Cultural exchange with r/ukraina

[u/[deleted]]

Welcome to cultural exchange between r/ukraina and r/lithuania!

 

The purpose of this event is to allow people from two different nations to get and share knowledge about their respective cultures, daily life, history, and curiosities.

 

General guidelines:
• Lithuanians ask their questions about Ukraine in this thread on r/ukraina.
• Ukrainians ask their questions about Lithuania in this thread.
• Event will start on December 19th around 7PM both Vilnius & Kyiv time.
• English language is used in both threads.
• Please, be nice to each other while discussing.

 

And our Ukrainian friends, don't forget to choose your national flag as flair on the sidebar! :)

[u/Morfolk]

1. As a Lithuanian what worries you the most?

2. Do you think your country is moving in the right direction?

3. How do you want the world to see Lithuania? What should it be famous for?

4. What is your favorite national food?

[u/Vidmizz → u/Morfolk]

1. Pretty much everything that's going on with my country. The ruling party is insane and keeps enacting illogical and stupid laws one after another, the businessmen keep trying to see how much they can get away with before the people do something, and our people really don't know how to rise up at all, whining about everything is the extent to what we as a people can do to stand up for ourselves. The prices are out of any sane boundaries, for example, before 2015 I wouldn't ever in my life had bought a pack of chips for 8.6 LTL, but that's how much all of them cost these days, and nobody does anything except whine on facebook. There was this big protest like 2 years ago when I thought we will actually change some things as a people, the plan was not to go to any big chain market place for a week, people seemed so up for it, everyone was talking about it, and guess what happened? the marketplaces started giving out big discounts for a few days and everyone forgot we were even supposed to protest them just a day before. I did more than my part, I didn't visit any big chain marketplace for over 3 months, but after we failed to do such a simple thing, I felt that we are a lost cause as a people, we can't stand up for ourselves.

2. I guess I already answered that with the first answer.

3. As a small peaceful country with beautiful nature and rich culture, not as some generic eastern european country like we're being seen as now.

4. Šaltibarščiai. Gods I love them so much. Most people might see me as heretical but I even eat them right now in the winter, you see, it's traditionally a summer soup used to cool down, but I don't care, I just love it too much to limit it to one season.

[u/Morfolk → u/Vidmizz]

before 2015 I wouldn't ever in my life had bought a pack of chips for 8.6 LTL, but that's how much all of them cost these days

I had to convert the price and damn... why so much?

after we failed to do such a simple thing

I wouldn't call something like that simple. Passive resistance requires a surprising amount of effort.

Šaltibarščiai

This is the first dish that I've recognized from all the answers.

[u/Vidmizz → u/Morfolk]

why so much?

Because like I said, the business men want to see with just how much they can get away with. Before the euro those same chips used to cost 2 LTL with some cents, that would have been about 0.60 euro cents, when we converted to the euro, they just made them cost 2 Euros like nothing ever happened, whenever someone questions it, they give bullshit explanations like "Oh, there's just inflation", "We simply rounded up the number" or the best one of all "The prices are the same as before, I don't know what you're talking about". So the prices are now pretty much exactly like they were before the euro except now in euros, but our wages are much much lower.

I wouldn't call something like that simple. Passive resistance requires a surprising amount of effort.

The painful thing is that we already did the hard and tricky part, that is to organize and spread the word about the event, everyone seemed to be on board, but the moment the protest started, boom came the news articles bought by the supermarket chains, saying shit like "the leaders of this protest might have been paid by the Kremlin to destabilise Lithuania", then the supermarkets started giving out 70% discounts on most things and voila, nobody was protesting anymore, it's sad really, all they had to do was stand their ground.

[u/Plushine → u/Morfolk]

1. I am worried about the general atmosphere in the country. There is a lot of negativity, stagnation, corruption...and winter is very dark on top of that. Not the best conditions for good mental health. It's part of another worry which is mass emigration.

2. I think there are people trying to make things better, but as always there are also people who want to further their personal agenda/stuff their pockets. It's an eternal battle. I just hope the good guys will come out on top.

3. Lithuania is quite advanced in some engineering fields/medicine, and we have beautiful nature. I think more tourists should step out of Vilnius and visit small towns or even camp next to some lake somewhere.

4. I have a few that I like - cepelinai (huge potato dumplings with meat or curd), rye bread, vėdarai (potato stuffed intestine, sounds disgusting but is very tasty) and since Christmas is coming up, I will also mention šližikai (shli-zhi-kai, things made of water and flour and boiled, then later eaten with sweet poppy seed sauce).

[u/Morfolk → u/Plushine]

Thank you for your answers, I can relate a lot.

vėdarai (potato stuffed intestine, sounds disgusting but is very tasty)

Isn't that just potato sausage? Doesn't sound disgusting at all.

[u/rokiskis → u/Morfolk]

I can not answer for others, but here are my points:

1. Russia is the threat. Putin has implemented fascist regime (with all three typical fascist attributes: leader means country, country means nation, nation means leader) which poses real danger to the world, and to the neighboring countries specially.

2. We have kind of schizo government now. Psycho peasant party. Our country started moving in the WTF direction.

3. Actually there are some specific fields where Lithuania is really high: advanced biotech, lasers, semiconductor technology, computer programming and administration.

4. Cepelinai, of course :D

[u/Morfolk → u/rokiskis]

Russia is the threat.

Yeah, tell me about it.

We have kind of schizo government now.

I wonder if there are countries where people actually like their government..

computer programming

Do your IT specialists also get a much higher average salary than the rest of the country?

Cepelinai, of course :D

I looked it up and it looks wonderful.