Schengen, what is a difference between Maxima in Kaunas and Tartu

Schengen and globalization seems starting to impose some pressure on some Lithuanians.  As the Estonian and Lithuanian press reported a Lithuanian lady Jolanta showed that not every Balt benefited from those two phenomena.

Mrs. Jolanta, who is 33 and working as a cleaner in a Kaunas’ Maxima grocery shop (it is a Lithuanian run supermarket chain which operates in all three Baltic States) was going to work in an early morning.  Her work is situated 125 km from her home and strangely enough the lady was commuting there by hitchhiking.

Mrs Jolanta, who does not speak Russian stopped a Russian lorry heading the North and asked the driver ‘to take her to Maxima’.  A kind driver agreed and the tired lady fell asleep.  The driver woken up Mrs Jolanta in a front of a Maxima shop.  It was still dark and after a nap without any doubt that she was taken to her work place she walked into the shop to assume here duties.

Then there were some conflicting accounts but one of them tells that Jolanta started to clean the floor, however she began acting suspiciously and this was noted by the shop’s security.

A security person comes to investigate and starts to speak to already confused Mr Jolanta in Estonian, which should not be a strange coincidence, since this Maxima is situated not in Kaunas but in the city of Tartu, Estonia…

A translator to Lithuanian had to found since Mr Jolanta could not speak any other language.  Eventually the Lithuanian Embassy took care of all affairs.

Hence, apparently the Russian driver took the cleaner to a Maxima shop he was aware of, drove her all the way through Lithuania and Latvia to Estonia.  Meanwhile Mrs Jolanta slept all the way to Tartu to wake to the evening darkness, which she took for the morning darkness.

Even though I have to admit that I found it very difficult to believe in this story, and I am convinced that some other ‘disturbing’ details will come out later still…  I hope that the benefits of the globalization will bring those times when Jolanta would not notice a difference not only between Lithuania and Estonia, but also between Lithuanian and, lets say Sweden.

A snow (rain) meeting in Lithuania

As the BNS informed foreign policy strategists from the United States, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania gathered in Vilnius on Thursday for an informal discussion of challenges to Euro-Atlantic dialogue.

The two-day meeting is attended by representatives of Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish and Swedish governments (Carl Bildt is going to participate also), foreign affairs and defence ministries, the US Department of State and the presidential administration and the European Commission’s Development Directorate and experts of US analytical centres.Among participants is Deputy Assistant to US Vice-President for National Security Affairs Joseph R. Wood and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Daniel Fried.

According to information available to BNS, some participants of the Snow Summit preferred to remain unnamed.

BNS has also learned that the informal meeting was named the Snow Summit in hopes of Lithuania being covered with snow and had no other code meaning.

The BNS informed that the Lithuanian foreign policy analysts say that the meeting is held amid tendencies of stalling Euro-Atlantic integration in Eastern Europe and South Caucasus. Participants will exchange ideas and search for new instruments to accelerate the process, which is stalled by the fresh democracies in the regions and the Russian efforts to impede their Euro-Atlantic bids.

The experts say that the informal consultations of NATO partners last decade contributed to the Euro-Atlantic integration efforts in the Baltic states, which have already achieved NATO and European Union (EU) membership. Revival of the practice in Lithuania is expected.

According to information available to BNS, other items on the agenda of the Snow Summit include European-American cooperation in the context of energy, as well as perspectives of relations between European and US partners in the North Atlantic Alliance, which have alienated following the US invasion of Iraq.

According to the latest information available (just looked out of the window from my Vilnius home) the Snow meeting is going to turn into a Rain meeting since it is raining in Vilnius.  Is that an another consequence of the global worming?  Well, the participants of the meeting will not discuss that.  Besides, as we say in Lithuania ‘Čia Lietuva, čia lietūs lyja’ (It’s Lithuania, it rains here).  Please note that in Lithuanian ‘Lietuva’ is Lithuania and ‘lietus’ is rain.