@aivarasdarulis

1 month ago

I am Lithuanian, born and bred in Vilnius since 1991. Been living in EU and UK for a total of 9 years in various countries. Since I first left Lithuania for London in 2010, and then first came back in late 2016, I did find that the place has changed drastically in those almost 7 years. In a positive way of course. Infrastructure, standard of living, the way how society interacts got more possitive, work ethics improved drastically. Then when I came back in 2020, again, I find it that society and country itself changed dramatically. As someone who vividly remembers how messed up 90’s were (massive problem with organised crime was one huge problem, my mother witnessed a car bomb set off under a Mercedess Benz 600 not far away from the restaurant she was working at and all the windows in the area got shattered; this was a common thing in mid-early 90’s). We were lucky (it is not actually only luck but loads of hard work and patience and resilience) that we took a course to distance ourselves from occupational past and from ties with Russia and other ex Communist countries. Obviously, by Scandinavian, French, Benelux or German standards of living (worker’s pay I mean) we are still waaay behind, but one must realise that while after WWII the rest of Europe west of Rhine river was not under Communist occupation or direct control via stooge regimes and had the Marshall plan underway (all the investment and aid from USA), building their democracy, quality of life and having actual freedom, we were occupied by Soviet Union and for us war didn’t end in 1945; there was a widespread and very strongly supporter by local population anti Communist armed resistanse mainly until 1953, but some units fought well until late 1950’s - my grandfather’s brother was a unit commander for Forest Brothers and died in action in February 1947 in Ukmergė district, many of my extensive family members were either deported of imprisoned, some killed, some fought in the forests, others were treated as third class citizens due to having such anti Communist past and my mother has endless stories on how it was growing up in rural Lithuania as a very anti Communist Catholic family which did not partake in almost mandatory practices like Communist Pioneers, ComYouth, Communist Party and so on). So this affected us greatly and is the reason we fell behind. We only had 34 years to catch up and. Good example is Finland - we started pretty much same in 1918 up until 1939. Finland managed to withstand Communist attempts to occupy them, we felt. Now compare the two. Overall it is a safe country, no war is happening here obviously, we are a NATO and EU member for now over 20 years and have huge numbers of NATO troops including airforce of F35’s stationed here on permanent basis and NATO’s presense here is always increasing and is currently taking in another full German brigade in few months. Violent crime is very low, like the chance of getting robbed is low, I never actually heard of it in my 32 years (it does obviously happen but I just never hear about it and I have been in various social circles in the past so I should know about crime and I do). Moving here is a good idea if one has a stable idea of how you can make money, like having your own business or working online, you can always find a job here but in order not to get a financial shock if you like :) at first you have to have plans on how you will sustain yourself. If you come from US you will find that everything is much cheaper here but salaries aren’t great for your understanding. It is not a poor country, but not rich either. I would first recommend coming here just to stay and see (Americans and most people from normal like countries - not some didctatorships) get 3 months visa free to stay here. You will understand if the weather is for you, if the society is for you as we are more of a closed people, city is not like banging all day all night like in London or NYC or Miami or Moscow for that matter. I find it that most people that want to come here and actually eventualy do they like it here (as obviously they do come for the reasons I mentioned), others may find it not fast paced - it is a small country, very homogenous, and we like it that way and want to keep it that way, I mean keeping our culture, but staying acceptive of others - you just have to understand that we do not like people enforcing their things on to us. It is a conservative society, not aggresively like in southern US states, but still, it is a reasonably religious country (Catholic), traditional most of the time, LGBT people are not discriminated against but do not expect that you can be blatantly demonstrative of this as people will not accept it. It is a great place if you can come from Western country and maintain your business online or start one here as then it is a win-win for you. I highly recommed to come and see for yourself.

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