Society
Lukiškių Square in Vilnius to feature monument resembling guerrilla bunker, forest
A memorial to freedom fighters resembling a forest and guerrilla bunkers will be built in the central Lukiškių Square in Vilnius. […]
Society
Society
Several hundred people gather in Vilnius to mark army anniversary
Several hundred people gathered in the Cathedral Square in downtown Vilnius on Thursday noon to mark 99 years since the re-establishment of the Lithuanian Armed Forces. […]
Society
Lithuania’s Lietuvos Žinios daily gets new CEO
Virginijus Smigelskas on Thursday took post as chief executive officer of the company publishing the Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Žinios, Achemos Grupė (Achema Group) that operates the company said. […]
Society
Lithuanian government okays university network reorganization plan
The Lithuanian government approved on Wednesday a university network reorganization plan worked out by the Education and Science Ministry and will now send it to the parliament. […]
Society
Lithuanian president to light up Christmas tree
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė will on Wednesday light up a Christmas tree at the Presidential Palace in Vilnius and kick off the traditional Christmas of Books campaign. […]
History
Toys and games in medieval Lithuania
Even in the times of gravest calamities and shortage, people did find time for games and other ways of making their everyday lives brighter, regardless of whether it was a ducal palace of a hut of a peasant family. In the 19th century, even the poorest peasants had simple wood-carved toys for their children. […]
History
The family and the patriarchate in ancient Baltic societies
The family in the 13th and 14th century Lithuania represented a unit in many senses, from economical and productive to social, organisational, and legal. The average family consisted of five or six people. The remains of a 14th century house in the lower town of Kernavė feature a plank-bed, made of several benches, up to three by 1.7 metres. Since the average human of the time was about 1.65 metres tall, the bed could accommodate the entire family of five to six people. On the other hand, the family also had a broader meaning, the one that covered two or three generations of relatives, such as fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, as well as unmarried brothers and sisters. […]
Society
Lithuania’s Internet suppliers to appeal against court ruling to block linkomanija.net
Following an obligation to block access to file sharing website linkomanija.net, Lithuania’s largest Internet suppliers intend to file an appeal against the court ruling to avoid a precedent of blocking the spread of information online. […]
Society
UNESCO experts to evaluate property development projects in Vilnius
Experts from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) on Tuesday are starting on a two-day visit to Vilnius to evaluate two property development projects at the Culture Minister’s invitation. […]
Society
Lithuanian bishops dine with impoverished people on Day of the Poor
On the Day of the Poor, bishops and people living in poverty sat down at a table at the Lithuanian capital’s social centre Betanija on Sunday. […]
Society
Lithuanian Freedom Prize winner Sadūnaitė says she’s give award to guerrilla
Nijolė Sadūnaitė lives in a convent outside Vilnius and doesn’t hear news very often, as she does not use the Internet, does not watch television and hardly listens to the radio, therefore, she only heard about the Lithuanian parliament’s decision to award her with the Freedom Prize many hours after the vote. […]
Society
Vilnius police bust around EUR 1 mln worth of hashish
Officers of the Vilnius County Central Police Commissariat have detained 100 kg of hashish estimated at about 1 million euros close to Utena, northeastern Lithuania, in early November. […]
Foreign affairs
Tribute to WWI, WWII victims paid in Vilnius
The German National Day of Mourning was marked in the cemetery of German soldiers in Vingio Park in the Lithuanian capital on Sunday. […]
History
Lithuanian watermills in the 15th and 16th century: a slow technological revolution
Ancient civilisations already knew how to use the energy of running water, but it was the Western European civilisation that developed a vast network of watermills during the Middle Ages. The abundance of swift-running rivers and constant increase of crop areas in Europe were the two important factors behind the spread of watermills that eventually got involved in various technological processes, including smithing, papermaking, wood processing and groundwater regulation. In technical sense, history of Western watermills apparently developed independently from the experience of other civilisations, although the initial impulses might have arrived from elsewhere. […]
Society
Seimas votes to award Freedom Prize to nun, dissident Sadūnaitė (Updated)
The Lithuanian parliament decided on Thursday to award the Freedom Prize to Nijolė Sadūnaitė, a Roman Catholic nun and former Soviet-time dissident. […]
Society
Vilnius university team wins the Grand Prize in iGEM competition
“Vilnius-Lithuania iGEM” team won the largest, most prestigious, international Synthetic Biology competition iGEM. Vilnius University students bested more than 300 teams from leading world universities. The team won the Grand Prize and received a gold medal as well as three special awards: for Best New Basic Part, Best New Composite Part and Best Part Collection, a press release from Vilnius University states. […]
Society
Lithuania police open probe into MP Balsys drinking and driving suspicions
Vilnius police on Monday opened a pre-trial investigation into suspicions that MP Linas Balsys was driving under the influence of alcohol. […]
Society
Lithuanian film director dismisses sexual misconduct charges, gives up municipal premises
Lithuanian film director Šarūnas Bartas on Tuesday said he disagreed with the sexual misconduct accusations leveled against him by two female artists, adding he would move out of the premises leased by the municipality for his Kinema studio on preferential terms. […]
Society
Lithuanian parliament proposes total ban on legal gender recognition
On November 10th, 2017 the group of 31 MPs in the Lithuanian Parliament registered a legislative proposal, which aims at banning legal gender recognition (i.e. change of identity documents for transgender persons) and all medical procedures pertaining to gender reassignment treatment. This proposal stands in a sharp contrast with the jurisprudence of the national courts, granting legal gender recognition based on self-identification of a trans individual and corresponding mental diagnosis. If approved, Lithuania would become the only country within the broader region of the Council of Europe with an explicit ban on gender reassignment procedure, a press release from the Lithuanian Gay League states. […]
Society
Lithuanian culture minister applauds those speaking out about sexual misconduct
Culture Minister Liana Ruokytė-Jonsson on Monday voiced her support for women and men who come forward about sexual abuse as public accusations of sexual misconduct were made against Lithuania’s internationally-known film director Šarūnas Bartas. […]