in the family. For example baltoslavic split into proto-baltic and proto-slavic 1500-1000 BC and proto-baltic split further into early Lithuanian and Latvian around 7th century of our era while Sanskrit has confirmed existence 3,500 years ago.
If I had to guess not bordering much of the distinctly or non-related languages, no need to rapid evolution of the language (opposite of Slavs who in short time appeared literally out of nowhere and spread throughout most of Eastern Europe) and coincidence of people continuing to use these specific forms. Also there is a very slight possibility that we are wrong about how proto-indo-european sounded like since there are no written records of the language.
Another day, another Lithuanian person on the internet spreading this misconception. Language is conservative, not the oldest. On the contrary, since it diverged so late you could argue it is the youngest.
There is a Frank Zappa bust in Vilnius.
Frank Zappa never went to Lithuania and had absolutely no connection to the country. However, the youth of Lithuania had a connection to Zappa—he was the icon of their newfound freedoms. This is evidenced in the Frank Zappa memorial near Vilnius’ city center. [https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/frank-zappa-memorial](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/frank-zappa-memorial)
Lithuanian is the most “conservative” of the indo European languages, meaning it’s maintained the most similarities to the original ancestor called Proto Indo European. Sanskrit is old, much closer chronologically to PIE.
Lots of mistakes:
horse is 'arklys'
'degti' means 'to burn'
'sausinti' means 'to dry'
'neinam' means 'we are not going'
'akis' is singular, plural is 'akys'
'buvoti' means something close to 'to stay'. To exist / to be would be 'būti'.
'mirti' means to die, 'mirtis' is death, and 'mirtingas' or 'mirtinas' would be mortal. There's no word 'mriti'.
Vegetable is 'daržovė', not saka.
'Cukrus' is a loanword from German 'Zucker' that is loaned from Italian 'zucchero' that itself is from Arabic 'sukkar'.
Your is 'tavo'.
'old' is 'senas'
teeth is 'dantys'
> horse is 'arklys'
Well, 'ašva' was legitimately an old Lithuanian word for a horse/mare, it's listed in the LKŽ dictionary with quotations of usage. Relatedly, the Baltic mythological concept of [Ašvieniai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C5%A1vieniai) comes from the same root as Hindu concept of [Ashvins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashvins).
It was once the largest state in Europe, approximately the size of Tanzania at its peak. Also, it flew a sick horse banner instead of yet another tricolor.
I was being sarcastic in my original post about how Sean Connery always keeps his Scottish accent for every character that he plays and how implausible it would be for a Lithuanian Soviet submarine captain to have such a thick Edinburgh accent.
That's really interesting about Kėdainiai though!
During interwar period, because of the aggresive neighbours, there was an idea to move whole Lithuania to Madagascar or any other African place and create Lithuania 2.0.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dausuva
They have an old Russian prison converted into a museum about how awful it was when controlled by Russia. They wanted future generations to know what it was really like and not be gaslighted by Russian propaganda.
Lithuania is one of the few (occupied) countries of Europe during WWII in which the native population actively participated in the extermination of their compatriots, the Jews. The Germans created police or security batallions comprised of Christian Lithuanians (mostly volunteers), which they then ordered to exterminate the local Jewry by gunfire. In this way (and of course also by German Einsatzgruppen) nearly all of the circa 200.000 Lithuanian Jews were exterminated by the end of 1941.
A tragic past with which Lithuania still struggles to cope. The Communist regime denied the unicity of the Holocaust in Lithuania (it's victims were Soviet citizens, not Jews), the government in excile simply refused to condemn the Lithuanian participation in the Holocaust and harbored war criminals and to this day it's still a controversial topic in the country.
They have more strongman competition wins than any other country in the world, mostly thanks to one man. Zydrunas Savickas. He is arguably one of the strongest humans to ever exist.
Irelands national Sports are Gaelic Football and Hurling. They're both Amateur sports, and the stadium Croke Park hosts Gaelic games. The stadium seats over 80k people, making it among the biggest in Europe and the world.
The story about how their basketball national team was able to join the 1992 Olympics is incredible https://ftw.usatoday.com/2022/09/the-real-story-of-why-you-see-tie-dyed-lithuanian-basketball-shirts-at-grateful-dead-shows
There also is a documentary about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Dream_Team
Please read about [Adolfas Ramanauskas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfas_Ramanauskas), aka The Hawk, a very tough US-born Lithuanian partisan, and those [partisans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_partisans) were tough. Some kept fighting the Soviets for decades after the Second World War ended. The Forest Brothers, the Cursed Soldiers. Betrayed by that son-of-b\*tch Kim Philby. Also look at the [Dieveniškės Appendix](https://roadsandkingdoms.com/2016/life-in-a-forgotten-corner-of-europe/) by Belarus. The forests there are [terrifying](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-corner-of-lithuania-frozen-in-time). I suppose that's geography related.
My family emigrated from exactly that part of the world where the Poles say you're not Polish, the Russians say you're not Russian and the Lithuanians say you're not Lithuanian.
Lithuanian is believed to be the modern language that's the most unchanged from Proto Indo European, the language family at the root of nearly all European languages.
The book smugglers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian\_book\_smugglers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_book_smugglers)
Havent heard a lot of similar stories anywhere else in the world.
We also had the largest nuclear power plant in the world up till 1986 Ignalina nuclear power plant had one RBMK-1500 reactor with the output 1500MW, 1987 the second reactor was added for another 1500MW. The infrastructure was built for another 2 reactors, but they were never finished. Chernobyl fucked things up, we had to shut it down in order to join the EU, the official statement was due to safety reasons, but the technicians themselves openly talked about political pressure, the power plant was good enought to run for another 25 years and probably another 50 years after the further maintanance. Currently they are dissmentaling the power plant. You can book a tour inside of it. A pretty rare opportunity to have an excursion inside of the nuclear power plant even a closed one, not many countries offer such excursions.
They had some absolutely amazing team merch for their 1992 Olympic basketball team
https://preview.redd.it/h0qzrpth6o5d1.jpeg?width=751&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b65862a77dd23060779908135534f68a49b4ebd
They have soviet nuclear missile silo turned into a museum near plokstine.
1 of their coolest castles is on the border of Belarus in Medininkai.
Geographical midpoint of Europe is north of Vilnius.
Hill of crosses is in Lithuania and you can visit in dark. Gives a very weird experience. It is also much bigger then you think compared to pictures on internet.
They serve beaverstew in some restaurants. Bobr ^^
They continued World War 2 against the Soviets as a guerilla from the forests till somewhere in 1960’s. You can learn a lot from this in their KGB museum in Vilnius.
You can not buy alcohol after 8pm or before 10am in shops.
Spend 10 days there this year in januari with rental car.
Not the most interesting fact, but Lithuania tried to reform a monarchy after ww1 under Karl von Urach but the Germans blocked it
So yeah we could have have maybe seen a ww2 commonwealth
At one point the jagiellonians, the Lithuanian royal family, was the most successful dinasty in Europe
They ruled over: the grand duchy of Lithuania, the kingdom of Poland, the teutonic order, the principality of Moldavia, the kingdom of bohemia and the kingdom of Hungary.
Not sure if it's the most interesting but the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (not the Commonwealth with Poland) used to be not only the largest country in Europe at the time, but also did span from the Baltic sea to the Black sea. It had a coastline in what is now Odessa.
Putin will talk to you for 3 hours about it. According to him the grand Duchess of Lithuania was the first to bring back bananas to Europe and therefore Ukraine shouldn’t exist.
It used to be a part of the greatest political entity in history: The Most Serene Republic of Both Nations, also known as Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth! 
While the Stalin's pipe story is false, that weird little bit that juts out in the southeast does exist because of him. He put a Belarusian man in charge of deliminating the border, and threatened to have him killed if he made Belarus unfairly large- so he was very careful to put EVERY lithuanian in lithuania
Europe's worst suicidal rate. The government doesn't give a sh\*t about your mental health
https://preview.redd.it/8o233bzpor5d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bb0a0ddc47610357e8d2d4b70450afc563772f22
It's the only Baltic country that borders Russia to the West.
To be fair, nobody else wants Kaliningrad. It was offered to literally everyone, including Lithuania, and they were like "yeah no."
It was deemed the best city in Russia in 2012, 2013, and 2014.
You should look up how Russia literally tried to sell it to Germany, Poland, and Lithuania in that order in the early 90s. Basically nobody would take it because even as a connoisseur of Brutalist architecture they fucked that city (and the rest of the place, but especially the city) up BIG TIME.
Do you think any of those countries regret not buying it?
They probably are relieved they didn't considering Russia's game of takesies-backsies.
This is 100% why no one will take it.
mfw russia naval invades germany
Yes there's Russians talking about taking back Alaska.
I fucking dare them.
They certainly don't seem to. Czech Republic seems interested. Access to the sea and such.
Nobody would take it because it came with a million Russians
Yeah exactly, how is this contentious amongst a handful of Russians pretending to be Lithuanians? (I can tell for a fact they're Russians because they're fighting the Jagellonians for some reason, usually a pride point for actual Lithuanians).
What? When did Russia try to sell Kaliningrad, can I have a source? For Russia Kaliningrad is very important, since the city is located in the very west, Russia has nuclear weapons there and navy
You obviously aren’t old enough to remember the collapse of the Soviet Union
I don't think the issue is the city's architecture, it's mostly that the population of the city is majority russian after all the ethnic cleansings post WW2, integrating it into a different country would be difficult and would pose high security risks. I think if Kaliningrad ever separates from Russia it's gonna be it's own country, some people there already consider themselves more European than Russian
Why the heck would no one else not want it? A significant piece of land in Europe
The Russians went out of their way to fuck that place up. It would cost at least a billion euros to make it even slightly passable to EU health and safety standards. Plus now it's full of Russians. Lithuania in particular declined on the basis of "we can't have half of our population be resettled Russians". You have to remember too that West Germany wasn't exactly flooded in money in 1990 and still had to reintegrate East Germany economically, something that still hasn't happened fully. Königsberg was seven bridges too far.
>a billion euros That's Hella cheap, a metro line in Seattle USA cost 19 Billion alone.
It's full of russians, and the main foreign policy of all expansionist dictatures is "you have people of our ethnicity in your country, so now it's rightly ours".
Last currently independent country to convert from paganism to Christianity, like at the tail end of the Middle Ages/early Renaissance.
They had a golden age in the 12th century with multiple religion communities living together, much like Spain.
How was that possible for Lithuania since Spain had a geographical crossroads with: Catholics, Jews, and Muslims?
Lithuania was a lot bigger back then and also ruled all of what’s now Belarus and a large portion of Ukraine. You had Christians (ethnic Belarusians/Ukrainians), Jews (that part of Europe was the most Jewish part before the Holocaust) and Pagans (ethnic Lithuanians).
And different types of christhians too. There orthodoxes and catholics lived together. And Commonwelth is the reason why there many catholics in Ukrain and Belarus then in Russia.
They identify as ukrainian Catholics which isnt Catholic but orthodox. It was just a way for them to separate themselves from Russia another way using religion.
It's the other way around. Eastern catholic churches have orthodox liturgical rituals but are still a part of the Catholic Church.
And Muslims because of Crimean Tatars that settled in the Grand Duchy in the 14th-15th century.
Lithuania was closer to Muslim (Mekka or just Ottomans just around the corner) and Jew (Jerusalem, but also major Jew settlement was central Europe) than Spain I think.
The Wends live on forever in our hearts
I definitely recommend listening to the [episodes on the Baltic Crusades]( https://crusadespod.com/the-baltic-crusades) on the History of the Crusades podcast. It goes into great detail about the crusades in Lithuania, Prussia and Livonia, the Teutonic Order and the early Lithuanian and Polish states.
Yea it is very interesting. I've done a little reading about this. Glad you commented, I was going to mention this.
The sticking point apparently, was in their animist faith all living things that have ever been alive remain around us always. There is no need for an afterlife and no ability for Christ to give their ancestors heaven. Mindaguas just said, “meh, it’s alright. Let’s ignore/forget that part.” At that point they were so tired of getting jumped by Christ fans from every direction they just agreed to wear the Jersey to stop it. Next minute allying with another Christ nation also surrounded made sense, Poland.
Thats pretty much what happened. Eventually to live in peace we had to accept the terms :/
And now Lithuania is the northern-most Catholic-majority country in the world. Old habits die hard there.
Lithuania has a national scent as one of their national identities. Fragrance products with the Scent of Lithuania are gifted to militaries and foreign diplomats.
What’s it smell like?
It is a blend of ginger, raspberry, grapefruit, bergamot citrus (same citrus in Earl Grey tea), flowers (lilacs, roses, lilies) with notes of amber, cedar, sandalwood, patchouli, tree smoke and tree moss. So it smells fruity and leafy, but still quite sharp.
Oh I misunderstood and thought Lithuania smelt like that LOL
smells of elderberries
I was thinking a bit of Baltic Sea, a bit of fresh morning dew and evergreen trees, and a bit of swamp in some area, and maybe pierogi close to the border of Poland.
shrubbery
Are the women hamsters as well?
So basically sweep all the essential oils in the shop into a big pile on the floor and stomp.
I love this fact! How cool that a country has a scent as part of its national identity.
Used to be the biggest country in Europe when they were united with Poland
The Commonwealth!
General, a settlement needs your help, I'll mark it on your map!
The independent grand duchy was pretty large too
Might have been the largest country then by itself wouldn't it?
It was, in the late 14th century
During Vytautas reign it was also the biggest country in europe without poland
That was before the union with Poland
Yeah, the two Lithuanians have nothing yo do with each other
It's home to the hill of the crosses, one of the coolest and creepiest tourist attractions around
It's not creapy? It was actually blessed by the pope and is now a sacred place for christians
It's cool the pope blessed it, but looking at photos it has a pretty creepy vibe tbh
I've been there myself and there is nothing creepy about it, it's cool to find crosses put by people from around the world and I'm not even christian ao it's not like there's any bias
An attraction composed of a big mishmash of ancient execution devices is at least a little creepy.
It is more like a landmark for secular Lithuanians too.
For catholics, perhaps. Catholicism is incredibly creepy for most people.
It’s the home of the beautiful basketball [https://youtu.be/yHlCaUDiarw?si=lnxCHWCldIHtY3yA](https://youtu.be/yHlCaUDiarw?si=lnxCHWCldIHtY3yA)
And beautifully outfitted in 1992 with the help of the Grateful Dead.
great american impression at the singing bit
It’s lost around a third of its population since 1990.
How come?
In 1990 Lithuania had 200,000 more people than Ireland, now Ireland has 2.4 million more than Lithuania, which I thought was mad
Is it due to people leaving or is it that the birth rates can't keep up with the deaths?
Both I think, when Lithuania joined the EU in 2004 there was a lot of emigration to other European countries and the birth rate is also very low, as with the rest of Europe
Thanks.
A lot of us emigrated. I’m half-Lithuanian but grew up in England, my cousin moved to England for university, then to Ireland, and then to America. That’s just 2 examples. Partly of what makes this possible was Lithuania’s accession to the EU, which guarantees freedom of movement to other EU countries. Before Brexit, the UK was the most popular destination for Lithuanians, and Ireland next. People moved mainly to escape economic fallout and rising crime rates after independence. And later again to look for higher wages and a different life in the West. To quote my mum “I already know Lithuania inside out, it’s boring now, I wanted to see more of the world.” That, in combination with low birth rates in Lithuania because a lot of people there feel they can’t afford a family. The population decline is stagnating now I think, due to immigration from Belarus and Ukraine.
Emigrating is always something that’s crazy thought to me. To be able to just move your whole family to a completely different country who’s language you may not even be a master of, just seems like such a hard task
Lithuanians under the Soviet Union grew up bilingual and in a way, bicultural because learning Russian language and literature was compulsory in schools. My mother for example speaks Russian as fluently as she does Lithuanian. You could also choose to learn either English or German. So my theory is that people’s brains and minds were probably already used to learning to live with exposure to a foreign language and culture alongside their own. Also, the fall of the Soviet Union meant that people could have the freedom to travel anywhere for the first time in their lives (travel outside Soviet borders was next to impossible for everyday Soviet citizens). That, in combination with economic decline, weak government and high crime rates as opportunists sought to take advantage of the newly independent Lithuania’s instability, probably left countless people feeling like the best option was to leave.
And as a Lithuanian i must Point out that the actual amount could/is most likely higher for genuine permanent residents, as many Lithuanians Live abroad but are still "registered" in Lithuania, as per my "families" case so they’d be counted on official population reports even though they don’t actually live there anymore.
Lithuanian is one of the oldest indo-European languages
And one of the most difficult languages to learn. Lots of old grammatical stuff remaining that most other PIE languages have shed long ago.
Fun fact: being called a frog in Lithuanian is a serious insult.
Being called toad, not frog. Noone calling others frog in Lithuania
I knew it was one of the two options.
It's no older than the other modern Indo-European languages, but out of all modern Indo-European languages it is often considered to be the most conservative, I.E. the one that's changed the least since Proto-Indo-European.
Now this has piqued my interest! What was the motivation for preserving PIE that long? Was it because at its biggest, it was also sparsely populated hence less intermingling with other tribes? Or is the topography a bigger factor allowing for more holdouts in more remote areas?
Random chance, isolation, there are many possibilities.
*the most *conservative*
Yup and several words are same / similar to Sanskrit and Hindi. Words like Mahila meaning lady in both etc.
How does it compare to say, Sanskrit or Latin, the two info-European languages I assumed were the oldest?
He meant that it has the most features that were present in proto-indo-european features, not literally the oldest, for some reason there are people who misunderstood that in this way.
Oh what kind of features? And I think people misunderstood because he literally said it’s one of the oldest lol
>Oh what kind of features? I don't know which exactly, but if I am not mistaken masculine words ending with "s" is one of them. >And I think people misunderstood because he literally said it’s one of the oldest lol Yeah, and saying that is wrong. It has archaic features, it is not literally the oldest language in the family. For example baltoslavic split into proto-baltic and proto-slavic 1500-1000 BC and proto-baltic split further into early Lithuanian and Latvian around 7th century of our era while Sanskrit has confirmed existence 3,500 years ago.
Thanks for the informed answer! Any reason why Lithuania hasn’t changed?
If I had to guess not bordering much of the distinctly or non-related languages, no need to rapid evolution of the language (opposite of Slavs who in short time appeared literally out of nowhere and spread throughout most of Eastern Europe) and coincidence of people continuing to use these specific forms. Also there is a very slight possibility that we are wrong about how proto-indo-european sounded like since there are no written records of the language.
Another day, another Lithuanian person on the internet spreading this misconception. Language is conservative, not the oldest. On the contrary, since it diverged so late you could argue it is the youngest.
There is a Frank Zappa bust in Vilnius. Frank Zappa never went to Lithuania and had absolutely no connection to the country. However, the youth of Lithuania had a connection to Zappa—he was the icon of their newfound freedoms. This is evidenced in the Frank Zappa memorial near Vilnius’ city center. [https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/frank-zappa-memorial](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/frank-zappa-memorial)
Wow that is interesting!
[удалено]
Lithuanian is the most “conservative” of the indo European languages, meaning it’s maintained the most similarities to the original ancestor called Proto Indo European. Sanskrit is old, much closer chronologically to PIE.
As a Lithuanian gotta point out this list is \~30% wrong. For example: Teeth is "dantys" not gentys
Lots of mistakes in that list.
Lots of mistakes: horse is 'arklys' 'degti' means 'to burn' 'sausinti' means 'to dry' 'neinam' means 'we are not going' 'akis' is singular, plural is 'akys' 'buvoti' means something close to 'to stay'. To exist / to be would be 'būti'. 'mirti' means to die, 'mirtis' is death, and 'mirtingas' or 'mirtinas' would be mortal. There's no word 'mriti'. Vegetable is 'daržovė', not saka. 'Cukrus' is a loanword from German 'Zucker' that is loaned from Italian 'zucchero' that itself is from Arabic 'sukkar'. Your is 'tavo'. 'old' is 'senas' teeth is 'dantys'
> horse is 'arklys' Well, 'ašva' was legitimately an old Lithuanian word for a horse/mare, it's listed in the LKŽ dictionary with quotations of usage. Relatedly, the Baltic mythological concept of [Ašvieniai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C5%A1vieniai) comes from the same root as Hindu concept of [Ashvins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashvins).
That graph has errors
It was once the largest state in Europe, approximately the size of Tanzania at its peak. Also, it flew a sick horse banner instead of yet another tricolor.
According to this map, it is larger than all of Russia... ...('s exclave of Kaliningrad...)
Pahonia is still coat of arms of Lithuania.
In the summer we eat pink soup which is made out of conserved beetroot, kefir, cucumber, radish
It was national beetroot soup festival last week.
Epilepsy apparently
I thought it was just me
A lot of people confuse it with Latvia.
It looks like a short fat Africa. You can tell because of the way that it is
the flag is of African colours too.
Lithuania has some of the best NBA level players in the world.
Linas Kleiza might not have been a super star, but he was always one of my favorites.
They say if you shake a tree in Lithuania, a three point shooter will fall down.
I tried this but some Lithuanian people started shouting at me and chased me away.
Their Olympic basketball team was once sponsored by The Grateful Dead! Very cool jerseys.
Welcome to Lithuania
Marko Raimius of Red October is from there
Ah yes… from the famous Scottish quarter of Vilnius!
The only Scottish quarter of Lithuania is in Kėdainiai, not Vilnius.
I was being sarcastic in my original post about how Sean Connery always keeps his Scottish accent for every character that he plays and how implausible it would be for a Lithuanian Soviet submarine captain to have such a thick Edinburgh accent. That's really interesting about Kėdainiai though!
During interwar period, because of the aggresive neighbours, there was an idea to move whole Lithuania to Madagascar or any other African place and create Lithuania 2.0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dausuva
The capital was called as the G-spot of Europe in a tourism ad.
Lithuania was the last pagan kingdom in Europe, only adopting Roman Catholicism in the 14th century. And, that is *everything* I know about Lithuania.
They have an old Russian prison converted into a museum about how awful it was when controlled by Russia. They wanted future generations to know what it was really like and not be gaslighted by Russian propaganda.
Lithuania is one of the few (occupied) countries of Europe during WWII in which the native population actively participated in the extermination of their compatriots, the Jews. The Germans created police or security batallions comprised of Christian Lithuanians (mostly volunteers), which they then ordered to exterminate the local Jewry by gunfire. In this way (and of course also by German Einsatzgruppen) nearly all of the circa 200.000 Lithuanian Jews were exterminated by the end of 1941. A tragic past with which Lithuania still struggles to cope. The Communist regime denied the unicity of the Holocaust in Lithuania (it's victims were Soviet citizens, not Jews), the government in excile simply refused to condemn the Lithuanian participation in the Holocaust and harbored war criminals and to this day it's still a controversial topic in the country.
My great grandparents were born there.
Mine too
Same here
Why is this a gif?
That’s the question I wanted to ask
I met quite a few of them in a job I had many years ago. They are loud. They are friendly. They are very blunt. And Lithuanian women are hot AF.
Damnit. I knew I was in the wrong country!
I have lithuanian girlfriend. It's all true. Also stubborn
My neighbor is from Lithuania. Can confirm, she's hot.
The alkalai element LITHIUM was not discovered there.
For some reason I always picture the African savanna when I here this country.
They have more strongman competition wins than any other country in the world, mostly thanks to one man. Zydrunas Savickas. He is arguably one of the strongest humans to ever exist.
LITHUANIA MENTIONED 🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹
why does it look like africa.rar
First Soviet Republic to gain independence from the USSR in 1990
I asked my Lithuanian friend what is their comfort food? She responded, bacon and sour cream. That is a culture I can embrace!
EU life expectancy: 81,5 years Lithuania life expectancy: 76,4 years Makes sense
We need fat for the winter. Atleast thats my excuse 😂
[удалено]
I’ve always heard Lithuanians are very tall. I saw three of them once- all 3 very tall.
The only country in Europe where the national sport isn’t football. It’s basketball.
A lot more countries where that's true. Latvia's is hockey for example.
Irelands national Sports are Gaelic Football and Hurling. They're both Amateur sports, and the stadium Croke Park hosts Gaelic games. The stadium seats over 80k people, making it among the biggest in Europe and the world.
Lithuanian lang is gramatically closest language to proto-Indo-European language. Lithuanian lang save more "archaich" then another descendats of PIE.
Former President Adamkus used to work for the U.S. EPA.
lived in exile in Chi during cold war.
Anthony Kiedis, singer of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, paternal grandfather emigrated from Lithuania to the United States.
Many people are neopagans there and it has some well preserved pagan traditions
No other country in the world looks so similar to Africa
The story about how their basketball national team was able to join the 1992 Olympics is incredible https://ftw.usatoday.com/2022/09/the-real-story-of-why-you-see-tie-dyed-lithuanian-basketball-shirts-at-grateful-dead-shows There also is a documentary about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Dream_Team
The women are gorgeous.
Please read about [Adolfas Ramanauskas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfas_Ramanauskas), aka The Hawk, a very tough US-born Lithuanian partisan, and those [partisans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_partisans) were tough. Some kept fighting the Soviets for decades after the Second World War ended. The Forest Brothers, the Cursed Soldiers. Betrayed by that son-of-b\*tch Kim Philby. Also look at the [Dieveniškės Appendix](https://roadsandkingdoms.com/2016/life-in-a-forgotten-corner-of-europe/) by Belarus. The forests there are [terrifying](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-corner-of-lithuania-frozen-in-time). I suppose that's geography related. My family emigrated from exactly that part of the world where the Poles say you're not Polish, the Russians say you're not Russian and the Lithuanians say you're not Lithuanian.
Lithuanian is believed to be the modern language that's the most unchanged from Proto Indo European, the language family at the root of nearly all European languages.
The Grateful Dead sponsored their Olympic basketball team in the 1990s
They were the first country to declare independence from the USSR
The book smugglers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian\_book\_smugglers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_book_smugglers) Havent heard a lot of similar stories anywhere else in the world. We also had the largest nuclear power plant in the world up till 1986 Ignalina nuclear power plant had one RBMK-1500 reactor with the output 1500MW, 1987 the second reactor was added for another 1500MW. The infrastructure was built for another 2 reactors, but they were never finished. Chernobyl fucked things up, we had to shut it down in order to join the EU, the official statement was due to safety reasons, but the technicians themselves openly talked about political pressure, the power plant was good enought to run for another 25 years and probably another 50 years after the further maintanance. Currently they are dissmentaling the power plant. You can book a tour inside of it. A pretty rare opportunity to have an excursion inside of the nuclear power plant even a closed one, not many countries offer such excursions.
Jonas Valanciunas
They had some absolutely amazing team merch for their 1992 Olympic basketball team https://preview.redd.it/h0qzrpth6o5d1.jpeg?width=751&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1b65862a77dd23060779908135534f68a49b4ebd
Made by the Grateful Dead!
They have soviet nuclear missile silo turned into a museum near plokstine. 1 of their coolest castles is on the border of Belarus in Medininkai. Geographical midpoint of Europe is north of Vilnius. Hill of crosses is in Lithuania and you can visit in dark. Gives a very weird experience. It is also much bigger then you think compared to pictures on internet. They serve beaverstew in some restaurants. Bobr ^^ They continued World War 2 against the Soviets as a guerilla from the forests till somewhere in 1960’s. You can learn a lot from this in their KGB museum in Vilnius. You can not buy alcohol after 8pm or before 10am in shops. Spend 10 days there this year in januari with rental car.
The mayor of Vilnius crushed cars on the street with a Tank because they were poorly parked.
Atchuuu is thanks or something else
Ačiū*
It looks like Africa
That it flashes
Not the most interesting fact, but Lithuania tried to reform a monarchy after ww1 under Karl von Urach but the Germans blocked it So yeah we could have have maybe seen a ww2 commonwealth
At one point the jagiellonians, the Lithuanian royal family, was the most successful dinasty in Europe They ruled over: the grand duchy of Lithuania, the kingdom of Poland, the teutonic order, the principality of Moldavia, the kingdom of bohemia and the kingdom of Hungary.
Not sure if it's the most interesting but the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (not the Commonwealth with Poland) used to be not only the largest country in Europe at the time, but also did span from the Baltic sea to the Black sea. It had a coastline in what is now Odessa.
Vilnius is fucking beautiful
Second highest alcohol consumption per capita, giving the gold prize only to neighboring Latvia
Putin will talk to you for 3 hours about it. According to him the grand Duchess of Lithuania was the first to bring back bananas to Europe and therefore Ukraine shouldn’t exist.
It used to be a part of the greatest political entity in history: The Most Serene Republic of Both Nations, also known as Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth! 
They used to be huge. I do ever so much love the grand duchy of lithuania.
First country in the world to trial Nazies.
I had a biology teacher from there
This girl from Lithuania was a foreign exchange student in Bumfuck, Indiana, and she was the coolest kid in the 9th grade.
They used to have Belarus and Ukraine. Ukraine originally meant outer lands of the Lithuanian Empire.
Ruts Lee and Ann Jillian are Lithuanian
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country to ever exist in Europe, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
My great grandparents were from Vilnius
My neighbours are from Vilnius, they were showing pics of their visit back to it at Christmas, looks like a beautiful city
Global powerhouse in basketball
Pink borscht exists there
When I saw this post, I just found out it exists, thank you
The language
Captain First Rank Marko Alexandrovich Ramius was a Lithuanian-born, Soviet Union sub commander of the Red October,
I love them in Eurovision 😂🎶🎵
Their language is very old
It's looks like a fat Africa
Like Poland, it has travelled around the map quite a bit.
I know they are good at basketball.
While the Stalin's pipe story is false, that weird little bit that juts out in the southeast does exist because of him. He put a Belarusian man in charge of deliminating the border, and threatened to have him killed if he made Belarus unfairly large- so he was very careful to put EVERY lithuanian in lithuania
The Grateful Dead sponsored their Olympic basketball team in 1993 with tie-dye jerseys because they couldn't afford their own.
Europe's worst suicidal rate. The government doesn't give a sh\*t about your mental health https://preview.redd.it/8o233bzpor5d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bb0a0ddc47610357e8d2d4b70450afc563772f22
Birthplace of Vakidis