Unfortunately I left my cameras in Vilnius, so I won’t have much to post visually. But Tallinn is really a gorgeous place. Thanks to the boundless generosity of Kai, whose house I crashed at last night, I will have some pictures (though blurry) of the landscape that I took with her camera. Everything, everything is covered in snow. It’s lousy with it! Kai said that this is unusual since the last five or so winters have been balmy and rainy. The prevalence of the snow gives everything a provincial delicacy that is missing in Vilnius.

I’m assuming that it snows so much that people just don’t bother to clean it up any more. The only places where there is clean cement or brick are in front of international hotels or the Russian mafia-owned casinos. The icicles that hang from the buildings are very intimidating, and, I’m guessing this goes with a culture so used to ice, there are 2x4s leaning against many buildings to keep you outside of their landing zone. (The wood, as absorbent as it is, is usually covered in inches of ice.) Kai told me that someone died recently because of one of the falling stalactites, and in the upscale hipsterish Rotermann district there were industrial machines knocking them off the roofs.

Fun Estonia Fact:

Bon Jovi is probably the most popular artist in the country. Bruce Springsteen is similarly loved, but he’s considered more sophisticated.

That was a Fun Estonian Fact.

After I updated last, I went for a walk, with only a very general understanding of where the city center and the Old Town were. I walked for about three hours. Although it really wasn’t that long, I had only had three hours or so of sleep on the bus, and had to drag my hand luggage behind me on the snowy ground, so I wasn’t as mobile and I would have liked. But! I did see a good deal. From what I saw, Tallinn has a lot of contemporary architecture, many malls, and surprisingly few Soviet-era buildings. Its infrastructure seems pretty efficient–lots of trams and busses and a pretty coherent web of roads. Tallinn is a lot like Chicago (and Paris and London and a lot of other places) in its urban design: a packed city center surrounded by suburbs. This is probably due to Tallinn’s odd shape, as it fans out in a kind of upturned crescent shape along the Baltic Sea. (Speaking of which, I finally saw the Baltic Sea from Viima, a suburb, and could look out and see the city center. This far up north, it was pretty frozen.)

After I could not walk any more, I stopped in a cafe and had an espreso and some lunch. Everything here is basically the same price as Vilnius, though the currency is not so strong. Fifteen kroons is one euro is one espresso. I contacted Kai, found the bus to Viima (where she lived), got hopelessly lost for about an hour but finally made it there.

We had lunch, I took a shower, and we headed out at around 4. Of the things I saw was an art museum that was originally built as a home for Catherine the Great. Its pink color and the style of imperial architecture reminded me of many of the churches in Vilnius. Next, the President’s palace, which was similar, then a tour of some of the old Russian wooden houses.

Kai and I went to a restaurant called Chicago which was fairly touristy, and then traveled a bit through the Old Town. It was similar to Vilnius’, but is much more compact. Its square is petty, but the city does not seemed designed to handle late-night tourist revelry. We went to an Irish pub–only for the cheapest beer (A. Le Coq, wonderful)–and after a few drinks made it to the bus station before the buses shut down.

I can’t thank Kai enough for her generosity, with food, lodging and taking time out to show me around. My stay was too damn short, and I hope to return during a warm, late-spring weekend.

Some random observations:

On the bus route from Vilnius-Riga-Tallinn, I saw at least eight Maxima supermarkets. But I also slept for a while so there were probably more.

There was an uncountable number of Statoil stations. I’m pretty convinced that all highways look the same.

Once I got into Latvia, the trees were so covered and crusted with ice that it looked like they were blooming snow. In the very dark star-sparkly sky, this is a frightful and beautiful thing.

Russians really need to work on dispelling the stereotype of being brash, smelly and loud, especially on buses at 1:30 A.M.

Everyone in the world apparently loves Rihanna.

That’s pretty much it for the moment. I will be crashing on the couch of the very generous Kai, a newspaperwoman who works for Baltic Reports. I’m only spending 33 or so hours in Tallinn, then I’m off to Riga for a day or so. Then I’ll be going to Klaipeda and Nida for an article I’ve been meaning to write, and finally back to Vilnius on Saturday for my birthday.

Since I’m apparently not working any longer, I haven’t really had much to do. I’ve been planning on going up and down the Baltics for a while–well before I left the States even. So a plan on Friday to just go to Klaipeda/Nida for a couple days turned into a big pan-Baltic excursion by Saturday morning, and by that afternoon I bought my tickets. By 9 PM I was on the bus heading north. I brought with me Lolita, Jesse Ball’s The Way Through Doors, my computer, a notebook in which I’ve already sketched out in entirety and written a large chunk of a new story, a huge pack of cucumber butter and anonymous cheese sandwiches, and a bunch of other things. So far it has been pleasant.

I know I’ve neglected this blog. I’m bad with that I guess. But I promise to keep this thing a little more freshly watered so new buds and branches will sprout about. I have picture and video makers, so I will advertise them here when I use them.

Also, the title of this post is a pun on ‘Estonia.’ I’m sorry. I’m especially sorry for Em, who has had to endure that twice.

Barring some other scandal or major economic progress, Lithuania will not likely see this much attention soon. But the government’s handling of these three key issues in the span of 60 days has shown that President Dalia Grybauskaite has been able to successfully push her agenda on a typically phlegmatic Seimas and quell international uproar. Next to German Chancellor Angela Markel, Grybauskaite is probably Europe’s most successful head of state. While the Lithuanian government in general is deeply unpopular with Lithuanian citizens–about 90 percent disapprove–the president is comparably liked at around 42 percent.

Compared to her predecessor, Grybauskaite has concentrated more power in the executive branch. Making good on campaign promises, she pressed the Seimas to cut 30 percent from most investments and 20 percent from ministry expenses. While it passed solidly–with 81 votes for, 56 against and 2 abstentions–it passed with heavy opposition from MPs representing pensioners’ interests.

Grybauskaite has been able to turn Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius and Speaker Irena Getuniene into fiscal conservatives (although they just might be trying to get on the bandwagon). The overarching rationale is that Lithuania, which has already lost investor confidence, is in danger of becoming irrelevant on the international market. Looking down the next decade, Lithuania is also looking to convert to the Euro, an act that is estimated to take until 2017 to happen. But since the European Union requires deficits to be at three percent of a country’s GDP before it can adopt the currency, it will take several years of thinner budgets before that could happen. For Grybauskaite to rally the Seimas for such long-term goals instead of letting them score political points is an extraordinary win for a head of state in office for only a few months.

Several members of the Seimas, as well as Grybauskaite’s spokesman Linas Balsys, have told me in interviews that an increase in direct communication has aided the president’s success.

“I’ve heard it from the side of the parliament [that increased communication] is somehting innovative on the side of the president,” Balsys said. “When [Adamkus] had been taking part previously, usually it was like this: his advisors would take a law, say if it’s good or bad–it was a ping pong game. Now there is a dialogue. I was surprised myself.”

When Balsys told me that, it was in reference to the so-called minor protection law, which is officially called the Law on the Protection of Minors Against the Detrimental Affects of Public Information. Earlier in 2009, the Seimas passed this bill, over a veto by Adamkus, that would make it illegal to promote homosexuality or polygamy in public or near children, and essentially equated it with promoting homicide. It drew a non-binding condemnation by the European Parliament and Amnesty International for being “vaguely worded” and as a violation of human rights.

The bill passed overwhelmingly, and Adamkus’ veto threat did little to halt its passage (two voted against it the first time, six the second time). Grybauskaite has been publicly against the anti-gay wording in the bill and has said that she wanted to see it repealed. Earlier this month, after lobbying from the President, the Seimas opened up discussion on how to change the bill. It then went to committee, and in under a month the anti-gay wording was taken out, replaced with more general language about advocating sexual intercourse. Even the very socially conservative Order and Justice party members had voted to support the new wording, which was an extraordinary political gain for Grybauskaite’s socially liberal agenda.

The largest mess that Grybauskaite had to clean up was the CIA prison scandal that broke this summer. ABC reported that American military planes went from Baghram in Afghanistan to Vilnius several times, leading to disclosures right before Christmas break that Lithuania’s Secret Service, the VSD, had collaborated and set up two detention facilities outside the capital. This disclosure caught on in the international media and was a big embarrassment, especially for the president.

The report denies that any politicians either in the Seimas or the President’s office were aware of the prisons (a claim I am skeptical about), and that it was pushed by three men in the upper administration of the VSD. Heads rolled, naturally. But even before the report was released on December 22, two separate VSD-affiliated government workers resigned.

It seems to me that the president has, for the moment, found the right balance of dialogue and power consolidation to give her some very big, early and important wins. But of all that could be predicted to unravel her grip on the debate, the one that seems like it could do the most damage is the recent closing of the Ignalina nuclear power plant on December 31 last year.

Ignalina was a Soviet-era nuclear plant that generated about 70 percent of the country’s electricity. As a stipulation for joining the EU in 2004, Lithuania had to close the plant due to apparent similarities to the Chernobyl plant (the seriousness of those similarities has not found a consensus, especially since it was an upgraded model.) The country will now be forced to import electricity, natural gas and other resources from neighboring countries–a move that will necessarily raise already high electricity prices.

Grybauskaite has said that would like to build another plant in the next three to four years, an estimate that sounds a bit rosy to me. It’s also the kind of promise that would be ripe for political attack should she fall short. Lithuania already imports 100 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and if prices go out of control and the economy fails to stabilize, it really wouldn’t be hard to paint her as a leader who couldn’t make the country more independent or wealthy, all pain and no gain.

Slavs

Busy week! Sorry about the lack of updates, but I recently started working for Balticreports.com, which, along with teaching and drinking and other writing and reading, is my central focus at the moment. If you want to know, there’s crazy swine flu all over the country! A lot of people are wearing face masks! Don’t believe me? Read this great article about it!

Anyhoo, I’m tired and hung over so I’m going to repost some things that an angry Chuck Todd wrote on his twitter today, about criticism of the WH press corps over their coverage of Obama’s trip, because he may take it down after second thoughts:

Plenty of folks have passed on comments about coverage of the Asia trip; It’s caused the blogosphere/twitterverse to do the usual/ which is focus on facts that support their own thesis; the generalization that goes on with judgments against the WH press corps/ are hypocritical in that folks backseat driving the coverage are doing to the press what they themselves are accusing the press of doing/ The reality is this when it comes to the president’s Asia trip: we won’t know if this trip was a success or failure for some time./ Short term, we’ll get a sense of how this trip went when the U.S. presses for tougher sanctions against Iran./ Long term, especially in terms of relations with China, this trip will be placed in proper context. But let’s not just do the easy thing/ when folks don’t like how things are doing which is to do what sports fans do, blame the refs, rather than the players on the field./ BTW, my favorite part of all this backseat driving is how 1 or 2 pieces of reporting gets collectively used to attack entire press corps./ Even funnier already, how folks are so blind to their own rage, they are accusing me of whining. Apologies for trying to introduce nuance!

On nine tweets! That’s a lot of characters!

Here is the BNS piece in full.

Baltic News Service

October 23, 2009 Friday 3:06 PM EET

LITHUANIAN SECURITY DEPT’S BASE NEAR VILNIUS – LIVING, RIDING FACILITIES

LENGTH: 386 words

DATELINE: VILNIUS Oct 23

The Lithuanian State Security Department’s base near Vilnius is not a secret object and is listed in the real estate register as a land site and a residential building with equestrian facilities and a cafeteria. According to information available to BNS, the land site and the building in 2004-2007 was property of company Elite L.L.C., with a registration address possibly outside Lithuania. In 2007, the Lithuanian state purchased the real estate from Elite L.L.C. and transferred it to the State Security Department.

Information available to BNS suggests the land site and the facilities currently serve as the department’s training base. Asked whether the said object was classified, spokesman for the Center of Registers operating the real estate register Aidas Petrosius said it was not classified, adding that information about classified objects is not published in the register.

Meanwhile, all data about the base located in Antaviliai, some 20 kilometers northeast of Vilnius, are published in the publicly-available database of the real estate register. According to the register, the State Security Department has been using the 22-are land site and premises of 968 square meters since 2007. The register suggests there are also riding facilities and a cafeteria in the building. The building on the land site was built back in 1992 and renovated in 2001. Lithuania’s State Security Department has refused to comment media reports about a secret prison of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that allegedly operated in the department’s secret base in the 2004-2005 period. Information about a secret CIA prison in Lithuania was initially reported by US media, citing former CIA officials.

According to the report, Lithuanian officials facilitated CIA with a building in the outskirts for Vilnius for keeping eight Al Qaeda suspects for more than a year until 2005. US television ABC News also revealed the tail numbers of airplanes that allegedly carried CIA prisoners to Lithuania, as well as the dates of some landings in Vilnius. Flight numbers were also disclosed. Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry and former state leaders denied the reports of a secret CIA facility in Lithuania, however, President Dalia Grybauskaite said she had “indirect suspicions.” Vilnius newsroom, +370 5 2058507, politika@bns.lt

Brian Ross and Matthew Cole, the writers who appear on the byline of the ABC story, most certainly took straight from this story. They misspelled the name of the town (“Antavilliai” or “Antavilis,” not “Antiviliai”), and all of the conclusive-looking evidence that they have came directly from this story. The info on Elite LLC is from the public record, btw.

Surely, the big shots at ABC figured they could rip off a small Eastern European wire service because, hey, most Americans can’t locate this place on the map.

I’ve sent e-mails to Ross and Cole the editors just now. Will report anything if I hear it.

UPDATE: After talking to a reporter at BNS, he says that LNK, a local television station, was the one to break the story. I knew about that report, but I thought that BNS was the one to break it, not the other way around.

by Kevin Dugan

I love this picture because I have a similar one underneath the scaffolding on Bushwick Ave.

This water tower is still in use among the residents here. This is not to say it was a trip back into the great outdoors. We ate cepalinas (boiled potatos, some with meat, which are named in honor of the Zeppelin), watched television and then went into a sauna. Unfortunately we did not beat each other with branches while we were in the heat.

A summer house outside Vilnius. Click picture for full size

To get to this house, the girlfriend and I had to take a bus, then a private microbus, and walk a kilometer or so through forest-filled land. This is just one of the summer houses packed into a small rustic neighborhood where wealthier Lithuanians spend their weekends or relax in the off-season. While there were very modest traditional houses like the one pictured, there were also a few modern, and ostentatious, ones that popped up.

(Yes, that is a shameless tactic to get you to read an article I wrote.)

Also, I’ve noticed that Lithuanians use more loose leaf tea than bags, so the analogy just doesn’t work on a populist level.