Some❗️BREAKING NEWS❗️from Lithuania 🇱🇹
These past few weeks, and especially past couple of days, the country's cultural sphere is in an unprecedented crisis.
I will try to describe the situation as best I can in a few short posts, with some of my own thoughts mixed in.
🧵 It all started from last year's Parliament elections where a new populist party 'Nemuno aušra' (The dawn of Nemunas) came up 3rd.
It was founded by the guy many of you already know from my viral post about his failed trip to have dinner with Musk 🤦‍♀️

🧵

https://x.com/gryn_a/status/1897378849392091177

Here's a story that few outside Lithuania know.
It took place during the first year of independence, spring of 1990 until the collapse of the USSR in late 1991.
It's a story about the cost of standing up to russia.
It's a story about our first humble border checkpoints.
👇 After Lithuania officially declared independence from the USSR in March 1990, it needed to establish its status as an independent state by creating border checkpoints.
The first ones looked like the one in the photo above: just a little trailer house with a few officers.
👇

OK, here's a fresh entertaining story from Lithuania, because we all need a good laugh for the sake of sanity.
An anonymous troll tricked a member of Parliament to believe that he was going to dine with Musk 😂
I swear, this plan is on par with the exploding pagers.
Read on...🧵 The guy in question, Remigijus Žemaitaitis, is a scandalist who happens to be a member of Parliament at the moment, in the ruling coalition. I won't go into detail about his scandals, but he is a vatnik and antisemite, and the perfect person to fall for something like this.🧵

I can't believe I'm throwing this out there, but I guess now's the time.
Lithuania 🇱🇹 is the only European country that has impeached and removed its president from office.
Rolandas Paksas took office in early 2003, 🧵 his victory in the Presidential election "was attributed to his ability to appeal to disenchanted voters who sought a break from the political status quo".
Does this remind you of something?
But wait, it gets better.
Paksas was impeached just a few months after taking office 🧵

How the soviets stole Christmas: a tale of the tiny Christmas tree 🎄

This story happened in Vilnius 🇱🇹 in 1966.
At this point Lithuania had been occupied by the soviets for 26 years (since 1940).
Celebrating Christmas was forbidden, decorations allowed only for New Year. 🧵 Algimantas Kunčius, a young 27 year-old professional photographer at the time, went into a shop in the old town. As he glanced at the window, he saw a child outside, looking at a tiny decorated Christmas tree in the shop's window, mesmerized.
He decided to take a picture. 🧵

So the Xitter algorithm is hiding posts about the deportations of people from the occupied Baltics by the s0viets (ru🐍🐍ians) that began today and continued from 1940 to 1953.
Well guess what?
Here’s a thread about it!
I promise you’ll find at least some facts you didn’t know 🧵 There were two types of people that our dear neighbours from the east deported once they signed the secret agreement with the nazis (Molotov-Ribentrop Pact): regular deportees who were deported, often with the whole family, and dropped off in Siberia, and political prisoners 🧵

Fellas and friends, could you tell us how much the events in Georgia 🇬🇪 during the past 5 days are being covered by your local media?
TV, radio, newspapers, news websites.
Because what I'm seeing is that these incredibly important, Maidan-like events get almost zero attention🧵 I just can't feckin believe it.
Groundbreaking events in Europe's history are unfolding right under out noses, yet what headlines do I see right now?
Local political squabbles.
Debates about LGBT issues.
Spring 2024 fashion trends.
Chaos in Equador.
Um... Hello?!?!?🧵

The feeling of betrayal is not new to us in the Baltics.
It triggers a strong dejavu.
In the 20th century, the Western world rushed to get rid of the nazi disease, but not the soviet one.
Communism was never universally condemned.
This was an extremely costly mistake.🧵 In Lithuania, the armed resistance was holding on for 10 (!!!) years after the soviet occupation, hoping against hope for foreign help.
russians would throw bodies of murdered resistance fighters on the streets of towns and watch passers by.
If anyone shed a trear...🧵

At the request of people who didn’t know about Mantas Kvedaravičius and his last days, here’s a new thread.
It’s long. May this become witness to Mantas’ life and work, and to the incredible courage of his Ukrainian fiancee Hanna Bilobrova as well as people of Mariupol.🧵 Hanna and Mantas had met during his earlier film project, they were to get married in September 2022.
On March 3 they were working on a film in Uganda, Mantas decided to go to Mariupol. Hanna insisted
on going with him.🧵

Today, when Ukrainians and friends are celebrating the well-deserved Oscar for @20DaysMariupol, I'd like to remind the world of another filmmaker who was there, but sadly did not make it out alive.
He was in Mariupol, making a film too.
His name was Mantas Kvedaravičius 🧵 @20DaysMariupol The Lithuanian 🇱🇹 filmmaker, anthropologist, and archaeologist known for war reporting in hostile areas.
Mantas held a Masters degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Oxford University and a PHD in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University 🧵

This is me as a little pup, aged 5. My little sister is almost 3.
It’s January 1991, and we are in Vilnius, Lithuania 🇱🇹
Something scary is about to happen on this day.
Walk with me on this journey through old memories… 🧵 It’s January 11, a very cold and snowy day.
I’m with my mother near the Vilnius Press House. We are standing very close to where this picture was taken.
It’s so cold, I can’t feel my toes.
Trucks with full of russian soldiers arrive. 🧵

❗️War will (probably) happen.❗️
It's the headline of the newest article by Lithuanian 🇱🇹 journalist Rimas Bružas.
I'm taking the liberty of translating and sharing a few main thoughts from the article because I think they deserve international attention. 🧵 1) It's becoming impossible for the russian government to hide the difference of the quality of life in russia and in the West, and to explain the superiority of the West in every possible area.
Reality contradicts the quickly dissolving myth of the "Great Russian Nation". 🧵